Through the Looking Glass

I know... believe me, I know... that I've been horrible about blogging. I wish I had a better handle on why that is, but there are moments when I have to say something or spend years telling myself that I should have said something.

Today I awoke to the news that TSA was putting federal agents - air marshals - on Los Angeles' Metrolink. This is being marketed as "test" but the public is reminded that the 'T' in TSA covers all forms of transportation. This is apparently a "test" being conducted across the country.

This is one of those incremental changes that people say I overreact to... Like when I-5 and I-15 were blocked by Border Patrol checkpoints on the San Diego County line at least 75 miles north of the US-Mexican border. The one response I got was that they were successfully catching "a lot" of drug smuggling activity.

For forty two years I was taught that totalitarian government was the antithesis of liberty. I was employed for twenty years in the defense of that concept. The very idea of a central Department of Homeland Security brought to mind nothing so much as the Soviet KGB. Now I am forced to accept that federal surveillance and intervention is acceptable to protect us... not from (other) totalitarian governments but from common criminals.

I am mindful of the quotation attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

For the record, I object to federal interference/intervention in the internal affairs of the city and county of Los Angeles and the state of California. If TSA wants to ride Metrolink, make them buy a ticket.

P.S. While I have the soapbox out, Mr. Bush did not take us to war in Iraq on the basis of faulty intelligence. He took us to war in Iraq on the basis of manipulated intelligence, and he damn well knew it.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

For Dubya and, especially, for Dick Cheney to rant at the injustice of being accused of deception in their rush to war makes me nuts. Yes, the Democrats saw the same intelligence that Republicans did, but for whom do all of our intelligence agencies work? Are they not all within the Executive Branch of government? Do their directors not all serve at the pleasure of the President?
I don't want this to be a partisan issue. I firmly believe that most Republicans are, as most Democrats are, reasonably honest people.
I believe that, in years to come, the evidence will prove conclusively that Bush and Cheney sliced, diced, and cooked the intelligence... or, more likely, had it done... in order to make their case for a war they intended to see take place.
I'll grant you that Mr. Cheney knows a thing or two about "dishonest and reprehensible" conduct. Yesterday Mr. Cheney said: "“The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out.” One of my friends with a better command of language than mine has to give me the word for a guy who had "other priorities in the '60s than military service," who later manufactures a war to suit the amoral interests of his cronies, and then presumes to lecture me on my cynicism and integrity.

A Few Words About HM2 Allan Espiritu

Petty Officer 2nd Class Allan M. Cundanga Espiritu, 28, of Oxnard, CA, died Nov. 1 from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations in the vicinity of Ar Ramadi, Iraq.
"Doc" Espiritu was assigned to 2nd Force Service Support Group (Forward), II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

Thoughts on Janet/Foxy

I need for you folks to bear with me for a moment. I've been having issues with the news I just got about Janet/Foxy, especially as I return home after a successful surgery. She's a contemporary I've chatted with only a few times in passing. Janet has cardiomyopathy, and has now lapsed into a coma as her other vital organs begin to go offline.
This has been somewhat of a challenging year for me... the prostate cancer diagnosis, the broken femur just before my first scheduled surgery date, the blood clot just before the second date, the delay in the third date as the doctors worked out how to remove the cancer without killing me with an embolus... but I've never felt particularly threatened by any of it.
For whatever reason, as soon as I heard "Houma" during the news coverage of Katrina I immediately thought of Janet. When I didn't hear from her I discounted it because we’ve never been what anyone would call close, but it's been in my mind that she was in trouble.
I've come to terms with the idea that Janet's to-do list for this lifetime has apparently been completed, and mine apparently hasn't. I am mindful that there are billions of people more "deserving" of an eighth... ninth... tenth chance than me. I’m not unappreciative of my life or of my continued capacity to enjoy it. It just seems like there should be merit points factored in somewhere.
I feel better having learned that she was offered the option of a transplant. I tell people that would be my call... that there are only 52 cards in the deck and you can't swap them out... but she walked the talk.
I hope she knows that she's been on folks' minds and that she'll be missed. I hope that, if we run into each other again down the line, she'll say "Hi."
"May all beings without exception be released from suffering, and find true happiness and everlasting peace."

Place Marker

I know... I haven't had my head in the game lately.
I'm scheduled for surgery tomorrow... barring any further complications.
My absentee ballot for tomorrow's special election went in last week.
If all goes as one might hope, I should be back early next week.
Thank you for your patience.

I need to get better at this...

My vision for this blog... for my own purposes as well as for yours... is to articulate my thoughts based on my experiences and the shared ideas and experiences of others. To bring that vision into reality, I need to be able to cite my sources... to dig a little into their sources... to distinguish fact from probability and hearsay.

For instance, when people talk about the Republican base or the Democrat base, I have read that they are talking about something like 15% of the population who might be described as very conservative or to the right for Republicans or 15% of the population who might be described as very liberal or to the left for Democrats. I need to remember where I read that because, if it's true, that's an enormous opportunity for change! Excluding another 5% of the population too extreme to be represented by either the right or left, that's 65% of the population who've seldom if ever had anyone representing them in Washington... or in Sacramento.

At some level I believe we know this, but we don't believe we can do anything about it. When Arnold was running against Tom McClintock for Governor I'd ask people what they were thinking when they supported Arnold, and they'd tell me that it was because McClintock couldn't win! Because?

Okay, Perot and Nader are both nuts. Senator McCain has made maybe one too many deals. Senator Jeffords? I know next to nothing about him. Is there a John Anderson out there? Is there a John Anderson in your district?

If we're ever to get back to being able to choose from among the best qualified candidates for anything we can't wait for the Republicans or the Democrats to move away from what works for them.

I need to do a much better job of keeping track of where I hear or read stuff.

HM3 Christopher W. Thompson

Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher W. Thompson, 25, of N. Wilkesboro, N.C., was killed in action on Oct. 21, from an IED explosion while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq.

"Doc" Thompson was assigned to Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, 8th Regimental Combat Team, 2nd Marine Division, Fleet Marine Forces Atlantic, based in Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Semper Fi

Navy Birthday

Today is the 230th Birthday of the U.S. Navy.
I won't go on about it. I think you'd need to have been out there.

Dealing With Hard Truths and Bitter Reality

This is the last Proposition I'm going to discuss at least until I get a chance to study 80 some more.
Proposition 73 on the November ballot calls for parental notification at least 48 hours before termination of a minor's pregnancy. I hate this issue. I think it's a "dad" thing... maybe a "parent" thing... but I hate it.
The "argument" in favor of this proposition begins by saying that a daughter under 18 can't get an aspirin from the school nurse without a parent knowing, but she can have an abortion.
Okay, that's true... it's been true since 1953 in California that a pregnant minor may consent to medical care related to the prevention or treatment of pregnancy. Of course, there is an important second issue that is completely ignored in this proposition which is that if your thirteen year old daughter carries her pregnancy to term and becomes a mother, then she has to make the decisions for the child if she decides to keep the child and not give it up for adoption. Sooner or later the daughter will be making her own decisions for this pregnancy.
I know that it eats at many parents that "just say no" isn't the panacea that they'd hoped it would be, but it just isn't. Go figure!
I have a daughter... and I've been a quasi-dad to another teenaged girl... and I can tell you that, for all of my failings as a husband, by the time Prop. 73 would have become an issue my daughter and I would have had that talk. We did have that talk.
If your daughter has become pregnant before you have taught her your beliefs and values... If your daughter has become pregnant feeling that she could not share her life and her feelings with you... If your daughter has agonized until she got the gumption to go to Planned Parenthood or wherever... then what on earth are you, as parents, going to accomplish by making her wait two more days. Will you love her? Support her? Encourage her? I'm sorry, but I believe that if that was the case you would have already had that talk.
Governor Schwarzenegger is in favor of Prop. 73. Late last week Governor Schwarzenegger also vetoed two bills that would have supported and minimally expanded California's Healthy Families programs (SB 23 and AB 624).
Listen, California has had a "safe haven" law on the books for a few years now... leave a newborn at any healthcare facility or fire station within 72 hours with no questions asked... and this week they found yet another dead full-term baby boy with the umbilical cord still attached next to a dumpster near USC.
Teen pregnancy sucks... abortion sucks... but really what are the chances that these lame-ass parents wanting to get involved at the last minute are going to make things any better?
Let the girl be.

