Return from Stockholm

Well, after nearly 3 months in captivity, it didn't take much more than 3 hours after Jill Carroll spoke of her ordeal for John Podhoretz, writer for the National Review, the quintessential conservative rag, to write the following:

"It’s wonderful that she’s free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn’t beaten or killed — while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is — I expect there will be some Stockholm Syndrome talk in the coming days."

Now I don't doubt Podhoretz feels it's wonderful you've been released from your tremendous ordeal, but he's obviously disturbed by your coming back to freedom wearing the garb of a "modest Muslim woman". Well, I don't find that quite as appalling as he in that you dressed like that prior to your kidnapping. We know this, because the press showed us the photos.

But Podhoretz is also upset because you claim you were treated well by your captors (because you weren't "beaten or killed"--did you really say that Jill?) and I almost get the feeling he'd feel better if they had roughed you up a little bit. Or maybe they did rough you up and he wishes you just wouldn't lie about it. He thinks you have that Stockholm Syndrome, you know, a psychological response a hostage sometimes gets by developing a loyalty to their kidnappers despite apparent danger they placed you in.

But what if you weren't lying? What if you were treated well by your captors? After all, your journalism only tried to advocate their side of this horrendous unfolding story. Maybe your Muslim abductors weren't the wild madmen in the treatment of you that Podhoretz needs them to be for his conservative readership. After all, there's been a lot of lives and treasure invested to subdue these crazed barbarians.

Or, maybe like you, Dada's just suffering from a little Stockholm Syndrome too?

Our growing "democracy deficit"

I'm working on a blog. It's kind of "The Only--And the Last--Economics Lesson You'll Ever Need." It's just something I ran across on the web that I thought explained to me--a former student of economics--in a mere paragraph or two why, in my senior year at university, I had the sinking suspicion everything I'd learned was total bullshit. Ooh, if only I'd read that before I chose to major in the "Dismal Science" all those years ago, I could have saved myself a lot of time. But, that'll have to wait for another time.

I will blog this and soon, but I thought I'd just upload a few of Noam Chomsky's closing remarks as heard on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! this morning. Sadly, Amy's interview of Chomsky is broken into two parts, the second to be aired sometime next week. I say sadly because, in his closing remarks aired today, Chomsky left on an encouraging note. Something about there still remaining a way to deal with the "democracy deficit" we're currently experiencing in our own country under our current leadership.

I can't wait to hear his suggestion/s. In the meantime, I include Chomsky's closing remarks on Democracy Now! today where he is speaking on America's "democracy deficit", to wit:

"Well, there are two aspects of that. One is, the democracy deficit internal to the United States, that is, the enormous and growing gap between public opinion and public policy. Second is their so-called democracy-promotion mission elsewhere in the world. The latter is just pure fraud. The only evidence that they're interested in promoting democracy is that they say so. The evidence against it is just overwhelming...I mean, the very fact that people are even willing to talk about this shows that we're kind of insisting on being North Koreans: if the Dear Leader has spoken, that establishes the truth; it doesn't matter what the facts are.

"The democracy deficit at home is another matter. How have -- I mean, they have an extremely narrow hold on political power. Their policies are strongly opposed by most of the population. How do they carry this off? Well, that's been through an intriguing mixture of deceit, lying, fabrication, public relations. There's actually a pretty good study of it by two good political scientists, Hacker and Pearson, who just run through the tactics and how it works. And they have barely managed to hold on to political power and are attempting to use it to dismantle the institutional structure that has been built up over many years with enormous popular support -- the limited benefits system; they’re trying to dismantle Social Security and are actually making progress on that; to the tax cuts, overwhelmingly for the rich, are creating -- are purposely creating a future situation, first of all, a kind of fiscal train wreck in the future, but also a situation in which it will be virtually impossible to carry out the kinds of social policies that the public overwhelmingly supports.

"And to manage to carry this off has been an impressive feat of manipulation, deceit, lying, and so on. No time to talk about it here, but actually my book gives a pretty good account. I do discuss it in the book. That's a democratic deficit at home and an extremely serious one. The problems of nuclear war, environmental disaster, those are issues of survival, the top issues and the highest priority for anyone sensible. Third issue is that the U.S. government is enhancing those threats. And a fourth issue is that the U.S. population is opposed, but is excluded from the political system. That's a democratic deficit. It's one we can deal with, too."

Stay tuned for Part II. If Chomsky reveals the answer to this, I'll be sure to pass it along.

Loose ends.

Just a couple of observations or comments to start the day before a real blog comes along. First of all, I caught CNN's Daryn Kagan yesterday reporting on students cutting classes to demonstrate against immigration reform as proposed in House bill 4437 which would make all undocumented immigrants felons and make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer help to undocumented immigrants.

Kagan questioned the efforts of these high school kids saying something like, wouldn't it be better if, instead of out marching, they were all back in school getting an education?

Yep, this from a Stanford University graduate. It's alumni like her who demean that institution's stellar reputation as one of America's great universities and leads one to ponder how folks like her, along with our Oil Tanker Secretary of State Rice, ever got through the tough Stanford University admission standards.

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, in contrast, featured interviews with some of those students cutting classes to protest and I was extremely impressed with their awareness of the issue. Daryn Kagan would have been well served to catch a bit of those kids on Democracy Now! Of course, Amy Goodman is more of a serious reporter of news in contrast to Kagan who appears more in the mold of corporate jello journalism.

I think many of those kids skipping classes to protest were learning far more than sitting in some classroom for civics. They were learning it by living it! It was reassuring for the future of America to see high school kids actively participating on issues important to them. Maybe because it directly affects them. Maybe they'll all be deported under the new law.

Then America can get back to what it does best. Sleeping.

**********

We all know the difficulty president Bush has with one of the features of democracy as shown in the presidential election of 2000. If the outcome is unacceptable, scrap the democracy and just seize the power. Well, from an article appearing in the UK's "The Independent" it appears the Iraqi democracy Bush has granted that nation is grating on him there as well.

Seems Bush doesn't like Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister of that country. As a result, Bush has written the leader of the Shi'ite Alliance, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, "asking" someone else be nominated to serve as prime minister. Of course, the irony of that is lost on Americans who have given a couple thousand lives of loved ones for the "Iraqi democracy". After all, Americans who have abrogated their very own democracy, have little interest or empathy for budding new Third World ones.

But the significance of Bush's meddling gall in theirs is not lost on the Iraqis, however. They are pissed. Very pissed. (Their big mistake being they probably believed Bush's propaganda to U.S. citizens about spreading democracy and freedom to their nation, making them as delusionary as Bush.)

Rather than Bush strongly "suggesting" al-Jaafari be replaced per Bush's wishes, I think it might be more expedient, using Bush's *supreme omnipotence*, if he consider more expeditious means of carrying out his wishes, i.e., it may be time Bush thought about invading Iraq, of sending the U.S. military into that country to depose al-Jaafari. After all, it worked beautifully once. Why not again?

**********

Finally, I had to laugh at a story on NPR yesterday regarding senator Joseph Lieberman's reelection effort. Labeled as Bush-lite by many democrats, he is being challenged for his democratic seat in the senate by an anti-war democrat.

But here is the irony for all proud democrats. Democratic leadership would prefer Lieberman not be challenged in the primary for his senate seat. Why? Because the democratic leadership considers his seat secured if Lieberman is the candidate. Here, I'll say that again, democratic leadership considers Lieberman as good as reelected if he is NOT challenged by an anti-war democrat in the primary.

So here we have a Bush-lite republican (who adamantly denies he's a Bush bootlicker!) that the democratic leadership wants reelected (as a democrat that has garnered praise from republicans!). Sigh.

Such is the state of the democratic party today. I think it would be another nice lesson for democrats if Lieberman is the democratic candidate in Novermber. And he loses! I guess I've no patience for Bush's "opposition party". A party whose leadership thinks it's "too soon" to censure Bush as suggested by one of their own and supported by only two other democratic senators.

The future consumes another historical witness.

So there goes Bush's most faithful and trusted chief of staff, Andy Card. We can probably expect sometime in the months ahead his dear consigliere will be awarded a presidential medal of freedom.

I wonder if the presidential medal of freedom is a metaphor for finding the head of your prized race horse in your bed as a kind of friendly reminder that "silence is golden"?

Well, we may never know exactly what words Andy Card imparted to the president in Booker Elementary the morning of 9/11. Certainly, the photos of those few moments of him whispering into his ear and the twisted presidential facial contortions as he sat there for the next several minutes afterwards will leave many of us speculating all the way to our graves.

Maybe it went something like this:

"There's been a second plane accident at the World Trade Center. Cheney and Rummy have everything under control. Just try to collect your wits and stay calm. Give us a few minutes to prep Air Force One. We're gonna take the afternoon to fly around a bit before we go to Nebraska. Don't worry, there'll be no press corps asking tough questions while you're on that plane!"

But that still would raise more questions than it answers, wouldn't it?

How to become a republican

1. Be REALLY REALLY REALLY patriotic - wave your flag!!

2. Accept Christ as your own personal weapon - Use the "J" word. Remember, the more you talk about Jesus, the less you need to act like him.

3. Follow the herd - stop thinking so much. (Dada note: While that applies to republicans, it applies to most democrats as well. How else can you explain international war criminals overriding the constitution, rumping international law and acting like a legitimately elected administration and continuing to get away with it?? Because you follow the herd, be you a republican, congressional democrat, member of American mainstream media, me or any other ordinary citizen!)

4. Love to hate - Become a racist, bigot, sexist and xenophobe. The nice thing about being a republican is, you can pick and choose the prejudices just right for you. It's like a fuckin' free meal at Furr's or Luby's cafeteria where you can pig out on anything you friggin' want! Slop it down racists, bigots, sexists and xenophobes! There's no one to stop you! And never forget to wash it down with a good swig of "God bless America!"

5. Fake anger to get your way. Never stop looking for reasons to get upset. When you find one, don't forget to blow it out of proportion. Blame the offender for the decline of society, and if possible, for corrupting the innocence of youth by providing them with sex education and condoms.

Always remember:

~ It's not about being right. It's about winning.
~ If you get stuck, change the subject.
~ Always twist facts and quote out of context.
~ Never, ever, ever admit you're wrong.
~ Label the truth as "spin" and create spin to label "truth".
~ And always, always remember, Jesus loves you and everyone else is going to hell, even if we have to bomb them into it.

Thanks to The Frown, some of which I edited, altered, or added my own.

Awaiting the triple seal of freshness.

I don't know how many years men across the nation have had the option to buy an electric shaver with settings for 15 different skin sensitivities. How fortunate we are to live in such a great country that offers us the luxury to sample 15 different razor settings to find the one that best suits each different face. So, after settling on just the right one, I wonder what folks do with the other 14 settings they never use? Can they return the 14 they don't use for a partial refund?