If You Believe This Story You'll Believe Anything He Says

Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill (SB 399) that would have required insurers to pay medical costs ($225 million per year) when Medi-Cal beneficiaries are injured in an accident by an insured driver last Friday.
Last Friday Governor Schwarzenegger accepted a $105,000 donation from the American Insurance Associaton for his reelection campaign.
The Governor's office says there is no reason to return the check because the governor has "never made a policy decision that had any connection to contributors to a campaign."
Arnold, I think your nose is growing.

Who Are You Going to Believe? Me or Your Lying Eyes?

There are four other statewide propositions on the November ballot. I need to study on the Electric Service Providers Regulation initiative... but I am mindful that it was their avarice that put Arnold in office.
Propositions 78 and 79 are both aimed at providing lower cost prescription drugs to low-income Californians. Whew! Our cup runneth over!
I honestly didn't know a damn thing about the drug discount programs in Maine and Ohio until I learned that Prop. 79 is like the Maine program and Prop. 78 is like the Ohio program.
Okay, I don't want to bore people worse than necessary so Prop. 79 says that, if a drug company wants to participate in the state's Medicaid (Medi-Cal) program, they need to provide prescription drugs to Californians earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level for the same price. If they don't then their drugs come off the Medi-Cal formulary.
What does that mean? Non-formulary drugs can still be prescribed, but the prescribing physician needs to certify the medical necessity of that specific drug in this specific case.
Prop. 78 is sponsored by the drug companies. They have a lot of very cool but scary tv ads because they've vowed to spend "whatever it takes" to make sure that 78 beats 79 at the polls. The campaign has already cost them more than $75Million.
The drug companies got an economist to go on record with a prediction that, if the program operated the way the drug companies said it could, the state could lose up to $480Million just in drug rebates. All I knew starting out was that if the drug companies were willing to spend this kind of money in a fight to continue to pay the state $480Million a year in rebates they must be making a hell of a lot of money selling prescription drugs in California.
Under 78, participation by a drug company is voluntary, and they only need to offer their lowest commercial price, and only to those earning less than 300% of the federal poverty level. I was not aware that California had adopted a program similar to Prop. 78 in the past, but it was cancelled in 2001 because... are you ready?... not enough drug companies volunteered to participate!
Okay, let's recap... we can go with Arnold's choice and with the drug companies as Ohio did (Ohio? The Ohio that went for Bush in 2004? Oh, hell no!), or we can go with a viable drug discount program that is delivering brand-name drugs for 25% off retail and generics for 50% off in Maine and is endorsed by damn near everybody except Arnold and the drug companies... or we can vote no on both of them because, even at 25% off, brand name drugs are still way over-priced... but 79 is better than nothing, no?

Oceanfront Property for Sale... Will Build to Suit

Yesterday I said a little about the propositions that are at the heart of this special election. Today I need to give you a little bit of context. If you wandered in here by mistake and have a Schwarzenegger version of this, please, feel free to comment.
If Arnold was ever going to do everything he said he was going to do regarding balancing the state budget, he was going to need help. Of course, he was elected with a lot of help from business... including the California hospitals that had just been hit with new required nurse staffing requirements. One of Arnold's early acts was to suspend the implementation of that law. Can he do that? The California Nurses Association doesn't think so. (By the way, given the acuity of hospital inpatients in 2005, the difference between five and six patients per nurse is not an insignificant issue.)
His first budget borrowed heavily from programs. Funding for California Public Education was written into law years ago in Prop. 98. Arnold went to the teachers, hat in hand, to borrow $2Billion which he would repay in year two. In year two, of course, he did not repay the $2Billion and challenged the whole Prop. 98 funding structure. We're said to be 44th in per capita funding for education as it is. The teachers union pretty much went ballistic on him.
Arnold subsequently looked at restructuring state employee pension funding and entitlements. After all, how much support does a fallen peace officer's or fallen firefighter's family really need? ...and Arnold actually had the hubris to pose firefighters at his news conference from the recent wildfires. Oh, yeah, the firefighters union has been outspoken on the subject of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Anyway, that's what Prop. 75 is about. Sen. John McCain (there's still time to get out, Senator) spoke in California yesterday on giving union members and shareholders a voice in the use of their money for political action. Senator, this whole thing has been funded by business shareholders, and it's been aimed at one group of unions... the ones representing public employees who've been kicking Arnold's butt all year long. These are the "big government labor unions" Arnold blames for his... lack of success: nurses, home health aides, teachers, firefighters, peace officers. If Prop. 75 passes, opposition campaign funding can be tied up forever in audits.
Arnold wants to reorder the state's funding priorities. He wants to extend the length of time he can underpay classroom teachers by three years (Prop. 74), and if they quibble about it their district's funding and their jobs are at risk. He wants to cut personnel expense across the board. Arnold, bless his heart, wants to build highways with that money. That's what Prop. 76 is all about.
Legislative oversight? That's where Prop. 77 comes in. Even assuming for the moment that this three judge panel is legit and impartial, both chambers of the state legislature, the state Board of Equalization, and the California congressional delegation will be looking at new district boundaries. Arnold's aiming to have this in place... a done deal... for the 2006 election cycle. Bless their altruistic hearts, the men and women in Sacramento are going to be worried about whether or not they still live in their districts.
I'd like to believe that Arnold is looking out for me... I would... except that there is nothing in his entire agenda that speaks to the well-being of California households.
Why was Arnold fund-raising for this election all up and down the East Coast?
Why is the Wall Street Journal writing editorials on this election?
...because if this works the way Arnold wants it to work then California is for sale.

When Arnold says "Trust me."...

I don't know how many of you care about California politics, but I have to make a few comments on the November 8th special election.
This election was called by Arnold Schwarzenegger specifically to vote on four propositions:
Prop. 74 to require public school teachers to work an additional three years before getting tenured status;
Prop. 75 which calls for public employee unions to get specific permission from individual union members in order to use funds for political campaigns (such as this one);
Prop. 76 which would throw out the school funding guarantees currently in place, would give the governor much greater control over the budget, and cap state spending; and
Prop. 77 which would take redistricting away from the state legislature and turn it over to a panel of three retired judges... appointed by whom?
These are issues that were all submitted to the state legislature which told him no last year whereupon the Governator vowed to take his case to the people.
The thing is that he hasn't presented his case to the people. Arnold's campaign in favor of these propositions is... at best... disingenuous.
The predominant ad uses actors to present these in simplistic and misleading terms.
"Making new teachers work successfully for five years before they get tenured in a job for life is a good idea."
"Stopping government labor unions from taking workers' money for politics without their permission makes sense."
"Controlling spending to end state deficits and balance the budget is better than raising our taxes."
"Having independent judges draw legislative districts instead of the politicians is better for us voters."
My personal favorite is the lady who wanted to let the new teachers sweat for an extra three years who comes back on at the end to say: "Let's face it. Sacramento is screwed up. Anything we can do to change it, I'm for." Kind of a "Just Say Yes" angle...
I'd like to think that none of these propositions has a shot at passage... but I still can't believe that California elected Arnold as governor. It's possible that the only person with less respect for California voters than me is Arnold.
I'm probably not going to let go of this so, please, bear with me for awhile.