I've never seen anyone with 15 different faces that would require such diversity in a shaver. Granted, we've all known a few that are two-faced.

Anyway, just a couple of months ago, Gillette introduced their newest men's product, the Gillette Fusion Power razor and the quality of life in the United States shot up dramatically. Fifteen to twenty percent by most estimates. For men, that is. That's because the new Fusion Power razor has five blades to shave your one face!

There was a lot of anticipation of this new product among most Americans prior to its introduction. That's because the Fusion was to have blades spaced 30 percent closer than in its Gillette predecessor, the MACH3Turbo shaving system. This is an incredible technological breakthrough!

Fusion's inevitability was sealed after Schick had launched a four-bladed razor, the Quattro, last year. And who'll ever forget the long lines of (mostly) men (and a few hirsute women) queued outside Wal-Marts in the darkness on that cold pre-dawn morning this past January, each jockeying for position to be among the first to use five blades of steel to shave their faces (and legs). Sadly, there was the one unfortunate death that morning outside a Walgreens of a premature pre-teen 11 year old trampled to death with a mustache.

I guess I was reminded of all this by news today from Ziploc, maker of those plastic storage bags. Ziploc has just introduced New Ziploc® Double Guard® Freezer Bags with the Double Zipper Seal. That's right, it has two zippers! And what is the reason for this latest piece of American ingenuity? Well, as Ziploc® reminds us, with two zippers on every plastic bag, your "Food stays fresher. Life stays organized. So you can spend more time with what's really important - family, friends and fun."

WAIT, WAIT: I did NOT make that Ziploc testimony up. Read it again. It's on their website. "Food stays fresher. Life stays organized. So you can spend more time with what's really important - family, friends and fun." Honest to god!

Well, what can I say? This is American technology at its highest. When you can increase spare time to devote to quality of life priorities like that, it's no wonder we're the envy of the rest of the world; why terrorists hate us; why we're at war with 'em!

Well, on news of this, I marched into my wife to announce, "When they come out with a triple zipper zip lock bag--probably by Glad--that's it, I'm slitting my wrists!" (My days are definitely numbered.)

She then reminded me that was something I was supposed to have done using the new Gillette Fusion Power razor's five bladed shaver when it appeared on the market. I'd forgotten.

"You'll have to smother yourself instead," she said, "with a triple zippered zip lock storage bag." I knew she was right.

"Well," I conceded, "at least it'll have a good seal."

Breaking the new car fever.

The new car, a Honda Civic coupe.

For the past week and a half or more, I've been distracted by chasing sheet metal with a higher MPG rating than our SUV. Something that might ease our slide into the post-petroleum age of falling supplies and rising prices until social collapse and total anarchy finally arrives.

Okay, maybe that won't happen but whatever happens, wherever we're headed, we'll drive a little further into the future on a little less gas.

I was thinking about how each human totally replaces all the cells in their body with new ones about every 8 years. That's almost as long as we keep a vehicle, so that every time I go to buy a new car, it's like a whole new experience. I have to "wing it". Meanwhile, every car dealership I visit has been trading cars, many many cars, every day for those past 7-8 years.

Somewhere in my cellular 'rebirth' there must be some "goo" in the new molecular me that retains some memories however. Because, while I don't recall the specifics, I remember my last car buying experience as bad, just as the slightly vaguer memory of the time before that was bad also, ad infinitum.

But this time around, I did some very good things by watching keenly the salesmen from the three Honda dealerships. I still got screwed I'm sure. But it didn't feel too bad this time. And next time I trade, I'll do even better. If I just remember this time next time.

(Of course, all the prep by reading up on dealing with the pros, researching trade-in values, and deciding on which car's right based on your criteria is mostly done before you start--that's assumed here.)

Okay, here's a thing or two I did or did not do that I felt worked well. I involved three different Honda dealerships in the process. (I realize that's not always possible.)

THIS WAS NICE.

On the visit to the third dealership, I stopped by a Toyota/Scion yard, looked at 'em and procured a couple brochures. I added a PT Cruiser brochure from my next stop. Pulling into the Honda dealership past the vultures waiting to pick my bones clean, I carefully arranged these brochures on the passenger seat before getting out of my car.

THIS NEGATED WHAT I'D THOUGHT WAS NICE THAT I JUST MENTIONED ABOVE:

After the dealer drove/appraised my vehicle and gave me a bid, I noticed upon leaving that along with the brochures from different dealerships I'd left in the front seat, I'd forgotten and left my notes on visits to the other Honda dealers with their trade-in offers and different possible scenarios I might expect from my visit to this dealer.

So was it coincidence their trade-in offer matched exactly one of my worksheet estimates, which coincidentally, was one of my low ones? I think not. This was a dumbest ass thing I did in this process. It negated all the brochures I coulda stacked on the passenger's seat.

I don't know if this is an example of why a hungry man stopping for a meal and shelter should not accept the farmer's post-dinner offer to stay the night in the only place he has to sleep--in his daugther's bed. It could end up getting you shot! Nah, that's probably a bad analogy, huh?

"HERE, TAKE IT HOME FOR THE AFTERNOON!"

Never, ever do this unless you knowingly have a "KICK ME" sign taped on your ass. My wife delegated the car buying to me. So, they were nice enough to loan me "our" new Honda to drive home and show her.

I don't know if this is an example of why you shouldn't sleep with the aforementioned farmer's daughter but if you do, you're gonna marry her. You can pretty well place your money (and lots of it) on that. (Hmmm, I think the analogy's improving?)

FOR ME, THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE IT.

Once you've permitted the dealer time with your trade-in, away from you, and he gives you his estimate, leave! I got appraisals from 2 of the 3 dealerships. The third dealer which was the first we'd visited and whose salesman (our favorite) was a young marine reservist home between tours in Iraq, was off the job for the next week when I called and tried to involve him. He was getting married this weekend. (Perhaps because he'd slept with a farmer's daughter?)

Anyway, once a dealer's appraised your trade-in, there's no way they need you to "come in and talk about it" any further. For me, I can now use the phone and negotiate it from there, in my jammies if I want. And they can't work me over by pulling in their sales manager while you're staring out a lot full of shiny new sheet metal. As I told my wife while I was negotiating with these dealers over the phone, "Next one who calls, maybe I should ask, 'What can I do to get you to put me in one of your cars today?'"

I don't know how many hundreds of dollars more I could have saved ourselves if I'd just stuck to this strategy.

But yesterday morning was nice and I told the wife I'd take her by the Chrysler dealership to see that bright yellow mustard colored Route 66 PT Cruiser that doesn't get the mileage of the little Civic, nor have the *5-star* crash safety ratings of it either. Before that, however, we'd drop by one of the Honda dealers who'd called and said they really worked up a much better deal for us. We didn't make it over the see the PT Cruiser. And we ended an ordeal, hopefully, til the end of Oil Age or I at least replace all my body cells, whichever comes first.

Oh, and by the way, we're tickled like most new car owners, at our new baby. I'm sure it will get even better once we get used to the absence of a hood (engine?) and begin enjoying going farther on less.

Three Quotes of the Day

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. ~Kenneth Boulding (1980)

We need an energy bill that encourages consumption. ~George W. Bush (2002)

George Bush is not an economist. ~Dada (just now)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and just jump into the corporate meat grinder

There was a nice little article in yesterday's newspaper. It was buried back in the middle of the front section titled "The Nation". Perhaps some of you saw it. If so, forgive me repeating it, but it bears repeating--to all of us.

That's because the brief article just further hammers into my increasingly hamburger ground brain who our government gathers to protect in Washington, DC, who they're really representing. It also illustrates how the people running the government and the leaders of industry should be in prison and those presently incarcerated in prisons should be in Washington, leading the nation.

Anyway, let's not sweat the small stuff, we'll all come out the other end of this grinder hamburger anyway. Here's the crux of the story:

Oh shit. Why bother posting it? It's just more of the same old crap. An exercise in futility. Why waste perfectly good time with another story of rampant crime run amok?

A kid makes a beer run on a local 7-11, is caught and sent up the river to hone his skills and learn new crime techniques from the hardened boys on the cell block. But even those pros are wimps when compared to the crime captains of industry and the government they buy, for they can really plunder you blind with their MBA's and CPA's.

And they look so much better in their spotless Hickey-Freeman suits and shiny Romanini Hornback Crocodile Lace-Up Oxfords. While not nearly as comfortable as black and white stripes or orange jump-suits, they should be a signal to us all, however, to "Beware! I'm a meat grinding son of a bitch." A regular hamburger helper.

So I'm not gonna repeat that story that so upset me in the paper yesterday. Just because the taxes you're charged on your utility bills each month don't get paid to the government like you think. Just because your utilities are unregulated so those "taxes" are kept instead of sending 'em up to Washington. Just because the practice is legal and just because, as the ultilities tell us, "It's smart business," their robbing you blind.

It's just another business-as-usual story of how we're taking it and we've become so used to it, it doesn't feel all that bad, does it? After all, you work hard for your money. Why should industry? That hard earned money's been sweated for once. No need for them to sweat over it again. And besides, the revenues lost by the government in this shell game only amounts to billions of dollars (of yours!).

"How you like your hamburger? Well done?"

Another 3rd Anniversary Iraq War Picture

Fun with History!

Ruins of the Spanish mission at Abo, NM

~

Reminder to Bush and his puppeteers: I know how the president disdains reading, preferring oral reports funneled through the reality tunnels of his aides. And I know he hasn't any background of, nor appreciation for, history. So I was thinking it might be fun if he got out a little more. You know, saw the country he rules.

He could travel clandestinely by wearing a disguise. He could look like a tourist. With some dark shades, maybe a baseball cap emblazened with a Green Peace or ACLU logo. Why, he'd blend right in.

(Suggestion: He should probably learn to control those annoying jaw twitches and practice letting his arms touch his sides oh, and lose that irrating strut when he walks--all dead giveaways.)

But unlike his unannounced drop-ins on Iraq under the cover of darkness, he could travel without the encumbrance of a big plastic turkey. Or like when he landed on the deck of that aircraft carrier emulating a navy pilot, he wouldn't need to squeeze into one of those snug fitting top gun flight suits with a codpiece. Ooh, those have to be pinchy.

And if he makes the right choices, he might pick up a little history in the process. No, no, not by going to Disney World or Six Flags. No, not places like that. I'm thinking by touring historical sites, not histerical ones.

Why, here in the southwest, for example, we have many wonderful reminders of our heritage. With the incredible Spanish influences we enjoy, there are slews of remnants that remain. He could visit with park rangers, ask questions and walk among the vanishing traces of the extensive Spanish occupation here. Of a once glorious empire as evidenced by its ubiquitous crumbling ruins!

History need not be boring, nor tragic. Why, history need not even be repeated. Especially if you know ts potholes and how to avoid them. Something to this point we've seen no evidence of.

Outsourcing your job, your safety, your life?

We watch Democracy Now! on Link TV every morning via our satellite server. Arriving a few minutes early to the station yesterday, I quickly became absorbed in a program revealing the outsourcing of commercial aviation's jet liner fleet's maintenance.

Maybe it was the fact my wife and I plan to fly to Oregon this summer that this program caught my attention. To get from where we live to Portland, America West seems to be the airline with the best route and schedules from here to there.

Well, in the new global economy which the program labeled "the rush to the bottom", I wasn't really surprised to learn aircraft maintenance by the major airlines is being exported to such places as El Salvador and China. And just how much business does that amount to? Oh, the percentage of maintenance done overseas by Southwest, said the program, amounts to 72%; Continental Airlines, 73%; America West, a whopping 80%!

While airline mechanics in the U.S. can make as much as $38/hour, their counterparts in El Salvador can make as much as $12,000/year. Training of these mechanics was also brought into question and much of the training material used, they noted, is from manuals, all in English, which most El Salvadoran flight mechanics don't speak. But there was some comfort offered when the program noted these training manuals also come with pictures!

The program also highlighted a couple of aircraft accidents due to improper maintenance. In one, forturnately, there were no casualties during the crash landing. In the other, unfortunately, their were no survivors.

Now it's the FAA's responsibility to inspect these maintenance facilities to see they are adhering to strict safety standards. But with approximately 5,000 facilities to stay on top of, it's a task that agency simply isn't really up to handling. Last year's federal budget cut 300 FAA inspector's jobs. That was their sacrifice, I suppose, to redirect those monies to Iraq where they can be employed destroying lives and shit. Hopefully, not at the sacrifice of yours next time you fly.

From today's "Democracy Now!"

I just finished watching Harry Belafonte's segment (2nd time today) on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" Specifically, Amy wanted to know why Belafonte, long time friend of the Martin Luther King, Jr. before King's assassination in 1968, and friend of his widow and family afterwards, was invited to speak at Coretta Scott King's funeral but didn't.

It seems Belafonte was asked to deliver a eulogy honoring Mrs. King. But the day after the family's extension of that invitation, it was learned "our president", Bush, would be attending Mrs. King's funeral. The following day, Belafonte received a call revealing he was being uninvited as a speaker at the funeral.

Perhaps a brief review of comments by Belafonte made earlier this year during a visit to Venezuela and it's president, Hugo Chavez, are warranted here. While sharing the same stage with President Chavez, Belafonte said, ""No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people... support your revolution."

But then came the announcement that Bush would be sitting on the stage during Mrs. King's funeral service. Hoping to usurp a little of the Black History of the civil rights movement, I can only surmise; hoping that some would rub off on himself by his staking a token claim to some limelight in this moment of celebrating the heroic life of Dr. King's widow. And because Bush would be there, Harry Belafonte--lifelong friend of the King family--was told he wouldn't be eulogizing Mrs. King but, if he still chose to attend, arrangements would be made for a seat for him in the audience.

But Harry Belafonte took pause to reflect on Mrs. King's funeral by saying, "I saw all of the power of the oppressor represented on the stage, and all those who fought for the victories that this nation was experiencing and enjoying sat in the outhouse, sat out in the field, sat removed, and if it had not been for Rev. Lowery, for President Carter and for Maya Angelou, we would have had no voice and no representation at all."

"In the outhouse," as Belafonte described it. "In the field," as the power elite of our nation struck claim to a seat on the stage to plant its undeserving ass among those who had devoted so much of their lives and energy in support of Mrs. King's efforts to carry forth the torch of decency, of dignity, and civil rights her husband had died for that dark day in 1968.

Many were angry. Some urged Belafonte to challenge those co-opting King's principles as their own, but Belafonte declined saying Coretta's funeral was not the time nor place for such challenges. That they would only distract from the moment.

But Harry Belafonte went on to challenge each of us. To reflect on the children of Dr. and Mrs. King, of their supporters, their followers and the rest of us who would permit the memory of Coretta King to be diminished by the leeches of Christian extremism and political opportunism; to allow her party to be crashed in the final moments of her celebration.

SHORT NOTE:

To a few of the regular readers here, I am paused to comment on TV I've thus far seen this evening if only because it is so pertinent to recent subject matter being discussed or hinted at herein.

Immediately after watching the "60 Minutes" segment on the NASA scientist warning of runaway global warming (as taped in front of a NASA observer whose presence was mandated by higher ups in the Bush administration), we stumbled across CNN's program,

"CNN Presents: We Were Warned, Tomorrow's Energy Crisis".

We didn't catch it all, but it repeats at 11:00 EST tonight and 2:00 a.m. EST tomorrow morning. While not having seen it all, from what we saw this evening, I highly recommend this program.

[NOTE: Next year Brazi will, with fuel produced from sugar cane called E-85 (85% ethanol) and FLEX vehicles able to detect the fuel mix and switch its engine to function accordingly, attain energy independence from all imported energy needs, but that's because of steps they took a quarter century ago. America has yet to get serious and start a program towards such independence. It's easy to see where tomorrow's world leading nations may come from.]

Say again?

I heard Don Rumsfeld said in a Washington Post column that "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis." Okay, two small points: The term "post-war Iraq" seems incorrectly applied to "present-war Iraq" and, secondly, we won the war with Germany. Oh, and I guess I would question his analogy by abandoning Iraq it would be like handing Germany back to the Nazis. He has NO idea, does he, who the real Nazis are.

A couple images from yesterday

On the weekend of the third anniversary of Bush's war, a nice crowd of demonstrators and onlookers gathered at the plaza in downtown El Paso to listen to some speakers reflect on our democratization of the world.

Here are a couple images of that event.
























I thought this image was touching. It shows a mother comforting her two children on an afternoon that's turned out to be three years long (and still going!).
























Some displayed their outrage more openly than others.

"Those Were the Days My Friend"

In the future, as we fight among each other for a place beneath abandoned freeway overpasses in which to huddle as a mass for protection against the biting cold of the freezing ice storm that night,under that same freeway that, during the day--if the sun happens to be shining, we lie prone atop collecting hints of the warmth absorbed within that tarry surface, we may curse and ponder why, before the end of the Petroleum Era, our leaders did nothing to prevent it from coming to this. (See yesterday's Always, always, my next car is my last)

Well, from "The Party's Over", a book I'm reading about what happens after we go beyond peak oil, I offer a couple of reasons as suggested by the author, Richard Heinberg, why no leader had the juevos to take actions that may have helped us transit through these bleak times a bit more painlessly. This will be a hot topic for the freezing, dying hordes struggling for a little warmth offered by an old bridge formerly designed for cars, now serving to incubate the weakened and vulnerable former passengers in those cars.

Our leaders chose to take us down the path of optimism by:

- planning "to meet short-term crises because that is the only kind we will ever face, and don't worry about future generations because they will have advanced technologies to solve whatever prolems we may be creating for them";

- forgetting "about efforts to impose improvements in energy efficiency since the marketplace will provide for improvements when and if they are needed";

- forgetting "about government programs to develop renewable energies because if and when alternatives are needed, price signals will trigger the market to turn in their direction";

- "continuing to use fossil fuels at whatever rates are dictated byt eh market since to do otherwise will hurg the economy"; and

- "treating population growth as a benefit rather than a problem, and do nothing to slow or reverse existing growth trends."

I might offer one note of caution here, however. While these points are bound to incite some hot debate among shivering strangers being crushed into intimacy from others struggling to invade their circle of warmth from the outside, be careful. For even as we today witness 1/3 of the American population displaying some throwback Neanderthal genetic tendencies rendering them incapable of recognizing Bush as the source of their problems and not the solution to them, there will likely be some of those in the post peak-oil horde as well. And they will disagree as to who is to blame for the loss of their Humvees; of them having to vie with the masses for enough warmth to survive another night.

If you suspect any of these folks among you, better not to bring up how you came to end up at this point. Better to make small talk of how you once shaved your face with a razor that had five blades. Or how you used to drink steamy hot Starbuck's Caramel Macchiatos at $5 a throw.

"Touché!"

In my e-mail this morning from someone in Taos:

At a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at American University, was requested to testify.

As he ended his testimony, Maryland Republican (state) Senator Nancy Jacobs asked: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

American love stories

Just a couple of headlines jumped immediately out at me upon boot-up this morning:

STORY ONE

"Corporations Stiffing Government on Fines"

"When a gasoline spill and fiery explosion killed three young people in Washington state, officials announced a record penalty against a gas pipeline company: $3 million to send the message that such tragedies 'must never happen again.'"

"When nuclear labs around the country were found exposing workers to radiation and breaking other safety rules, assessments totaling $2.5 million were quickly ordered.

"When coal firms' violations were blamed for deaths, injuries and risks to miners from Alabama to West Virginia, they were slapped with more than $1.3 million in penalties.

"What happened next with these no-nonsense enforcement efforts? Not much. The pipeline tab was eventually reduced by 92 percent, the labs' assessments were waived as soon as they were issued, and the mine penalties largely went unpaid."

The story describes how many high profile cases resulting in great damages as a result of corporate accidents or neglect often receive very stiff penalties. It's part of a governmental crackdown on such incidents.

That's the headline. But it's all just dog and mirrors. A big smoke and pony show. The follow-up story doesn't get much, if any, press. That would be when those stiff fines and penalties are negotiated down or dismissed totally.

Included is a map breaking down by state the $35 billions in unpaid corporate court fines. Excite

It's not much of a story, I suppose. This revelation of industry stiffing the government on fines imposed but never paid. They stiff the government on taxes too. They stiff American employees on benefits by cutting them. Workers get stiffed with jobs gone abroad. The government doesn't really mind. That's because big business is the government.

STORY TWO

"Major Changes Raise Concern on Pensions Bill"

"With a strong directive from the Bush administration, Congress set out more than a year ago to fashion legislation that would protect America's private pension system, tightening the rules to make sure companies set aside enough money to make good on their promises to employees.

"Then the political horse-trading began, with lawmakers, companies and lobbyists...weighing in on the particulars of the Bush administration's blueprint."Excite

Okay, let's just stop it right there. Anyone else notice sometime missing in that last sentence? Namely, the folks Bush administration is supposed to be protecting? The employees? Why are they not being heard on the particulars of Bush's blueprint?