Getting Back to It

It's been too long. Unfortunately most of the topics that have been bugging me recently are somewhat local, but this is what happens when people confuse Hollywood with reality.
Okay, that's not entirely true, but I don't see any light in the tunnels of national politics. Republicans and Democrats are much more interested in remaining in the good graces of their respective parties than in addressing anything I care about.
I'm not going to dwell on the reasons for my absence. Let it suffice to say that my bride now lives in Arkansas, and I still don't have a surgery date... but apparently it is now possible to put a filter in the vena cava between my clot and my heart before the surgery.
I say "my clot" now, because I'm told that we are destined to spend the rest of our lives together. Yes, I'm thinking of a name for it.

The Pledge of Allegiance Again

Here's my issue with the Pledge of Allegiance... and I know that I've posted on it before but I won't run on about it.
The Baptist minister who wrote the Pledge in 1892 did not include the words "under God." "Under God" wasn't added until 1954 to set us apart from the godless communists of the time.
I learned the Pledge first without "under God" and then again with it. At the point when I felt uncomfortable avowing a belief I did not share, I simply stopped saying those two words. There was a year when I took a turn as Chairperson of a group that recited the Pledge at the beginning of each meeting, and the group got along quite nicely despite my pause while they said "under God."
My issue is that as a teacher, particularly of elementary school children, I would have to teach them to recite those words. I would have to lie to them.
People can argue that the current Pledge of Allegiance is not a state-sponsored (mandated?) expression of belief in the supremacy of the God of Abraham, but I ain't buying it. A person shouldn't have to affirm a belief in god in order to pledge their allegiance to the United States of America.

Changing Bodies - Changing Lives

A brief note to say that I have not forgotten this blog, but that it is unlikely that I will be able to post much more than a brief note between now and next week.
There are issues on which I'd like to comment... It's discouraging to me that a couple dozen guys in four airplanes have apparently been able to successfully attack the heart of what it means to be an American as the institutions of slavery, fascism and communism could not... but I really don't have the time to think about that now.

Hospitalman Robert N. Martens

Hospitalman Robert N. Martens, 20, of Queen Creek,Ariz., died Sept. 6, from injuries sustained as a passenger when his HMMWV rolled over in Al Qaim, Iraq. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Martens was assigned to II Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
There's more about him here.
Semper Fi.

Thoughts on Accountability

As I read the coverage of the disaster unfolding in New Orleans I see a lot being written about the failures of the federal government to provide timely support to the people trapped in the city. It occurs to me that there were an awful lot of people apparently trapped in the city...
One wonders if Mayor Nagin or Governor Blanco were appropriately mindful of the 50,000 New Orleans households (that they knew of) without cars. One wonders if they were appropriately mindful of those invalids receiving home health care from local agencies.
To order the evacuation of a metropolitan area and somewhat off-handedly refer those who perhaps can't make it to the corner of their block to make their way to the Superdome sounds like some folks were being written off at the local level.
I'm no more fond of Dubya this week than I was last week, but really...
One might suggest to Mayor Nagin that before he gets too... may I borrow his French word and say pissy?... he might want to reflect on what he might have done better.
Ray, there should have been busses before the hurricane.
*UPDATE*
I came across this article in Raw Story citing Mayor Nagin's... acknowledgement?... back in July that the poor of New Orleans... an estimated 134,000 people... would be left to their own devices in the event of a catastrophic event such as Katrina.
In what must have been a "let them eat cake" inspired moment, this information was to be distributed to the community churches and civic groups on DVDs? (There are a lot of DVD players in those neighborhoods?)
Winston, far be it from me to cut Dubya a bit of slack... the federal disaster recovery effort has been FUBAR... but I sincerely hope that the city's municipal and school busses aren't forming an artificial reef in the Mississippi delta as we speak.

Thoughts on Choices and Consequences

I want to point folks over to Winston's blog today.
Being me, I googled "Corps of Engineers funding" and the first item was Will Bunch's article.
So many issues in society these days seem to be reduced to partisan rhetoric, and that's a shame because a lot of this stuff calls for penetrating questions and deliberate thought. The comments on Bunch's blog seem to be heading that way.
I suspect that if Mr. Bush had known then what he knows now he would have funded the flood control project appropriately. I suspect that if the voters of Louisiana had known then what they know now they might not have given him the opportunity to misappropriate their funding.

In Memory of Sgt. Thomas Strickland

A short post today...
Please take a moment to share the observations of Sgt. Strickland. They are somewhat profane, but he wasn't destined to be making any more like them. He was killed two days later.
Semper Fi, Brother.

American Legion, Where Were You When I Needed You?

This is a little late in coming...
I wasn't going to talk about the Resolution 169 from the American Legion convention last week, but I just haven't been able to let it go. I have a personal ax to grind when it comes to the American Legion anyway.
Twenty-some years ago I was writing letters to just about everybody to ask about extending the VietNam GI Bill beyond December 31, 1989. It seemed reasonable to me that someone who served during, for instance, the 1968 Tet Offensive should not be denied access to the GI Bill because they were silly enough to remain in uniform. What I was told at the time by the American Legion among others was that their constituency was predominantly WW II and Korean veterans and that they didn't think they'd be able to help me. That was okay... I had my twenty by the end of August, 1985, and I got my four years of VietNam GI BIll benefits. I would have liked to have stayed in a little longer... I missed Desert Storm... but that's life.
Now in August, 2005, the American Legion presumes to speak on behalf of the VietNam veteran in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
No. No, they don't. They do not speak for me.
We had absolutely no business in VietNam, and we have absolutely no business in Iraq. I am here to tell you that it is, in fact, possible for a military member to serve in a pointless war knowing full well that it is pointless. The public need not worry that we don't already know. The military relies on the public to keep us out of pointless wars in the first place.
I have no idea what their intention was when they authorized their Poobah to "engage whatever means necessary to ensure the united support of the American people." Since apparently very few, if any, of them were career military, I'm not going to worry about it.

Aging and/or Getting Older

I came across this piece: Scientists Probe Anti-Aging Gene...
On the way to work this morning I had been reflecting on the difference between aging and getting older. It's Ronni's fault, of course, that I've been noticing the age spots since yesterday.
There are things about getting older that I really do appreciate. I know I'm a better person now than I used to be. I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to gain some maturity and perspective on life. I'm told I could stand to gain even more.
I've read of a couple of cases of little old children, and obviously being able to identify and treat those defective genes would be a blessing for them, but this article goes on to speculate that finding a way to increase the activity of the gene "will show a way to improve our declining years. "
Actually I've been thinking that the years when I was doing a quart of scotch and two packs of cigarettes a day were my declining years, but that's another post.
This speaks to the whole concept of aging as a treatable condition... a disease?
I could live without the prostate cancer, but the article doesn't mention that... or the touch of arthritis I'm getting in my hands. The article does say that the gene "seems to delay many of the effects of old age, like the weakening of bones, clogging of the arteries and loss of muscle fitness." That could be misleading if it isn't related to the longevity issue. Developing atherosclerosis five years later if I'm going to live ten years longer is not such a good deal.
It says that the intention of the researchers "is not so much to prolong life as to improve the quality of our final years." That might be worth a few dollars and some research time.
Gene "therapy" just for the sake of seeing if I can live for a really long time? No, thank you. That would be sick.