I guess if you're a rancher losing sheep to the wolves, one solution to protect your flock would be to tear down your fences, forgive the wolves, and invite them in to suggest how to secure a safer future for your sheep.

Or, maybe we might consider yet a third story. Those would be reports of other sheep. But not of our American flock who seem asleep in the meadow as they're being picked off by the wolves, one by one. I'm talking about sheep of different breeding who haven't the capacity for complacency, for apathy, of the American breed, especially in cases of their own best interests.

Unlike Americans, they haven't been bred to just bend over and spread 'em a little wider. I'm talking about those French who are rioting again, this time over reduction in their job protections. And peoples across Latin America and everywhere who are willing to defend their self interests at the risk of further losing more of them.

It's a foreign concept. One that once birthed the nation we now "enjoy" before lying down in the meadow to sleep, ceding our self interests to the special interests of others in conflict with our own.

Always, always, my next car is my last.

You know, lately we've been toying with the idea of trading off our small SUV since losing two of our three greyhounds in the past ten months. They're the reason we got this "truck". We needed a way to transport all of them at once. But now that we've only one dog to transport, the wife and I went looking for a smaller vehicle, one that will get much better mileage. On Tuesday, I told a dealership if they got a red one in they could call us.

Well, they got a truckload in the very next day, so I ran over Wednesday afternoon to take a look and, as luck would have it, there was a red one among them.

And so, while contemplating trading vehicles, I'm also in the process of reading "The Party's Over" about peak oil and the collapse of civilization. To say it's impacting me deeply is understatement. It's down right depressing in fact. And no one knowing exactly when we reach peak oil, if in fact we haven't already, makes me pretty edgy.

It is estimated by a number of experts peak oil will occur within this decade. One of the reasons it's impossible to predict for sure is peak oil is based on oil reserves which determine the amount of oil an OPEC country can export, so they overestimate, they lie.

So I venture over to the Honda dealer in a depressed state thinking about this. When peak oil occurs I've learned, when supply will no longer meet demand, the price of gas will begin to increase dramatically and continue to do so. Only an occasional economic recession/depression will temporarily ease the price pressures on declining supplies. As I was driving over there, I noticed the price of gas the past week of two has begun to increase dramatically. (Last night on the news, they said it was up 12-13 cents in the past week alone!)

Maybe I shouldn't even be thinking about a new car? If peak oil is near or has begun, maybe I should be shopping bikes! Anyway, in paging through the annual Consumer Reports auto edition, I note they couldn't recommend our present SUV because, in their testing, they experienced a "tipping" problem. Upon that revelation, my wife wanted to be rid of that vehicle, the sooner the better.

I arrived at the car lot. I swear part of their training includes watching videos of vultures circling over lame and struggling animals and vultures sitting in the dead yet lone standing desert tree's branches over a carcass they've stuck their claim to. I'm sure because I drive past a small flock of them before parking. As soon I step from the truck, a voice jolts me from behind, "Is someone helping you?" I can feel his talons clenching on. I've been "claimed".

I explain to the salesman my mood. I try to impart my sense of urgency to him about this end of the age of oil; the irony of what he's peddling to we unsuspecting patrons who will have to wait in long lines for gas (if we can afford it), sometimes killing each other in the process.

Perhaps it was some defense mechanism, but my wife gasped when I told her I even went so far as to say to the salesman, "Why, you'll have to find a new job." I've usually more social grace than this, even with a car salesman. But like I say, I was depressed from my reading and I was only inviting him to share in my urgency. Or maybe it was his talons digging in. Whatever, maybe I shouldn't have gone car shopping this day.

I noticed as I looked around, the huge, huge investment this dealership has made in a new storefront, not just for their Hondas, but another adjacent one for their Chevy's and yet another huge lot/facility for their used cars! I begin to imagine what will become of all this paved Earth when we dismantle this multi-million dollar complex after the oil runs out. It won't matter. Billions of us will die. Estimates run as high as 90% of all human life. I wondered if maybe that might not be optimistic.

Inside the dealership, I hand over the keys to our Tribute and take a seat as they appraise it. I'm looking out at the beautiful view thru these new huge glass panes. Well, actually, I'm staring directly at the freeway embankment that was built up immediately in front of us. It blocks the view of the mountains you would otherwise see. And I wonder what we'll do with all these 100's of 1000's of miles of pavement when we've nothing to drive on 'em?

In explaining to the salesman my angst over the future, I had joked with him, telling of my wife's suggestion that, should we be unable to procure gas for the new Civic, "We could always use it as a mini-greehouse for the vegetables we'll need to try to grow to survive." I followed that by saying, "So this may be the most expensive planter-box-on-wheels I'll ever buy!" My humor seems lost on him.

But back in the showroom, I watch as the salesman goes around our truck appraising its trade-in value. It's then I remembered, "Oh shit, the anti-Bush stickers I'd intended to remove are still there! That'll probably cost us at least $500," I moan to myself.

Waiting, staring at the freeway traffic, I notice it's slowed to a crawl. I look at my watch. Five-thirty. "Probably rush hour traffic," I tell myself. (I was later to learn after asking the salesman, "No, it's not commute traffic, it's an accident a mile or two down the interstate," he assured me.) I realize, of course, at this time of day there would be no logjam heading into town. Everyone's on their way home, to the 'burbs." Cars sucking gas like there's no tomorrow.

You ever stop at a busy intersection in the front row and watch the hundreds of vehicles and the people inside--most of them single occupant--as they cross in front of you? They're all busily headed somewhere else applying eye make-up, talking on their cell phones or sipping their Starbuck's. And it hits you how gluttonous these materialists look.

And then it hits you. You're sitting there alone in your own gas guzzler, but immediately dismiss that thought because you're different. Your circumstances are different. You think up some excuse that warrants your separation from the herd. That's what I found myself doing on the way home during an inordinately long redlight at an intersection where three police cars and two tow trucks were busy cleaning up the remnants of yet another accident.

But before I left the car dealership, I got an idea of what they think a new car should cost me. High-balling the value of their car, and low-balling mine, we were at least a couple thousand dollars apart. I learn they think it should cost me dearly.

Then begins the haggling. I hate the back and forth negotiating with people that do this for a living, because no matter how great a deal you ultimately negotiate, my cynical nature feels screwed so long as they shake hands and draw up the papers. So I say to my salesman, "Let me talk with my wife and I'll call you tomorrow." I don't let on how disappointed I am at their math.

Maybe they think I'm easy. Maybe I am. But the truth is I don't feel like haggling over a price this particular day. I'd read enough to depress me before going there and I'd seen enough of their multi-million dollar facilitities, their three car lots with rows upon rows of guzzlers, of the freeway built up blocking the view of the mountains out their 20 foot "picture windows". Of the miles of backed upped traffic crawling to somewhere. Of the vehicles at the front of this log jam whose occupants itineries were unexpectedly diverted by rides to a hospital in the back of an ambulance as crews busied themselves towing away and sweeping up all signs of their crash so angry and impatient drivers could get on down the road.

My salesman, assuring he'll be there when I return the next day, gives me his cell number and asks I call before coming over. As a parting gesture, probably to separate him from the flock of vultures circling outside, he pulls out an envelope from Arizona. Removing its contents, he separates a small picture from the letter therein. It's of his fourth and latest grandchild. She's only 9 weeks old. She's very pretty. What ugly future awaits her in the impending oilless age, I wonder.

"Nice touch," I think. Maybe my salesman carries this picture with him every day. Maybe he shows it to all his serious customers. To cement in their minds he's one of us. The next morning, I called him early. I didn't want him waiting around for my return.

I hate buying a car. I stayed home instead and read some more about why "The Party's Over"; to help me decide if we really need an expensive planter box on wheels. Oh, and by the way? I didn't like it in red.

Decline and Fall of the Roamin' Empire

This weekend as we celebrate the third year of our war in Iraq and prepare for another against Iran, let us remember, and honor, the person leading America's empire into its glorious future.

IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable.*

*"The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce

Trimming the phat!

Bitch, bitch, bitch. That seems to be the underriding theme here. Maybe I should rename the blog. Don't waste your time reading this. Save your good mood, if you're in one, 'cause I'll only bring you down.

Okay, if you're still here, what has me so rankled today? Well before I even got to the major news stories from yesterday/overnight, a couple of items in the local paper had me stewing.

On a couple of occasions in this blog, I've mentioned a boss I had with a sister who required kidney dialysis. She was on Medicaid. It was the early 80's when out of some Reaganomical sense of 'fiscal responsibility', the number of treatments she was allowed was cut in half. She died shortly thereafter. I wondered then how many others our government had killed with their budget cuts.

Well, this isn't intended as a poke at republicans only. Their opposition party, which has evolved into a pack of aimless weasels, has committed its own social attrocities. But I have extreme difficulty reconciling the proud compassionate conservatism of the right rooted in a supposed deep Christian caring for the less fortunate and dispossessed with people left dying as a result of their budget cuts. Of images of people thirsty and starving on rooftops as an occasional former neighbor's body drifts by on its way out to sea while their president's off fiddling with a guitar or celebrating a birthday with his favorite monkey-boy, John McCain.

We, the richest nation on Earth (so long as Japan, China and others continue to float our debt), can't afford to help struggling citizens of this nation. We need that money for tax cuts for the richest among us. And even more, we need that money to bomb the shit out of the Iraqis after siphoning off obscene amounts by government defrauders awarded no-bid contracts which our administration has very *special interests* in.

So while it comes as no surprise to me to read the overall wealth of American households during the period 2001-2004 since Bush & Co. took office has increased a very paltry sum. From an average of $91,700 per household in 2001 to $93,100 in 2004. This is a very misleading figure because American's savings declined by a whopping 23% during this same period. The source of their wealth increase? The value of their homes under the current housing bubble. They increased in value an average of 22%. So the *real wealth* increase turns out to be from the *illusion* created by a bubble.

Meanwhile, compassionate conservatism is on the march again across America. Just one example: Locally over 1,500 kids have been cut from the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Texas statewide has seen nearly 200,000 kids dropped from the rolls at its peak. Medicaid is mirroring similar drops in their enrollment.

We are told it's because these aid program's contracts have been awarded to a new multi-billion dollar company chosen to transition to a new system that will bring the process into the 21st century.

So, you kids out there suffering for lack of your meds, be patient. If some of you die in the transition, know you did not die in vain. You gave your life for a new improved system. Progress takes time. But it's worth the wait. Even if it kills you.

Oh, and while you're suffering, maybe for each asthmatic breath you gasp, also take comfort in knowing the compassionate budget streamlining your government is enacting, is enabling them to work in Iraq as well. By killing kids and their parents there too!

Sunshine Week - Let the parties begin!