You Say "Po-tay-to" and I Say "Po-tah-to"

I admit it! I'm a sailor! Still...
The Base Realignment and Closure commission has voted to close the "crown jewel of Army hospitals", Walter Reed. Yeah, it sucks to be them... except that "staff and services would move" to the National Naval Medical Center "to create an expanded facility", and the expanded facility would be renamed Walter Reed. This is closing Walter Reed?
I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but if I was a suspicious man I might wonder if it wasn't the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesday that just got hosed in this deal. Maybe I'm a tiny bit partisan here, but I've experienced Army hospitals returning sailors to a frigate with casts on and even one with sytemic sarcoidosis to await a medical board. (Hello! It's a frigate and I'm a Corpsman!)
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it.

Tom Curry, Your Therapist Called. It's Time to Get Over It.

I imagine there are millions of people who don't care for Senator Clinton. Personally, she reminds me way too much of my third ex. Having said that, I am occasionally surprised at the lengths some people will go to in order to put a dig in.
I saw this piece on MSNBC this morning by Tom Curry that was headlined: "'Hillary Care' in Uniform?" What Senator Clinton and a couple of her husband's former congressional opponents mean to do is to offer the existing health insurance for military families to the families of deployable National Guard and Reserve personnel. Mr. Curry put it this way: "Now, 11 years later, Clinton has found an alternative way of getting the taxpayer to help pay for coverage of thousands of uninsured workers."
Why are these "workers" uninsured? Could it be because they have been pulled out of their civilian employment for fifteen month deployments to the Middle East and, thus, lost any health insurance they might have had? Who, in this day and age, refers to deployable Guardsmen and Reservists as "uninsured workers?"
Mr. Curry manages to work into his piece that the Republican co-sponsor in the Senate led impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, and that the Democrat sponsor in the House was one of the few Democrats to vote for President Clinton's impeachment.
Okay, Mr. Curry, we get it. You can't let go of the Clinton stories from the '90s. The fact remains that offering Guard and Reserve families access to the health insurance program originally intended for active military families is simply the right thing to do regardless of who does it.

Another Outburst

Has anyone else noticed the lack of any hue and cry for Christian leaders to disavow the statements of Pat Robertson or even the acts of Eric Rudolph?
Is that something we do only when it's someone else's religion that's being co-opted by nuts?

Validation Is Not a Bad Thing

I saw this piece from yesterday's Jerusalem Times that pretty much says what I see as the real problem in trying to restore Iraq. I can't help but seize on anything that appears to confirm my beliefs.
There is no historical Iraq.
The Kurds are, as they have been throughout my lifetime, committed to a Kurdish state.
The Shi'ites have no desire or intention to accept any form of Sunni control, and feel no need to do so or to share.
The only people in Iraq who want what the Bush administration says it wants are the Sunni, and they are the ones we're left fighting in a war neither they nor we can hope to win.
The Sunni control four provinces and the proposed Iraqi Constitution can only afford to lose in three provinces. Mr. Bush said that it's up to the Sunni to decide, “Do they want to live in a society that’s free? Or do they want to live in violence?” One wonders what level of freedom they might enjoy as a more secular minority in a fundamentalist Islamic state, but it's a choice.
On a more positive note, if the Constitution is presented and if it does pass and if it is adopted then all they'd have to worry about is the inevitable civil war and we could bring the kids home!
Winston, I don't know how much is enough. I look at it, and I don't see a win anywhere. The President says that leaving too soon would leave America weaker... as if the thousands killed and wounded and the billions spent on this wild goose chase haven't weakened us already. I just don't know.
On a side note, Secretary Rice has allegedly assured the President that the rights of women were being preserved under the new Iraq Constitution, and “Democracy is unfolding.” Are there any bets that we'll see her shopping alone in Baghdad wearing slacks with her head uncovered anytime soon?

I Just Can't Leave Mrs. Sheehan's Issues Without Comment

I need to say a few words about Mrs. Sheehan wanting to meet with the President. I know I shouldn't, but I need to so I can let it go.
I've always felt that ad hominum arguments are really a pretty crummy basis for making policy decisions. My personal axe to grind is with the California mother who, unable to convince her son to wear his helmet before he killed himself, wept a motorcycle helmet law onto the books a few years ago. (I see you people in your shorts and shower shoes wearing a full-face helmet.)
I can empathize with Cindy Sheehan. I would only point out here that for every parent who has lost a child and wants to bring the rest of the troops home there is another parent who wants to "complete the mission" so that their child will not have "died in vain." Mrs. Sheehan does not speak for all Gold Star mothers.
My experience has been that the same thing holds true among the troops. There are guys who volunteer for back-to-back combat tours... regardless of the conflict... and there are guys who can't wait to get back to the world... and there are, of course, guys who want to "complete the mission" so that their buddies will not have "died in vain."
For the record, and in my humble opinion, the guy who made it back from Iraq to be killed in a drive-by shooting in Pomona died in vain. Dying in the honorable service of one's country is not in vain. Whether the war amounts to a hill of beans in the long run or not has nothing to do with it.
I've said before that I believe we have an ongoing responsibility to the Iraqis whose country we've smashed to pieces. That doesn't make the war right. That's just accepting responsibility for what we've done. We've made Iraq a breeding ground for terrorism and insurrection, and we ought to do what can be done to leave them in some semblance of stability.
Having said all that, I think Mr. Bush should meet with Mrs. Sheehan. I think he should spend five weeks (wasn't his vacation five weeks?) spending a day apiece in their home with a family that has lost a loved one or had a loved one come home with a catastrophic injury. I think he needs to bear a little of the consequences of his war.
There's nothing to be done now about the 1800 American lives that did not need to be lost in Iraq. The only thing to be done now is to mitigate the damage we've done as much as possible and withdraw, but we must do what we can to mitigate the damage.

Happy Birthday, Millie!

Best wishes go out to Millie Garfield today for a very happy 80th birthday, and for many more years of good health and great happiness.
Hat tip to Ronni!

Thoughts on Linking

How odd is it that we blog about blogs?
I've been conscious of some of my linking choices over to the right.
I think it's important that I don't link exclusively to sites with which I always agree. That's how ditto-heads of all ideologies become inbred in their thinking; and I do recognize that there are many legitimate alternative points of view. There are times when I might actually be wrong!
On the other hand, this blog is a representation of me, and at some point I can't pass off responsibility for it. ("Hey I didn't say that! He or she said that! I just linked to him or her!") At some level the blogs I link to must speak to my values.
To remove the link must be seen as a criticism of the person, and that is unfortunate. It's exactly that, the criticism of the person, that I'm trying to get away from.

I Feel the Need for an Outburst

I just need to get this out so I can let go of it.
I saw this article about Texas no longer having a non-Hispanic White majority population, and what this might mean to the world.
Well, for one thing I think we need to avoid terms like "majority-minority population." I'm pretty sure that if the majority of a population is now made up of minorities then it must follow that there is no majority population to speak of... a plurality perhaps, but no majority.
My objection is not only to the nonsense of a term like "majority-minority" but to the wrong-headed conclusions one might come to in thinking that way. If Jimmy Smits really did get elected President I doubt that it would be any worse than having George W. Bush in office.
Anglos are outnumbered. Deal with it.

Thoughts on the Responsible Thing to Do

The conundrum, at least as I see it, is that it's too late to stop fighting a war that never should have been fought in the first place... and this from a guy who really thinks that we never should have gone into Iraq in the first place.
Iraq isn't like VietNam which was, at its heart, a civil war to erase a political boundary. It isn't like Korea which, putting aside the communist ideology component, was also a civil war. Those wars presented opportunities for us to pack up our gear and let the indigenous populations work out their differences.
Iraq is an artificial construct... a political construct made up of at least three disparate populations with very little in common apart from religion, and differing even in their view of their religion. We pulled out the linchpin that had been holding the country together. However tempted we may be... and we are sorely tempted... to walk away from this trainwreck, we own this trainwreck.
Would it help to move Cabinet meetings from the White House to the Green Zone until it gets cleaned up? That idea kind of sings to me.

So I'm a little distracted...

This past weekend we ran out of coffee at home so I drove over to the very same Smart & Final where I stepped off the curb and broke my proximal femur four months ago tomorrow... two weeks before my scheduled surgery. Once again I am two weeks before my scheduled surgery. I walked very carefully from the car and back this time.
I don't want to dwell on the surgery. The cancer has now had eight months to develop since the biopsy, but there's nothing to be done about that now except to remove it. To tell the truth I'm more concerned about the surgeon reconnecting the plumbing correctly. Fortunately my surgeon was trained in the Navy down at the Naval Regional Medical Center in San Diego so it's more a function of my ability to heal correctly I suppose, but that's too much responsibility on me.
If any of you Intelligent Design fans have a plausible explanation for the prostate I'd be more than happy to hear it. From all that I've read, it seems to be right up there with the vermiform appendix as a part without a modern purpose other than as a site for pathology. If that's true then that's just mean.

Thoughts on the Space Program

This isn't a particulary mindful post, but the coverage of the current shuttle mission has been getting on my nerves.
There have been two shuttle disasters since the program began. If memory serves me, Challenger in 1986 should never have launched because it was cold and there was concern that seals might have shrunk or become brittle; and in 2003 everyone saw the debris strike Columbia, but no one wanted to use available technology to see if it had left a hole before reentry.
If the Administration is going to cancel the program then just do it. Don't make it about safety. We have no way of knowing whether or not those filler thingies have been poking out on every shuttle mission ever flown. We weren't looking before now. I would go so far as to say that you'd be safer in a space shuttle than in a humvee in Iraq, so what is served by the breathless announcements of another concern about the shuttle? I commented at Two Babes and a Brain that I'd clean the heads for a seat on a shuttle mission. Fly or don't fly; but stop being wusses about it.
We're Americans! We explore! Sometimes it ain't safe! It's either that, or we stay in our little cocoon and keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks, Winston!

Wartime Presidents

In fairness, Dubya is not the first President... or Texan... to morph himself into a wartime President in the apparent absence of a better idea.
On August 4, 1964, USS Turner Joy and USS Maddox reported that they had been attacked by N. Vietnamese PT boats in the Tonkin Gulf. On August 7, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed and Lyndon Johnson became a wartime President.
There are stories about whether or not the destroyers were attacked or even engaged by the PT boats. There are questions about whether or not the ships were in international waters at the time. Whatever the facts of the incident were, the resulting Tonkin Gulf Resolution and escalation of the war in VietNam took a lot of the wind out of Senator Goldwater's anti-communist sails at the end of his bid to unseat Johnson.
So, what do you think? Is it a Texas thing? Is it an oil thing? What?

Thoughts on Religious Instruction as Science

I was going to take a pass on this topic. I've spoken to it before, and I don't want to give offense; but I am increasingly mindful of my mortality... today I do my autologous blood donation... and it begs reflection.
People are pushing... again... to include the teaching of so-called "intelligent design" in science classes as a contrast to evolutionary theory. I don't believe there's a scientific argument to be made for that.
There is a mystery of life. Any competent biologist can expain the soup of hydrocarbons and enzymes that constitute the forms of life, but there has been no scientific explanation of the instant of creation when life itself actually began. That's where religion lives... in that instant.
As I've said before, I grew up in a Baptist church in the rural midwest. Every good thing that happened was said to be a miracle... a blessing from God... while every bad thing was dismissed as beyond our understanding. Eventually that started to piss me off. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I'm not stupid either.
I've seen intelligent designs. I've never seen a car born with only three wheels. I've never seen a house sprout an extra room. I'm sorry, but if you're going to teach religion as science... that we were created by an omniscient and omnipotent being... you're going to have to explain genetic mutation. Why do we have a blind spot in our eye? Frogs don't. Explain cancer! It looks like trial and error and survival of the fittest to me!
I could reflect for days on life... where it comes from, what it means... if all life was created in the same instant then how can there be good life and bad life, or superior and inferior life?... if life is precious then how can some life not be precious? These are not scientific questions. There is no proof to be found... not in this lifetime anyway.

Little Horatio Meets the World

"Grandpa's going to post me on his blog!?! What in the hell is a blog?"

I'm not sure what my point was here, or if there even was one.

I've been giving some thought lately to what I'm doing here. Blogging has not been fulfilling its therapeutic role in my life. It's important that I not allow myself to simply rant, but that I reason things out. It's not productive for me to let out that I hope Jane Fonda's damn bus burns up with her in it. I need to find where within me that feeling comes from, and heal that place.
I found a piece over at DailyZen recently... I'll link to it if I can get the link to work today... that says, in part:

If you view things through your ego, then love and hatred arise uncontrollably, and you cannot avoid indulging feelings. When you indulge feelings, then you are being subjective. When you are subjective, you are ignorant. When you are ignorant, you are mixed up and confused; you are only aware of yourself, not of principle.

I think this is why when I simply ask whether or not Judge Roberts is one of the twenty best legal minds in the country I get a defensive response from our old friend, Anonymous. This is not a partisan blog.
There's nothing I can do about the fact that the neo-conservatives won the last two elections, and there's no cohesive strategy among Democrats to change that anytime real soon. The things that I feel are going wrong with America have been going wrong for at least twenty-five years or more. The people who are still defending the Watergate cover-up, the people responsible for Iran-Contra, the people responsible for setting up Noriega and Hussein and then knocking them down are all doing quite nicely, and will most likely continue to prosper for some time to come. Even when their people are out of office they can successfully tie up any significant changes for as long as it takes until they can find a marketable candidate.
The good news is that historically these things are cyclical, and this, too, shall eventually pass. The timing of that is up to the registered voters of the United States, and so long as they remain too frightened to take back responsibility for their lives I won't hold my breath.
What concerns me is what this is making of us as human beings. We're discussing acceptable methods of torture, and then going across the hall to debate the ethics of stem cell research. If you honestly believe that Karl Rove pointed Bob Novak toward Ambassador Wilson's wife not knowing exactly who she was or where she worked or what she did there then I guess I'm happy for you, but tell me... is this what you thought things would be like when you were growing up?

How to Win Friends and Influence People

So Mr. Bush made his anticipated recess appointment of John Bolton to the post of UN Ambassador... a man with no discernible capacity for diplomacy representing the United States to an organization for which he has absolutely no regard.
The word "hubris" comes to mind.

Keeping a Thought for the Fallen

Today I just want to put HM3 Travis Youngblood into your consciousness. He died of wounds from an IED last week. A married man with a young son and a daughter not yet born. Where have all the flowers gone...
I also want to mention this site... Legacy dot com. It's good sometimes to get an appreciation of who it is that we've lost... not just a name but a son, brother, husband, father, shipmate, buddy... and it's clear from the guestbook that Doc Youngblood will be missed... him and more than 1780 like him.
Semper Fi, Doc... and I'm sorry.

More Thoughts on Responsibility

A propos of my earlier post on accepting responsibility for the environment in which one finds oneself, I saw this from Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London:

“You’ve just had 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of a Western need for oil. We’ve propped up unsavory governments, we’ve overthrown ones that we didn’t consider sympathetic,” Livingstone said.
“I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians to drive them out of Afghanistan.
“They didn’t give any thought to the fact that once he’d done that, he might turn on his creators,” he told BBC radio.

Yeah, okay then. Nobody wants to hear that.