Well, here we are in the middle of national Sunshine Week. Sunshine Week was established to honor the rights of Americans to transparency in their government. Being just the second year celebrated, it's a relative unknown in much of the country, but a week that's sure to gather steam as more and more people learn of the festive events commemorating the openness of a government operating "in the sunshine".

Last night's parade locally was a huge success. Downtown streets were filled with exuberant revelers rejoicing as police turned a blind eye to the numerous acts of information freedom performed publicly in the streets.

One of my favorite floats and recipient of The Mayor's Trophy was an entry entitled "The Ashcroft Memo." It was also the float this year's Grand Marshal, John Ashcroft, rode on. (Of course, the real John Ashcroft didn't make it, so his symbolic presence was a lifesized dummy.)

It commemorated our former Attorney General's offer of legal support to federal agencies by encouraging them to confound Freedom of Information Act requests for official documents. Adding levity to that atrocity, it depicted Ashcroft sitting beneath a statue of Justice which revelers would throw beads at. Every time a string of beads landed on her scales of justice, her gown would drop, falling over Ashcroft's head shielding his eyes from her exposed breasts! It was one of the crowd's favorites.

Another great float and winner of the Sweepstakes Trophy was entitled "Tell Me a Secret" sponsored by the American Food and Pharmaceutical Industries. In a goodwill gesture toward American consumers, it featured an unending list revealing such secrets as the amount of lead in candy, formaldehyde in sodas, mercury in our children's vaccines, etc. scrolling into a vault of secrecy where it is sealed from every citizen forever. Sadly, much of the public was too drunk to catch the only glimpse of such information they may never see again in their lifetimes.

But last night's very successful feting of government openness continues as the week progresses. Various activities and celebrations are planned throughout communities across the country.

Beginning Thursday night in New York's Times Square, the famous outdoor news "zipper" will scroll the presidential papers of George Walker Bush, the president's father which Bush had classified and secreted away from public view forever. The actual time of their viewing will be 3:00 a.m. and in order to display his entire collection, they will be scrolled at the rate of 375,000 words per minute. Afterwards, they will be returned to the vault where they will not be again revealed until every living American is dead.

The following night, again at 3:00 a.m., above Washington, D.C., a plane will pull the more than 6,000 documents across the skies that had been posted on federal websites but which were removed by the government claiming "security".

Finally, once again in New York on Saturday night/Sunday morning at 3:00 a.m., celebrations across the nation will wind down with the dropping of the Times Square New Year's Eve ball revealing the entire top secret Dick Cheney energy task force bill written entirely by moguls from the gas, oil and power industries such as Enron's former CEO, Ken Lay. These are documents never seen by the public. Not even by members of our own congress. It promises to be an exciting climax for this, the second annual "Sunshine Week."

Of course, there still remains more to be done. Proof of this is the 3,505 bills that have been proposed since 9/11 that would restrict public access to government information and meetings. There have been 1,023 new laws, 616 of which restrict public access. That will become 617 if the senate approves the bill passed by the House last week limiting your right to know the contents of the food you eat and removing warnings from food labels.*

U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D. Calif said such a bill is not about consumer protection, but about the protection of special interests.

Dada says, "Enough of the sour grapes on the content of our food or what secret information the Bush government's collecting on all of us. This is a week for celebrating free information in a free and open society!"

*Attribution: El Paso Times

Tuesday morning's reaction to Monday overnight.

A new day with a full moon to look forward to tonight. The headlines sport the usual out of Iraq: "Iraqis Find 85 Bodies in 24-Hour Period". I'm so thankful they're not in a civil war there. As that headline hints, birthing *freedom* can be an inconvenience to some, I'm sure.

Bush's approval rating continues to verify Newton's universal law of gravitation when dropped from a high place, like the 98th floor of the World Trade Center. It sinks like a rock!

Meanwhile Bush is beginning his latest "new" national speaking tour on Iraq in an attempt to violate Newton's Law. Iraq? We need to just hang in there. (Now that's a fresh idea!)

While this is from a couple days ago, I'm just getting to it. It's regarding the Washington Post's announcement it's cutting 80 newsroom jobs. This is a trend occurring nationwide as media consolidate into bigger and bigger and fewer and fewer sources for news. But don't be alarmed by this reduction of reporting staff. It's just a symptom of a nation moving from a democratic form of government to an authoritarian one, in which there's no need for a healthy, free media doing their jobs conscientiously. The government will write for us all the news that's fit to read.

And Pfc. Jeremy Staat, a former defensive lineman who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the St. Louis Rams, and was a college teammate of Pat Tillman's, has joined the military. Tillman's death in 2004 in Afghanistan by his own fellow soldier's gunfire is being reexamined as a criminal investigation to determine whether it was a case of negligent homicide. So inspired by Tillman, was Staat, he can't resist following in Tillman's footsteps, I guess.

And back in DC, Sen. John McCain is down on his knees licking Bush's boots again. (Along with his licking buddy, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.) I won't go into the number of times and how McCain has been had by Bush and Rove.

It makes one wonder if they have something on him. He's been screwed by Bush and Rove so many times his brain is obviously hemorrhaging at the expense of all logic. Or maybe McCain is just a weasel conservative. Who knows? (And who the hell cares?)

Speaking of weasels and Joe Lieberman, I've long ago given up on democrats in Washington solving anything 'cept maybe Monday's NY Times crossword. Hillary Clinton's grown balls for Iran and her husband, Bill, is the best republican president in my lifetime.

(Don't you know Clinton's so very glad Slobodan Milosevic died of natural or unnatural causes? Many of "Milo's" incriminations of ol' Bill died with him.)

But I confess to having let things slip recently. I've fallen down on my normal readings. Like one of my faves, Molly Ivins. I was reminded of this when I hit PA04 Blue's blog and read one of Ivins' recent columns. (Thanks for posting that and reminding me to keep up with those few true remaining observers of our American condition, rk!)

If any of you democrats or former democrats are feeling abandoned by "your party", let me see if I can just clip a thought or two here from Ivins' column to entice you to hit PA04 Blue's link and read the whole thing.

As Molly says:

"I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC" (Democratic Leadership Council) "Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton."

(NOTE: Dada confesses, that last sentence got me all tingly inside! Obviously, Molly's pretty upset when she singles out Hillary "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child," "It takes a bomb to raze a village" Rodham Clinton.)

"This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one; it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass."

She also expresses her opinion of Russ Feingold as well. Great column, Molly! Anyone curious to read the rest of it? (grin)

"Climb every mountain!"

photo by Dada

Every spring the poppies bloom in the foothills less than a mile from our home. So, before I even look at the news from overnight, before I allow that to get me all upset and in a rant, I thought I'd share a picture of the beauty that unfolds here this time of year. It lasts about a month and then is gone until the following spring.

I don't know why it is, exactly, but it seems many towns and cities of the desert Southwest abut mountains. Maybe that's to protect their backsides from 19th century marauders and raiding parties. I'm not sure. (Sadly, however, they're no safeguard against 21st Century plunderers and it is now the mountains that now need our protection.) But if one looks at El Paso, Albuquerque, Tucson, Phoenix and gorgeous Las Cruces and Taos, NM, there they are--the mountains--cradling their communities.

In the case of our mountains with these beautiful poppy fields, we are only able to enjoy them because they were once part of an army firing range back in the 40's. Beneath those poppies exists artillery shells which have not yet been cleared away. But that's about to change and it sickens me. (Oh, oh....my beautiful mood fades?)

With rampant human population growth everywhere, developers are drooling at the land protected all these years by possible UXO (unexploded ordnance). Already they've climbed the other side of the mountains. The result? Massive concrete mansions clinging to the craggy ridges in an obscene gesture to all below who could never, ever afford the luxury to snub the rest of society and look down there noses at us.

Never mind that if one walks up in these foothills and glances eastward, there are millions of acres of open (flat) undeveloped desert land available for development. You see, progress must "climb every mountain"!

Public hearings begin next month to determine what the public wants to do with this land. Whether they want to preserve its beauty for all citizens of El Paso to enjoy, or bulldoze it and place a military research and development center there for a few profiteers to enjoy.

In another Universe, the outcome would already be decided. Majority opinion would be the rule. But that is not the case. This is the land of opportunity. Progress must be served.

As with the nuclear repository near Carlsbad, NM being debated in the 80's, public hearings taught us they are most often just a charade to let we, the little people, feel empowered. To feel we have a say in what happens to the land, to our mountains, while their real fate has already been determined by the powered interests.

But in a recent Freedom of Information request from the local Mountain Wilderness Coalition it was discovered the army and the local Chamber of Commerce have already been making plans far beyond anyone's wildest of dreams for this beautiful wilderness! And while there was a huge volume of almost 1,000 pages, the Army turned over just ten pages of plans for the use of this land. And on those ten pages, the substantive information had all been blackened out. The concealed meat of their schemes is "Exempt from disclosure" to us.

Such is the farce of our "freedom of information". What we're really interested in seeing regarding the plans for our "public lands" is not for our eyes. Ergo, the fate of these mountains is already decided. And that's a real SHAM(e)!

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Well, it didn't take long for the day to get jump-started. Pooring a cup of coffee, sitting down at the computer, the first story I read was of poor Joyce Elkins, a 63 year old retiree who has a rare from of lymphoma. She has to take a drug called Mustargen. It's an ointment and is among the oldest of chemotherapy drugs, having been around for nearly sixty years.

When she filled the prescription last month she paid $77.50. But a funny thing happened when she went in for a refill. She discovered her cost of Mustargen had increased to $548.01! Because her lymphoma is severe, she uses two refills of this drug/month. Completing the regimen prescribed by her doctor will now cost nearly $7,000. Oh, and did I mention (you probably know what I'm gonna say next), her insurance doesn't cover it?

This story is just an example of how pharmaceutical companies can raise the price of their drugs at will. The maker of Mustargen, Ovation, said that the price increases were needed to invest in manufacturing facilities for the drugs. That's a little like Ford Motor Company saying they have to raise the price of your $25,000 Ford to a $175,000 in order to upgrade their plant facilities.

But what's happened to the cost of Mustargen is nothing unique. Genentech has indicated it will effectively double the cost of Avastin, a colon cancer drug, to $100,000 when it begins use as a breast and lung cancer treatment drug.

Last year Genetech raised the price of its Tarceva, a lung-cancer drug, by about 30 percent, to $32,000 for a year's treatment because it "works better than Genentech had anticipated." I guess because people won't need as much of it because of its efficacy, the company had to make up for the unanticipated shortfall in planned revenues by overcharging you.

So, this is just another story that reminds me why I despise capitalism as much as communism, fascism, despotism or just about any other ism. The FDA does not control prices and Medicare is banned from negotiating down drug prices. So, we have a government bought and paid for by special interests for special interests.