Accepting the Predictable

It's pretty clear to me, at least, that I have trouble dealing with reality.
The President has just named John Roberts, Jr., to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The response so far in my office has been: "Who?"
I have always believed... although I never really thought much about it... that the Supreme Court of the United States was the venue of the nine best judicial minds in the country... if not in the world. Yeah, I also believed that the Presidential elections should be a choice from among two or three of the best and the brightest, and that hasn't been working out for me either. Hence we have George W. Bush to appoint John Roberts.
I'm fairly confident that Judge Roberts will be confirmed by the Senate. He only has two years of actual judicial experience to examine, and his prior work history as a conservative Republican hack probably can't be used as a basis for holding up his confirmation. Couldn't the President have nominated someone from outside the Beltway? Couldn't he have nominated someone with less obvious partisan roots? Is Judge Roberts blessed with one of the... twenty?... best judicial minds in the country? It doesn't matter. He's been nominated, and there's scant basis for denying his confirmation.
I guess this morning I'm just a little disappointed that I'm so disappointed. This is simply the way that it's going to go.

Thoughts on Responsibility

Two of the blogs I read regularly have had items that touch on accepting responsibility for our environment. Tamar wrote on Chaim Yavin's documentary dealing with Israelis and Palestinians and disengagement. Mary Beth cited J. Krishnamurti speaking to our sense of apartness as a breeding ground for violence. Before I leave for the rest of the week I wanted to talk about this a little.
Karl Rove and the people like him would have us accept that their representations are all true, that all others are necessarily false, and that to question that is unpatriotic. If it wasn't so serious, I'd say it was silly.
One can absolutely understand the visceral reaction following something like the attacks in New York, Madrid, and London. The problem is that the visceral reaction is wrong. The visceral reaction, of course, is to defend oneself by any means... fair or foul. As the adrenaline wears off we reflect that we cannot possibly kill everyone who hates us. Each death serves to create more enemies. It's frustrating, but in truth when you fight terrorists at their level they have "won"... they have brought us down to their level.
Osama bin Laden is a criminal who's in it for the power. The same can probably be said for Zarqawi. The troubling question is where does someone like Osama bin Laden find people who believe that the very best use of their lives is to wrap themselves in explosives and blow us up? What, if anything, have we ever done to make them feel this way toward us? This isn't about exonerating terrorists. This is about accepting the part that we have played in creating the world in which we live.
Where does the anger come from? Where does such hopelessness come from? What are its antecedents? Why them? Why us?
Karl Rove won't tell you the answers. The corporate media won't tell you the answers. The Halliburtons of the world are enjoying best years of their lives. The major oil companies are reporting record earnings every quarter. If they can keep us stuck in fear... maybe come up with an easy mnemonic like "Islamofascist" to emphasize the differences... they can continue to channel the violence to further their goals.
"...a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.--J. Krishnamurti"

Thoughts on the attack on London

I have to say this...
The attack on London this morning strikes me as being sad on a number of levels... not the least of which is a nagging feeling that it just might have been preventable. I wonder what if we had used a substantial portion of the resources we have committed to the Global War on Terror to a committed effort to identify and eliminate al-Quaeda. What if we had treated the mass murders committed on 9/11/2001 as the criminal acts of an organized international criminal network? We used to be pretty good at dealing with organized crime. What if we had focused on al-Quaeda?
Chasing cockroaches with a sledgehammer just seems like an odd strategy... although, to give the devil his due, we have attracted al-Quaeda to Iraq now where we can bring our troops to bear... and we don't seem to be much safer than we were four years ago.
I know that there's no sense crying over spilled milk. It's just painful to contemplate. Terrorism is such a loathesome, cruel and indiscriminate way to go about anything.
I'm keeping a good thought for the casualties in London, and for all those who love them.

On the Passing of a Hero

I need to mark the passing of Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale yesterday.
I gave up on heroes a long time ago, but Admiral Stockdale got to me. I actually got to meet him briefly in 1982. He came into my office at the Naval Hospital in San Diego to try to arrange an appointment for his son. Yes, I did bump his son's appointment up. For what Admiral Stockdale gave up for us, there isn't much that I wouldn't have done for him.
Already in 1982 most of my sailors had no idea who he was.
I don't know what made him accept the second spot on Ross Perot's 1992 campaign. I suspect that it was his lifelong commitment to service to his country. He wasn't nearly glib enough for a televised debate, but I damn sure wasn't going to vote against him.
If only there had been even a few more like him.
Rest in peace, Admiral.

The Dog

Max was offended that people were posting their cat pictures and he was getting no press at all. I promised to post this.
Don't mention the blue eye... it's why he's at my place instead of living la vida loca at a puppy farm.

I Need to Stop Relying on Labels

At first I thought I must be going blind or crazy. I had just found myself in agreement with a dissent written by Justice O'Connor with Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas.This had to be some sort of a trick.
It has come to me, though, that it should have been the conservative justices who voted for the Fifth Amendment and against allowing government to jack someone's property for the chance to make a buck on it. What doesn't make sense is for conservative politicians to be voting against the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
We get used to the labels being given to things. We start giving credence to those labels, and then we get confused because, after all, the labels are really meaningless. More and more it would seem to be the conservative politicians who are attempting to reinterpret the Constitution and the Bill of Rights while reviling their opponents as unpatriotic.
Today Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement and I find myself thinking... how bad would it be if we had another like Chief Justice Rehnquist on the court? How cool would it be to have another independent free-thinker like Justice O'Connor?
Today Crabby Old Lady writes about the... inevitable?... impact of Kelo v. City of New London on the elderly. In California where Proposition 13 was implemented almost thirty years ago, the longer one has owned their property the more at risk they are of having their property taken on any pretext. Hmmm... what demographic is most likely to have owned the same property since 1977?
I was surprised that the conservatives on the court dissented from the Kelo opinion. Forty years ago I would have expected nothing else. I need to stop relying on labels.

An Exhortation... or a rant, if you will

This is just my opinion... and I freely acknowledge that I do not have one of the great minds... nonetheless I want to throw this out here. I think we're losing, if we haven't already lost, to the terrorists of the world.
I don't believe... and I don't know of anyone who believes... that Osama bin Laden ever intended to conquer and occupy the Unitied States. I don't think that's what terrorists go for. I don't think that's what Timothy McVeigh was going for. I think they want to make an impact and change the status quo.
Forty five months after the suicide attacks on 9/11 I've just read a woman complaining that she is still able to take a train from her home to Washington, D.C., and back without security screening or a baggage search. Forty six months ago she'd have fought such an intrusion tooth and nail.
How many times did the President ring the 9/11 bell last night in a speech to boost a war we initiated in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11? Oh, sure, there are al-Quaeda forces active in Iraq now... because we took out the guy who'd have never let them in and dismantled his army. Sure, they're there now!
I'm not minimizing what happened on 9/11/2001. I'm saying that it's 6/30/2005, and we seriously need to get past this and get our country back in shape. Post-traumatic stress is perfectly understandable, but take a look at yourselves! Forty six months ago did you want to be living like this?
The people who are trying to keep us frightened and off-balance may not be deliberately working to advance the terrorists goals, but they are sure not representative of the America I knew on 9/10/2001. Every day we go on living in reaction to what they did is another good day for al-Quaeda.
The world didn't change on 9/11. We did. We need to get past it. For one thing, we need to get back to resenting intrusion.