If, as in the case of Joyce Elkins, your budget is stretched to the breaking point and paying for the medicine comes at the cost of spending less on utilities and food, pray you get well before you freeze or starve to death. As regrettable as it is that she had the misfortune to get sick, we can take consolation knowing her drug company needs to "invest in facilities." Hopefully, that doesn't cost Elkins her life.

Rest assured, your government's doing everything it can for you, i.e., they're sitting on their hands, squeezing tightly the wads of wampum stuffed down their britches by special interests. It's a problem nobody wants to do anything about, because those in positions to do anything aren't so inclined.

So while the capitalists run amok, with more and more freedom to regulate themselves because the government has abrogated its responsibilty to do so, we'll just have to "take it" in the wallet until enough of us have had enough of it. Until then, be content to turn down the heat, skip a meal and skrimp; pray you heal; pray your pharmaceutical company, your insurance company, and your government doesn't kill you before you cure.

Increasingly, the only way Americans are going to be able to lower the costs of their drug expenses will be to die.

Data source: New York Times

A side note about the side bar

Just want to take a second to draw your attention to the sidebar where I've very recently added daily outtakes of the news from Information Clearing House. While also a subscriber to Truth Out, which is excellent, ICH is a tad edgier, which satisfies my edginess. It's just something you might want to scan on a daily basis. Once in awhile they'll have something there that will catch your eye. (I guarantee it!)

Texas Senator Cornyn and Rep. Tom DeLay star in Sandra Day O'Connor's speech at Georgetown!

Sandra Day O'Connor is no longer a Supreme Court justice. Unfettered, she is now free to speak a little more openly on her take of the state of the nation. That's what she did yesterday. I was so excited to learn that two congress members from Texas were featured in her speech. What a CREDIT to the state. (NOT!)
**************
From NPR.org:

"Supreme court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O'Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticize the courts.She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans."

As reported by Nina Totenberg of NPR News, Washington:

O'Connor's speech at G.U. was not available for broadcast but NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there......

In an unusally forceful and forthright speech, O'Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our Constitutional freedoms. O'Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the congress or governors, as she put it, really, really angry. But, she continued, if we don't make them mad some of the time, we probably are doing our jobs as judges. And our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts.

The nation's founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government, those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O'Connor, as the founding fathers knew, statutes and constitutions don't protect judicial independence, people do.

And then she took aim at former House GOP leader, Tom DeLay. She didn't name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group, Justice Sunday, last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortion, prayer, and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O'Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress' one time only statute about Chiavo as it was written, not, said O'Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written.

The response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint said O'Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts! It gets worse she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing.

It doesn't help, she said, when a high profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didn't name him but it was Texas Senator John Cornyn who made that statement after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Ill. murdered in the judge's home.

O'Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.

"I," said O'Connor, "am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning." Pointing to the experience of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish. O'Connor said, we must be ever vigilant against those who would strong arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

Bush speaks before the National Newspaper Association.

As you know, listening to Bush speak is like watching a 5 year old video you've seen a hundred times before. Anyway, here's a highlight of his talk yesterday as he spoke about renewable energy for America:

"Same on the electricity front. We can use wind power and electricity. These are all coming to the market because of research. They're becoming competitive forms of energy." Bushspeak from "President Bush Speaks to the National Newspaper Association"

(While this exciting news from Bush really captured my imagination, Dada cautions, "I think it's best we all curb our enthusiasm at this point because wind power and electricity are new technologies and they may not yet be quite perfected. And, besides, as with all new technologies, they're usually very expensive until widely distributed and more extensively used.")

*****************************

Bush spoke yesterday before the National Newspaper Association. I had planned to report on that after reading the transcripts of his appearance but I apologize. I couldn't make it all the way through them. Oh, I made it almost 2/3's of the way before my brow I was rubbing began to bleed. So, rather than comment on what Bush said, I'll just mention the all too familiar impression I came away with after reading some of that transcript.

Pissed! That was my overall reaction. One of my pet peeves are the media. Watching a Bush press conference or, as yesterday, an appearance before a group of newspapermen, I often get upset. See, as one reads through the transcripts, one of the things that jumps off the page at you is the "LAUGHTER" by the press that occurs repeatedly throughout.

Free press....fourth estate....whatever, as Bush addressed those guardians of the national principles they supposedly preserve and defend by asking the hard questions of people in authority, it seems they've lost their sense of purpose. One got the impression one was watching the audience at a local comedy club. Transcripts reveal "LAUGHTER" every couple of lines.

Now nothing irritates me more than a press corps being 'entertained' by the president. The relationship between the media and the government is supposed to be adversarial; one of questioning, probing, challenging. It just doesn't seem right for a president who's committed 10, 12, 14 or more impeachable offenses to be funny, to be allowed to tickle the humor bones of a corps that shouldn't be laughing, whose job it is to be nailing this guy. They should be angry as hell and challenging Bush as a result.

I've been pissed for over five years now. Bush and his fascist Fidos aren't the sole reason they've been so successful at dismantling the nation. There's been duplicity. The press has been complicit in its destruction as well by handing the president the keys to the chicken coup. Bush couldn't have done it without them.

So every so often, the newspaper boys get together and in the evening they amble down to the comedy club to unwind and rub elbows while hoisting a few drinks. Then the curtain opens and out pops the jester, George Bush. And his shtick is old and it's hackeyed. And they've all hear it before. Over and over. Bush should be bombing, but his audience "LAUGHTER"s, just as they have for the last 5 and 1/2 years. It's all so congenial and intoxicating.

With the same old shtick, Bush should be dying up there. But it is his audience who is dead. They're comfortably drunk and so they chuckle like always. And their "LAUGHTER"s legitimize an illegitimate jester and his really rotten act. And it's slowly killing the rest of us.

Dr. StrangeBush or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blood

I've been sooo over-reacting to the state of the nation, its terrorism, the torture, our revocation of rights and treasonous absolution of the democracy. Thanks to my recent readings, I'm slowly coming to realize that and, as a result, I want to apologize to those of you who drop by and read some of my rants here. I didn't mean to contribute to anyone's growing angst about the state of the union. That's because there's really no cause for alarm!

From the book, The Party's Over--Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, I've learned, unless there's some top secret alternative energy source stashed away until the last barrel of oil's sold for a million dollars, several billion of the Earth's population will perish for lack of energy that's enabled the current population glut we now "enjoy".

So if we understand that, we shouldn't be so upset about Bush "spreading democracy" around the world. He just has to call it that. He's really trying to secure as much of the Earth's last oil for us he can so we Americans can live in the manner to which we're accustomed for as long as possible before we collapse into total chaos and anarchy.

And from The Collapse of Complex Societies I've learned that all of the edginess we as a society are feeling doesn't have as much to do with the illegitimacy of our current Bush government and its crimminal international activities as the fact we're living at the end of a cycle that's been repeated over and over with societies like the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, etc. That is, we're on an increasingly steeper and steeper slope of decline into total mayhem. It's just the natural progression of history.

As an interesting sidenote, I learned of a couple characteristics that historically all empires in decline seem to share. They become increasingly more and more vulnerable to attack from outside and, increasingly, there is growing dissatisfaction among the citizenry, many of whom begin to view living somewhere else preferable to toughing out the collapse.

(To this latter trait, I confess there have been moments in recent years where the idea of moving to Canada, Mexico or Paraguay has seemed increasingly more attractive.)

Oh, and another characteristic common among these former empire giants of the past, now vanished? At their height, they are huge exporters of goods and creditors to the lesser world ala the former USA. But at their end, they become enormous importers of goods they no longer are capable of manufacturing for themselves. They become debtor states, which is a huge understatement for the US today. We have become the most monstrous debtor state the world has ever seen. That's probably not a good sign.

Finally, from A Terrible Love of War, a tome which I've shared a few thoughts from in recent blogs, I've learned not to be alarmed at man's seemingly endless lust for war. Of the shock at the death and destruction, maiming and mayhem it causes because, as its victims and victors discover, it delivers a "profound sense of existing, of being human" like nothing else can.

So the point is, these apparently alarming dysfunctions the US is displaying should be of no concern if taken in their proper historical and psychological contexts. Bush is just the man we need at a time like this. And despite my revelation, I read in this morning's headlines that poor Bush's approval ratings continue to sink like a rock. Americans, even those of his own party, are deserting him faster than passengers deserted the Titanic.

That's a real shame, because Bush's plunge is nothing but a reflection of our own as a nation. Deserting Bush may be a huge mistake we may live to regret. He's leading us where history dictates we must go. And more than that, probably exactly where we deserve to be.

In the words of Bobby McFerrin who echos the theme of Dr. Strangelove, the movie, "Don't worry, be happy." There. Hopefully everyone reading this is feeling a little better now!

"A Terrible Love of War"

I just share so much in common with your president Bush! See, I don't read. Bush is probably better informed than I because I have no fancy schmancy white house staff to pablum feed me what they've read.

So that's probably why it's taken me 6 months or so to finish A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman. It examines man's seemingly endless obsession with war. His last chapter entitled "Religion is War" talks of the role of religion as a source for war.

While he describes the relationship between the major religions of the world and war, he focuses primarily on Christianity in the U.S. because, as Hillman opines, "There is much to fear! First, the sheer numbers of believers among the population; second, the literalism of their belief, and, third, the impregnable innocence of belief, as if the commitment to the doctrine of love prevents awareness of the facts of war and the terrible truth of a militant monotheistic psychology enacted by Christian civilization."

As I mentioned before, there's an insouciance among our current leadership at the tragedies suffered by victims of war. Even the great number of deaths and horrendous suffering endured in a natural disaster such as Katrina is salve on the wounds of the victims when our Oil Tanker Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, soothes them by assuring, "It's all right, don't you see, it's okay, this means that Jesus is on his way!"

(I can just hear Mr. Rodgers singing, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood"!)

And, as I also alluded to previously, if in our reckless, devil-may-care bully foreign policy, a preemptive strike on some nation turns out to be a gross miscalculation by the religious fanatics who lead your government and results in thermonuclear war which fries your momma and your children, well...that's okay! That's just the fulfillment of biblical Armageddon.

If that bothers you, try not to let it, because it's the doctrine our leaders believe in and feel compelled to try to bring about. We "elected" 'em and we continue to allow them free reign because they haven't done anything outrageous like stain a blue dress. So, fuck your momma, spouse and kids if they go down in a holocaust. Take heart in knowing that if an apocalyptic event is successfully triggered by the neocons in control, you will not have died for nothing, you will have fried for their loving god!