Thoughts on Outmoded Concepts

I've been reflecting on the discussion going on at Two Babes and a Brain regarding What Victory Looks Like. It occurs to me that part of the problem may be that we're using an early 20th century vocabulary to discuss a 21st century conflict. Chris is asking the question. Lisa is offering examples of our numerous good deeds and accomplishments in the course of our occupation as though those were victories of a sort.
It occurs to me that, since the end of WW II, we've gotten away from the concept of "victory." Now it's more on the order of "That's close enough. We're outta here." In Korea, in VietNam, and now in OEF/OIF, victory has simply not been an achievable outcome.
Bear in mind that when I said "we" above I referred to the Executive Branch of the government and not to the military.
"War" used to mean a fight to win... or lose. When people with no concept of the meaning of war start to misuse the word, then we get into trouble. Declaring a war on poverty... declaring a war on drugs... these are meaningless declarations that desensitize people to the concept of a war.
A Global War on Terror... as if it was really possible to suit up and rehabilitate or kill every person on earth who hated us enough to kill us... and then they send the troops off in the wrong direction. Karl Rove, you son of a bitch, we knew within hours who was responsible for 9/11, and instead of taking them out you and your people took advantage.
People... people I respect... tell me that there really aren't many similarities between VietNam and OIF. Maybe not... but we abandoned Hamburger Hill... and we're still taking casualties out of Fallujah after how many months. You tell me... are we fighting to win? No, nor should we be. We shouldn't have been there at all. At some point we're looking at: "That's close enough. We're outta here."

The Trade-Offs Between Liberty and Security

As I was reading this piece I was trying to remember where I'd heard or read about a Department of Homeland Security before and it came to me. They combined the functions carried out by our CIA, FBI, and Secret Service... they called it the Committee for State Security or KGB in Russian.
I recalled when Ed Meese, President Reagan's Attorney General, returned from a visit to the Soviet Union that he had expressed a level of... envy?... at the depth and scope of their organization. Imagine my surprise at discovery of these remarks prepared by Ed Meese for the Heritage Foundation and published in October, 2001.
"First, policymakers must distinguish between constitutional liberties on the one hand, and mere privileges and conveniences on the other. Second, they must understand that liberty depends on security and that freedom in the long run depends on eliminating the threat of terrorism as soon as possible." He goes on to express that the threat of terrorism calls for warrantless searches, and denial of the right of the accused to confront witnesses against him.
Did anybody else see this piece on a Massachusetts woman carrying $47,000 in cash boarding a flight to Texas for plastic surgery (she says). A DEA agent told her she had a nice body and didn't need plastic surgery; and then pocketed the cash on the suspicion that it was drug money.
The thing that I don't understand is why some people say that I'm liberal when they are the ones who are circumventing the Constitution.
Ed Meese wrote: "While American troops may be asked to pay for liberty in blood, most Americans will be asked merely to give up a few privileges and conveniences. Surely, this is a sacrifice they can afford to make."
Ed, our brothers bled so that Americans wouldn't have to make that sacrifice. We swore an oath to defend the Constitution, not to get around it. You and Admiral Poindexter and Oliver North keep forgetting that.

Thoughts on the Futility of Intentions

I was reflecting on the death of HM2 Cesar Baez who died on June 15th from small arms fire in al-Anbar Province in Iraq. Doc Baez was already 37, but just starting his life.My last little stint with the Marines was in 1981 at the tender age of 34, and they damn near wore me out. Almost all of my time in the Navy was with the Navy, and we didn't typically do 25 milers. I left the Navy to go finish college at 38.
There is an odd mix of feelings. I miss it. I miss the life. I miss the sense of purpose. I miss the brotherhood.
I do not believe in Bush's wars. When a guy plots to fly planes into buildings you hunt him to the ends of the earth and you take him out... and if he has any friends then you take them out, too. He's a mass-murdering criminal. I guess that would define me as a liberal by Karl Rove's standards.
In past years the U.S. invested a lot in support of equipping and training Afghans in resistance to a puppet regime supported by the Soviets. Apparently Dubya missed all that because his first (mis)step in the "Global War on Terror" was to commit our forces to support of a puppet regime in Afghanistan. Somehow Osama bin Laden survived that, but the President said that didn't matter because bin Laden was pretty much out of action.
After that we allegedly needed to take out Saddam Hussein. He did or did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction (it turns out that it didn't matter if he did or not), and he did or did not support bin Laden and al Qaeda (it turns out that it didn't matter if he did or not), but he absolutely did some fairly terrible stuff to his own people during the time he was enjoying substantial U.S. support during our stand-off with the Ayatollahs in Iran. It wasn't that we cannot abide a dictator because obviously we can, but he wasn't our kind of dictator... not anymore anyway.
Guys talk about the good that's coming from our presence. I'll give them that. It doesn't justify the war, but the troops are giving it their all. Who wouldn't try to scrounge up some candy or a stuffed toy for a scruffy little street kid? Who wouldn't pitch in to help dig out a well or rebuild a school? It is practically a given that every man and woman over there is committed to the success of their mission. The problem isn't that the troops aren't doing their best. The problem is that we can't succeed.
It'll be a pretty good day for the Afghans and the Iraqis if they can get back to a peaceful night's sleep in their own beds without fear, but if that happens... and I pray that it does... it won't be because we were there. It will be because they overcame it. They are waiting for us to leave... in a year or ten years or a hundred years... and then everyone we installed into power will be in for a fight for their lives as the Kurds try to establish their Kurdish state and Afghans and Iraqis do whatever it is they will wind up doing with their countries after we're gone.
So how sick is it that I'd pick up and go tomorrow if they identified a billet for a 58-year old HMC with a gimpy leg and prostate cancer?

The Good News - There's a Surplus. The Bad News - There's a Plan.

I'm feeling a little angst here. I know that Crabby Old Lady at As Time Goes By has been out looking at property, but the Republicans are busy trying to sell us a new brand of snake oil to cure what ails Social Security.
Republicans now want to fund their "Private Accounts"... (Why do you suppose Wall Street financial managers are so eager to get this passed? Do they love us?)... with what they choose to call the Social Security Surplus. A Social Security Surplus? The President is spreading the alarm that within a few years the presesnt system will be bankrupt... but at the moment he has a surplus... and he wants to invest it for us? And how will this work in the coming years when there is no surplus?
If any Bush supporters read my blog... what is wrong with you?... and do you happen to know if Mr. Bush ever actually made any money for his investors in his business ventures before he took up a life of... politics?

Some Thoughts on the "Patriot Act"

Regarding the impending renewal/"enhancement" of the Patriot Act...
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The Sixth Amendment says: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence."
A few things come to mind as I reflect on this.
This was written and adopted by people who had suffered... first hand and often cruelly... the pains of war and depredation and who had taken the position that never again should anyone experience such violations of their rights.
As I read the entire Bill of Rights I did not find the word "citizen." The Constitution defines... and limits... the powers of the government, but nowhere do I find that it only defines and limits those powers with respect to its own citizens.
I could be a whacked-out liberal civil libertarian... or I could be a conservative strict-constructionist... but it occurs to me that many Americans today appear to be all too willing to give up the heart of who we were and what it used to mean to be an American because we got hurt and scared four years ago.
The Administration is saying that this is all going to be okay because they have never misused their authority so far. Even if you believe that, it doesn't matter! People... other than the President and Vice President... have committed their lives to preserving these rights. You don't risk losing it all just because you're having a panic attack. That's just... wrong. That would mean that I spent twenty years of my life defending... nothing?

Justice Delayed... Justice Denied?

The Question of the Day at MSNBC is: “should the U.S. go after Osama bin Laden no matter what.” This is the Question of the Day on June 20, 2005.
We’ve invaded and overthrown the government of Afghanistan. We’ve invaded and overthrown the government of Iraq which, to my knowledge, hadn’t done anything to the U.S. since putting a missile into USS Stark. In an interview to be published in next Monday's Time the Director of the CIA is going to say that, although he has an “excellent idea” where the man who directed the attacks of 9/11/2001 is to be found, the “United States’ respect for sovereign nations” makes his capture more difficult. Since when?
Forty five months after 9/11, and we’re being asked if the U.S. should take all necessary steps to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Yeah… and I kind of wish we’d been doing that all along. There would at least have been some point to it all.