Oh Jesus! Seems I've gotten sidetracked from my original intent, to wit: In that last chapter of his book, Hillman quotes an excerpt from a Mark Twain poem that he did not want published until after his death. Perhaps, as the author suggests, Twain didn't want to upset those Christian lambs with whom he was friends?

Here it is, a part of Twain's "long narrative poem on the relation between lamb-like religion and the wrath of war."

O Lord our God,
help us
to tear their soldiers
to bloody shreds
with our shells;
help us
to cover their smiling fields
with the pale forms
of their patriotic dead;
help us
to drown the thunder
of the guns
with the shrieks
of their wounded
writhing in pain;
help us
to lay waste
their humble homes
with a hurricane of fire; ....

Nice, huh? Very nice.
God bless America!

Spending my wishes.

I wish I had the power to counteract that of the bullies who somehow have taken over the nation and are now terrorizing the world. I wish I had the power to grab congress by the collar and shake it until its brain came unstuck from the sides of its swollen cranium. I wish I could stick my boot up half the nation's ass while screaming to the other half to the point where its collective eardrum recoils in pain. Then, having grabbed their attention, I wish I could say this:

Why do we tolerate the kind of government we now have? Why do we allow it to rape and plunder the earth that provides the sweet gift of life, and divvy up the profits among the rich? Why do we sit by quietly and allow the invasion and occupation of sovereign nations by the armed forces? Why do we allow our government to fleece the poor by providing eternal welfare to the rich? Why do we allow this government to represent the interest of the wealthy by neglecting the needs of the many? Why do we allow those in power to stealthily pilfer our civil rights, our hard won liberties with hardly a whimper of indignation or protest? How do we allow our government to cripple and assassinate democratic governments all over the world and call it democracy? How do we allow those in power to steal our elections without filling the streets with massive and unrelenting protests? How do we allow the practice of extraordinary rendition to occur under our watch? Why do we tolerate the intolerable while keeping a smile on our bright faces? Why do we allow the charade of the neocon agenda to continue and offer little more than token resistance? What does it take to make us angry and indignant to the point of rebellion? ~ Charles Sullivan

Well, that's an excerpt from an excellent page or two I highly recommend. If in a hurry, his last three paragraphs are worth the jump over there. I think it's a dressing down we all need as Americans whose "only" sacrifices in forcing war down the throats of other nations, and destroying them in the process, is an occasional son or daughter and the bankruptcy of our offspring and their offspring's futures while we continue to motor down the expressway into our 'hell-to-pay' future.

As Sullivan concludes, "Are we creating the kind of history that will make our great grandchildren proud?"

Bad Moon Rising?

I'm working on another post to blog, but I can't seem to keep my mind on it. I don't know if anyone's familiar with the show from a couple seasons ago called, "Joan of Arcadia," but I had one of those Joan moments today in the store. And it's left me a little unsettled because, just like Joan, I may have had a 'god' moment.

I'm not particularly superstitious. Oh, there's little synchronicities that happen regularly that catch my attention. And there's that very recurring number "37" always popping up at the most unexpected times. (Apparently, there's some scientific "pooh-pooh" explanation for this, but I haven't totally bought it. Not yet anyway.)

Well, for those unfamiliar with Joan of Arcadia, she keeps encountering god, in many disguises of ordinary people. And he's always trying to impart some advice to her or guide her towards doing something. Something she's often disinclined to do. But, you know, it's god, and who can argue with god, right? So she usually ends up doing his will, but not without being very pissed.

Anyway, I encountered god in the produce section this morning as I was bagging up red delicious apples. And I digress, but I feel the need to explain my failure to capitalize his name. It's just a result of my agnosticism. (Much the same reason I never capitalize Bush's title either.)

But back to god. I first spotted him at a distance, coming down the aisle towards me. Nothing unusual except when our eyes met then parted, I felt compelled to take a second look. He returned the glance and I saw his eyes widen and his expression change. A hint of smile appeared. He obviously wasn't buying groceries but carrying a small canvas bag strapped over his shoulder, like maybe he was shop lifting something instead.

But as he passed by with pleasant expression he said, "Take care of yourself." That was it. A total stranger cautioning me to take care of myself. Dumbfounded, he was past before I could think of a response. But I turned and, over my shoulder said, "Ah, thanks, you too."

That was it. That was my "Joan of Arcadia" moment with god. I didn't think much of it but later in the morning, remembering that encounter, I mentioned it to my wife. She's not particularly superstitious either, so her reaction surprised me. She took it as a portent of trouble ahead.

I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob!

In celebration of our UN ambassador John Bolton's brass, that has warned Iran of “painful consequences” if it continues to carry out nuclear activities, I thought I'd dedicate this blog. And from our past experience with Iraq, I think it's pretty easy for every American to imagine what is meant by Bolton's (Bush's) "painful consequences".

THE WALRUS

Mr. city policeman sitting
pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I'm crying
I'm crying, I'm crying
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
you let your knickers down

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

I Am The Walrus
Lennon/McCartney

Addendum to Pony's update; an aside

Several months ago, while waiting for the bill for our late Annie's visit, I couldn't help but overhear the girl processing it as she was talking to another behind the counter. "My husband says I'm getting fat!" she said to her co-worker.

So, before I go any further, know I'm old enough to be this girl's father. Or maybe, just maybe, old enough to be her grandfather--almost at least.

But what this young, attractive, woman revealed to her behind-the-counter partner really upset me. I couldn't let it pass. I wondered what great specimen of "machoman" her husband must be because this woman was in no-way fat. And at the thought of the guilt being laid on her, I couldn't help but step in.

I don't remember my exact words, but I told her something like, "You are no-way fat!" I said astonishingly. She not only accepted what I'd said, she appreciated it.

Well, back today, back to the vet clinic, back to that same crew behind the reception counter, my wife and I overheard this same woman talking about the "stress" in her life. Apparently, she's been confiding in someone, personally or professionally. And that's sad, because maybe the only extra weight on her is on her back, i.e., her perfect husband.

But that is not the point of this anecdote. The point is a conversation my wife and I overheard from these workers talking about the new local law that mandates the implanting of ID chips in all our pets recently adopted as we waited in the reception area for the results of Pony's X-rays. The "chipping" of animals quickly diverted from animals to boyfriends and husbands. I wonder why?

Our "fat" receptionist was advocating chips for all men, especially husbands. A simple, hand-held scanner could be used to gain insights into any man by a subtle pat on the shoulder, rub on the back. "Marital Status: M-married, S-single, D-divorced, L-lying." Other information might reveal things like , "Divorced twice, paying alimony to two ex-wives and support for 3 kids."
My wife couldn't resist jumping in.

It was funny, it was a lot of laughs. I finally remarked that I would probably blog something about this. But I felt privileged to partake in sexism from the other side. To insights from a feminine viewpoint.

As the laughing died down, the wife with the stress from her weighty husband said as some small concession, "We could even implant females too." Horrified at the very thought of further privacy invasions, I nodded reluctantly in false approval.

Dada's prayer.

I just wanted to take pause today in reaction to a headline I saw somewhere earlier this morning. I think it was on the front page of the online edition of the Los Angeles Times. Yes, yes it was--I just verified it. It reads Bush would've gotten slaughtered in '08 .

The point of the story is, if the next election in 2008 were held with Bush enjoying the current approval rating he now "enjoys", he would lose miserably. Or would he?

Of course, Bush can NOT run for reelection again. If he is to stay in power, he will have to seize it. Well, that's kind of a misnomer. By that I mean, he's already seized it in the 2000 and 2004 elections. No need for me to expound on that. There have been books written on that subject.

My point is, with today's approval rating, a Bush victory in a national election would be totally incriminating, i.e., it would be blatantly out-right theft of the electoral process, of the nation's charade at democracy. And slow as American's are these days, many of them might actually get suspicious at what's been going on. At the all not-so-freakin'-funny shennigans done to gain, then keep, Bush's finger on the nukular button.

For that, for the president, I am thankful he can't run for reelection with the current support of Americans he presently enjoys. And it is my prayer he has the wisdom to step down as he's obligated to do under the old constitution he's pretty well dismantled. Because if he chooses to outright seize power, who can guarantee his safety, because I believe--even in this nation asleep at the wheel, this nation too busy to tend its shriveled, atrophied "democracy"--there is a limit to what even sheeple will endure.

That's a limit no one should wish to challenge. Or, at least, that is what I pray.

Pony update

We went again to see the vet today. It's a clinic with many doctors. Last week, our regular vet we always request was off. So Pony saw another. We were not familiar with this particular doctor, but liked her very much. She has kept tabs on Pony all week since our visit.

But Pony has shown little improvement, despite the medications she was prescribed. The one thing I learned from our first visit after watching the techinicians lay her on an exam table was a point I'd forgotten: Pony doesn't need to walk around for endless hours in stress until total exhaustion overtakes her. I can pick her up and lay her down! And after I do that, she rests comfortably, often for hours.

Still Pony remained stressed and unable, or unwilling, to lie down on her own, indicating it must be uncomfortable or painful for her to do so.

A year or so ago she suffered a similar problem. It was a neck problem, from the vet's diagnosis. Today, the same vet said her neck seemed to be good, i.e., she manipulated it into many positions w/o protest from Pony. Pony, has also lost about 3 pounds since her visit last week, despite her normal appetite.

And so, the doctor ordered up X-rays. We were delighted at their results--inside, Pony looks very good for an old dogger nearing 10 years of age. So, our vet has decided to ween her off some of the meds of which, one or two may actually be causing her stress rather than relieving it. The source of her discomfort is still undetected, but her X-rays look great!

And so it goes, we're hoping Pony will show signs of improvement. If not from the meds, from the reduction of them, or ultimately from time alone. Thanks to Maineiac for asking, for reminding me I've been lax in updating a situation I was eager to blog about. Perhaps it was because, until today, there was little to update. Hopefully, in a couple of days, something positive will remain to be revealed.

Save yourselves. Don't read this. Pray instead.

Actual photo from somewhere in Arizona I received as proof god endorses our right to wage holy war on the rest of humanity with the following caption:

"For those that prefer to think God is not watching over us..go ahead and delete this.

For the rest of us...pass this on."

Okay, I confess. Out of fear of invoking the wrath of god by deleting the above image, I decided to be cautious and, per the instructions that came with it, pass it on. Having received the above in an e-mail, having just finished James Hillman's "A Terrible Love of War", having just listened to "The Ring of Fire" on Air America this afternoon with hosts Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Pappantonio, I'm prepping myself to accept my body on a rotisserie spit as a piece of well done chicken. Well, burnt to a crisp, actually. For others of you who don't share radical militarist Christian love? Well maybe you, too, should think of yourselves as a piece of burnt meat. Or toast.

You see, more and more I'm beginning to think Americans know less and less about the leadership they "elected" to rule this country.

Many may have heard Bush admit back in 2000 that he thought it was god's intention he should lead the nation. I suppose that's the ultimate justification for the theft of the election and the American democratic process. It was ordained by god that Bush do so.

But a poll of Americans revealed, when asked to give the one characteristic they believe best describes their god, seven out of ten said, "Love." Well, I won't linger on that outrageous illusion, but as James Hillman is eager to point out in his "A Terrible Love of War", six of ten Americans also believe that "the events of Revelation are going to come true". In other words, Armageddon is just down the road for us all!

The scariest thing about that is when you permit "god's chosen" to take over the government--and trust me, for those of you who doubt it, they have taken over--then, you can expect these virtuous crusading Christian bastards to follow a reckless path towards Armageddon! Sadly, the real shame here is that they can't just go ahead and experience the total annihilation of everything they're so desperately seeking by themselves. But they're hell bent on taking the rest of us with 'em!

Stephenie Hendricks, author of "Divine Destruction", and guest on this afternoon's Air America's "Ring of Fire" examined "the unholy marriage of corporate polluters and far-right Christians". She reminded us of our own Secretary of State, former Chevron Oil Tanker Condoleezza Rice speaking in Georgia to evacuees of hurricane Katrina. To reassure them, she said, " "It's all right, don't you see, it's okay, this means that Jesus is on his way." Holyfreakinshit! This should be sufficient to revoke her Stanford PhD because obviously all those years of schooling were a waste of her time.

Of course, the danger here as Jame Hillman points out is, with a bunch of goddamnedmotherfuckinghellbentarmageddonassholes (ah, my words, not his) with their fingers on the nukular button, they may just decide to expedite god's work and push it.

This is the real danger to all Americans and the rest of the world. Far more than Islamic terrorists, the much graver threat to the planet are our own extremist Christian terrorists who feel, if they fuck it up, they'll just trigger the rapture that much sooner. And that's scary. Very scary indeed! What's that I smell burning?

Reminder to president Bush

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. : Mark Twain

Why I can't blog tonight...

...as the wife and I were eating dinner this evening, we stopped, looked, and listened to the TV as though a requisite to eating, much like a plate, fork or salt shaker . But hey, this is the 21st Century, devoid of conversation and other social intercourse. (I know, it's risky using that particular phraseology with many of my readers, I might have lost a few there--just kidding!)

Never mind that I had noticed a few minutes earlier, glancing over at my wife during the evening news, or MSNBC's "Countdown", that my wife's head was reflecting the very same motions as my own. A mirror couldn't have echoed it better. Ours were both moving back and forth in unison, in disbelief at what we were hearing. No wonder there's an inordinate number of neck problems with Americans today. We're all suffering from the same varying degrees of total disbelief.

The particular program "entertaining" us for dinner was "Larry King". He was interviewing Paul McCartney and his wife trying to halt the upcoming slaughter of baby seals in Canada. (It's that time of year again.) After horrendous videos of the clubbing to death of these beautiful creatures just weeks old, Larry King asked his guests something like, "So, what percentage of the gross and violent deaths of baby seals are you hoping to prevent?"

Jesusholyshityoudumbassedbastard, what kinda question was that? My wife and I exchanged dumbfounded looks. Maybe you can guess McCartney's astonished response. "All of 'em!"

I'd heard somewhere a few years back that maybe the best way to stop the clubbing of baby seals is to start clubbing the wearer of clubbed baby seals. "Whoa! That's sounds like a solution!" I'd thought. But this is the 21st Century and, looking around, man has become far too "civilized" for that. Well, I suppose there IS some consolation if you're a baby seal. In order to preserve your beautiful fur coat, no one will will shoot you. Rather than risk messing up that beautiful fur, they'll just tenderize the shit outta your head instead.

Before that, we were watching Keith Olbermann on Bill O'Reilly's radio show. Apparently, a person had called in to O'Reilly and before he could get the gist of his message out, he'd mentioned two words: "Keith Olbermann". Mind you, we heard the tape. There was no indication of where he was going with that, he just mentioned Olbermann's name and O'Reilly severed the connection! Bill O'Reilly was then heard to threaten that caller with "We have your phone number," and he would turn it over to FOX security. I guess under the new Fourth Reich, mega-corps have their own private security goon squads?

Keep in mind, twisted O'Reilly, who is so into defending the integrity of the tenets of a *free America*, threatened to call in his FOX Nazi gestapo dogs all because a caller said the name "Keith Olbermann" on the air. Obviously, O'Reilly's as sick and paranoid as the Bush chickenshithawks he worships.

So these are a few of the reasons I cannot bring myself to blog anything tonight. Because the airwaves are so laden with shit like this.

Example: When is a dog not a dog? When he's your First Sergeant! That's right. Of the 25 security dogs flown into India with the president and pickles Bush, Indians were NOT to refer to them as dogs. They are members of the U.S. Armed Forces. Of all people, Bush is the last I would expect to demand respect for members of the armed forces he, himself, gave a shit less for as an air national guardsman.

Speaking of Bush. Did everyone catch his landing in Pakistan? Of course not because you couldn't see it. Again, so typical of anywhere he goes in that part of the globe he's "liberating", it was under the cover of darkness with all the landing lights of AF1 off and the jet's window shades drawn as they dropped down to an Islamabad runway.

I sometimes wonder if Bush has the wattage of a dim bulb to think about the fact that, as leader and liberator of the free world, he can't go anywhere--even in his own country--without first "editing" his audiences to include only "Rah-rah" dumbshit supporters? Nah, probably not.

But the real, real reason I can't blog anything tonight isn't the fact that congressman Duke Cunningham has lost 90 lbs. over his bribery trial resulting from his total disregard for anything decent, nor the fact--in his heyday--he jokingly had a "bribe menu" describing the rewards you get for X amount of bribe dollars one donates. Nor has it anything to do with the fact he's been sentenced to 7 or 8 years in the pen. No doubt, one with an adjoining golf course. And don't expect him to really be gone 7 years.

Oh, and when he gets out? He'll be entitled to draw his "retirement" from years served in the House. Honest! (NOTE: To those seniors on Social Security--dont' even think of protesting, of getting cited for a felonious crime, because it will cost you your Social Security. Better you serve as a member of your congress for such shenanigans and rewards.)

No, the really upsetting reason why I can't blog tonight has to do with our dear Dick Cheney. See, Americans are saving at the lowest rate they've saved since the Great Depression. And your vice president wants you to know, he says, you MUST SAVE MORE!

See, if we don't save more, we're gonna cause real problems for Medicare and Social Security down the road. Those would be the same Medicare and Social Security he and his puppet, Bush, have been trying to cut the hell outta. So just save more you bananaeatingmonkeybastard citizens.

Never mind that real income of working Americans is shrinking. Never mind the minimum wage hasn't been raised in nearly 10 years, or record numbers of Americans have no health insurance. Look at NWA pilots. They conceded 14-15% of their pay to keep their airline flying a couple of years ago. Now they've just agreed to more cuts in pay (terms not yet disclosed). I'm sure they and millions of other Americans can JUST SAVE MORE, YOU CITIZEN BASTARDS!

Our vice president Cheney is doing his share. With a net worth somewhere between $30-100 million and his last tax return showing income of $1.3 million, he's doing his share. He's saving more (mostly thru his stock dividends and options from Halliburton).

But there's a limit to what he and his administration co-horts can do. After all, There's those tax cuts to his rich cronies your taxes must go to and an expensive war the long-term cost estimates of which range as high as $1-$2 trillion for the next several American generations to work on paying off. That just makes it impossible to burden Uncle Sam with programs that might save your vanishing retirements or blood thirsty medical costs, etc. So it's imperative we little Americans SAVE MORE to help foot the bill.

And that's why I can't blog tonight. Because all the news is totally insane, trying to make all of us crazy and I won't indulge these bastards.

Bush resigns!

No doubt this will be making wide distribution around the internet. Hopefully, for some of you, you will see it here first. This came to us via an intercepted radio transmission from a parallel Universe. (One, where, I secretly wish I lived.)

Sometimes it's not easy being grey

Pony, my editor, resting tentatively beside me this morning.

Update on Pony the greyhound:

I had mentioned in a comment here somewhere yesterday how we are experiencing some dog health problems. As a result, I've been detached from the news of Bush and his administration's latest impact on the Earth.

And these appear to be exciting days. I did hear Bush made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on his way to India. Surprise visits are the only way Bush can safely show his face in that part of the Middle East that he's secured for those budding democracies there. Later, I thought I caught a glimpse of some protests of Bush's visit to India. But it was nice to see him seal a deal to share nuclear technology with the Indians. I'm just wondering if he'll do the same for their perennial rivals, the Pakistanis, when he visits there next. The irony of Bush proliferating nuclear capability here and deterring it there must be real amusing to him.

And then I missed much of the hoopla over the tapes some MSM entity released they've been sitting on for awhile. That really wasn't much of a story so much as confirmation of everything Bush was lying to us about as far as his pre-Katrina knowledge. So no big deal there, really. Some medium was stone walling release of Katrina information many Americans would have found interesting as historical footnote into the operating efficiencies and motives of this administration. But in all fairness to the president, Katrina did strike at a terribly inopportune time for its victims because our president still had a few days left on his five week vacation. I'm sure, had Katrina just waited til after Labor Day, hundreds of more lives could have been saved!

So I regret missing all that's going on in the news and the fact I may have missed the opportunity to see our president in a turbin. But what I regret far more is what's been going on with our greyhound, Pony. So, to those who expressed their kindest thoughts and wishes for her, let me just give a brief update.

Old Po' is still very stressed this morning. BUT...she had a better night because she was able to get some rest. A trip to the vet yesterday began her on some pain meds, anti-inflammatory and an antibiotic. Her first night with this, she was able to lie down for one two hour stint and that came only as a result of sheer exhaustion.

Yesterday, I began putting her down, i.e., picking her up and lying her down. This appears to be the same problem she first exhibited about a year ago which was diagnosed as a neck problem. We've had her on muscle relaxants off and on for the past year, using 'em as needed when needed. The hardest part of the past year for ol Po' was placing her favorite haunts off limits to her. Places like her favorite bed and loveseat. This we did to prevent her from further damaging her neck jumping up or down on them. There are still days when I catch her looking up at those old haunts longingly.

But this time her problem is far, far worse, and the inch or two rise from the patio into the house is a major obstacle for her. But last night she was able to get rest because I have begun putting her down thus enabling her to get some shallow breathing, panting sleep. I'm hopeful today will show further improvement as the meds begin to take hold. We shall see.

Thanks for everyone's concern and well wishes. Will keep you updated.