Another Reality Check... and an Appreciation

I am mindful today of all of the men and women over the years who have given their lives in service to our country. It is not a matter of gratitude so much as an appreciation that each of the liberties we enjoy has come to us at a very high price paid by the blood of others.

I had intended to spend time this morning out at Riverside National Cemetery, but that didn't work out.
While I was in the hospital in April they were giving me injections to prevent blood clots, and at the time of my discharge it was anticipated that those would continue. My young surgeon, on the other hand, was under the impression that if one was going to develop a clot one would do so within five days. I didn't argue because, frankly, the idea of giving myself a shot in my abdomen twice a day didn't sing to me in the first place.
During my sixth post-op week my right lower leg became progressively more swollen as each day passed, and progressively more painful with each passing day. On Friday I was ready to admit the possibility that all was not as it should be. An ultrasound showed that the clot wasn't just below the back of my knee where the throbbing was worst... the clot just ended there. The tech couldn't see the top of the clot as the vein passed up into the torso.
My thinking is that it probably started to form some time ago, but that it didn't get my attention until the lower leg became blocked.
This past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday they gave me my injections in the hospital. Today I'm giving them to myself at home... and taking Coumadin... and the leg still throbs because it takes about six weeks to dissolve the clot.
By the way, last week I got the new date for removal of my cancerous prostate... July 12... six weeks from tomorrow... and I have to be off anti-coagulants for at least a week before surgery.
I’m wondering if I didn’t have another lesson in humility coming. I was all psyched about running through my recovery process as quickly as possible... I wanted to spend a whole day walking the Del Mar Fair in a few weeks. I pushed it, and reality pushed back. Still, there’s a difference between recognizing limitations and accepting them.

Further Thoughts on Lies & Liars

I hate it when I let myself get sidetracked.
As CopCar and others have pointed out, my issue with Newsweek getting - in my opinion - punked on the story about desecration of the Quran by detention facility personnel is arguably no big deal. It is an old story in any case; and, whether it's the Quran or Moby Dick, it's a book. I am reminded of the furor that arose when the Taliban blew up the Buddhist statues carved into the cliffs in Afghanistan... it was ancient and it was art but they weren't blowing up the Buddha.
What I missed was the pattern. I am reminded of Dan Rather getting sloppy in documenting that George Bush pretty much blew off a lot of his National Guard obligation. That Mr. Bush did so was pretty well established in the public record by then, but suddenly the focus was shifted from Mr. Bush's failures to the failures of 60 Minutes.
That detention facility personnel have used practices offensive to Muslims in order to provoke responses from detainees has also been fairly well established in the public record, but once again the focus has suddenly shifted from those practices to, this time, Newsweek. Now Muslims are rioting not because we have offended them at almost every turn, but because of Newsweek.
Never mind the message... blame the media.
One must admit it... it works for them.

Thoughts on Lies and Liars

More or less as an aside, I need to say this about the dust-up from the item regarding desecration of the Quran reported in Newsweek.
Mark Whitaker says that the piece was legitimate and vetted, but that now their anonymous source has wavered... is no longer sure he read what he said he'd read. Newsweek has retracted the story and apologized.
In my opinion, Newsweek has just been punked. You get a piece, you run the piece, the crap hits the fan in part because of the piece... and suddenly your anonymous inside source isn't sure anymore. Gotcha!
In a time when God knows how many are dead because of the lies of the Bush administration, they are using you as a pinata because of a blurb that was entirely plausible based on proven disregard for Muslim beliefs and institutions at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, and you have no defense because you can't name your source.
Now the White House is saying that an apology isn't enough and you must do more to make up for the real consequences of your "lie." They want you to help them tell their version of the truth. One might reasonably ask when the White House will begin to make up for their lies.
Newsweek got burned on a blurb in its Periscope section... probably, again in my opinion, by the White House. One would hope they will have the confidence and courage to work through this without becoming another conduit for administration propaganda and disinformation.

Reflections on a Past Perspective

It has occurred to me (it's up at the top of the page) that my political awareness began with Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign. Barry Goldwater seemed, to me at the time, to represent how we did things in Iowa. In particular (because I already had a sense of where I'd be the following September), if we were going to engage the communists in Southeast Asia then let's commit to that and get 'er done.
I've been thinking back to those times, not so much in nostalgia but to try to regain the perspective I had at the time on issues that now separate America. What were you people who voted for Bush thinking? Did I used to think that way?
My great-uncle believed that internal combustion engines were bad for crops. He parked his Ford in a shed down next to the road, and he farmed with two Belgian horses. Seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, things had to be done.The cows had to be milked twice a day. The livestock had to be fed. You don't feel well? It's dark/cold/hailing? Well, tell that to the livestock, and if it's okay with them then it's okay to skip your chores. Bucket's too heavy? Don't fill it so full and make two trips.
When it came time for harvest, the nearby farmers would all work together to get everyone's crops in... but as time passed there were fewer and fewer neighbors who farmed with horses. If you got sick or hurt, your neighbors had your back... but if you weren't able to make it anymore then it was time to "move into town."
He and his wife went to church every Sunday, a little one-room church you could see from his farm, but their mantra was "The Lord helps those who help themselves."
His son was a different sort of farmer. He embraced mechanization and technology, and bought the latest equipment... on credit, of course. A gamble? Farming is a gamble. He'd rent out the equipment he wasn't using himself. He knew all of the programs there were for paying farmers not go grow surplus crops.
When I went to live with the foster family many of the same themes continued. They had a cow, a pony, and poultry; and they had a couple of large garden plots on the edge of town. We all had our chores, and the chores all had to be done every day by someone.
I learned about gleaning there. The farmers outside of town would harvest their corn, but there was always corn that the reaper didn't get. We'd all go out and walk the fields and pick up the "missed" corn for our livestock. It was actually a win-win because we got the corn, and the farmer didn't have to hire kids to come out the next year to cut corn out of his beans. I also learned about hunting for wild mushrooms and berries in season.
We went to church on Sunday, morning and evening, and on Wednesday nights; but we didn't go to the "revival" meetings. They only had about one a year come into town. They did watch Billy Graham on television.
I was aware of the second Eisenhower/Stevenson campaign, and I recall that it was generally accepted as a foregone conclusion that General Eisenhower would win.
I remember, of course, the Kennedy/Nixon campaign. Both had paid their dues, serving in the War. Nixon looked unshaven... unkempt... but Kennedy was... you know... Catholic.
I moved into town in the summer of '61, but still worked farms in the summer doing yardwork in town the other three seasons until I was sixteen.
At that point in my life I didn't understand welfare. You worked. If you couldn't work then you found something you could do, but you worked. I'd had a paid job since I was eleven.
At that point in my life I never thought about abortion. There's not a farm kid in the world who doesn't know that sex is for reproduction. If you had unprotected sex and got pregnant you simply started your family a little earlier than you planned. (One store, in a town where everyone knew everyone else and their business, sold condoms.)
It never occurred to me not to fulfill my military obligation. It scared me when I got my draft notice toward the end of my second week in boot camp and realized that I wouldn't be able to report. My Company Commander explained to a few of us who'd received them that we'd be okay, and that we were no longer subject to the draft. (We burned our draft cards!)
I mean to continue to reflect on this... if toward no other end than my own peace of mind. I still don't know where the anger between right and left... between red and blue comes from. I wonder how much of it is manufactured in order to emphasize our differences.
There are right answers upon which we should all be able to agree. My understanding is that Buddhists believe one knows the truth because it is always and invariably true. In that context, can one be "pro-life" if one kills under certain circumstances? Is it rational for someone who is "pro-choice" to oppose the death penalty under any circumstances?
I think we should stop shouting and discuss these things.
By the way, in any election prior to 1964 I don't think there's any way that George would've beat a combat veteran. I could be wrong... again.