W Pays the Price for Going It Alone

Bush is seeking a unified response from the rest of the world community to North Korea's nuclear program and missile testing. Well, George, it's too bad you have destroyed any credibility you might have had after you cried wolf on Iraq and by passed all diplomatic challenges to play world cowboy.

"You know, the problem with diplomacy is it takes a while to get something done" while "acting alone, you can move quickly," Bush said. Yes, and the problem with "going alone" is that you are, well, alone. Right now the US is hard pressed to keep the tattered remains of the "coalition of the willing" together. Britain is the only ally that has troops of any substance in Iraq, and their withdrawal is simple a matter of time, months in all probablity.

Meanwhile, George appears hat in hand on the world stage pleading for any cooperation whatsover. George probably did not learn this while in the schools where he partied: Mendācī hominī nē vērum quidem dīcentī crēdimus. We do not believe a liar, though he speaks the truth.

A Midsummer Bummer

Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Well, the 4th has come and gone. We had some family and friends over to burn some weenies that day. We enjoyed our "Celebration Without Fireworks."

The day after the 4th is always the worst day of summer for me because it marks the mid-point of the summer vacation. That means that a teacher's mind inevitably turns towards the coming school year. Bummer.

Next week Cat and I will be flown to Orlando, Florida for a "High Schools that Work Conference" with about 50 other high school teachers from the Oklahoma City Public Schools. The conference will take up an entire week of summer vacation. I hope that this conference doesn't turn out to be as "Mickey Mouse" as Orlando's most famous occupant. Some others who have gone report that they got a lot of good from the workshops.

The main thing I have to fight when I go to these professional development activities is an inherent defensiveness. I will hear people get up and proclaim how much success they have had with one technique or another with their "at risk" students. I wish I had similar success stories to report, but I don't. Teaching in an urban school is tough going. I hear them talk about how they have triumphed in the classroom. I feel as if I am not measuring up.

So I want to find reasons to desparage their success and undercut their advice. I think things like, "it won't work with my students"; "their school is not like mine"; "if I had the resources and support they enjoyed"; "if they had to deal with our administration." Excuses are very easy to discover; however, this defensive has the unfortunate effect of blocking the good that I can gain out of their instruction.

One of the best pieces of advice my father gave me was to maintain what he called "a teachable spirit." Be open, he told me, to the ideas of others. Remember you are always in need of learning and capable of growth. Whenever I keep his advice in mind, I find that I do develop and grow.

There is a reason why a doctor says that she "practices medicine." I guess I need to realize that I am a practicing teacher.

A Tribute to Clara Luper

On this 4th of July celebration where we laud those who have given us our freedom, we need to remember that not all fights for freedom are fought on the battlefield. Many are fought by those who take courageous stands in our communities, schools and businesses. Meet one such person, one of my heroes, Mrs. Clara Luper

During 41 years as an award winning Oklahoma educator, Mrs. Clara Luper taught history and made history. Born in 1923, Mrs. Luper grew up near Hoffman, Oklahoma. She graduated from Grayson High School and matriculated to Langston University where she earned a B.A. degree. Mrs. Luper received her M. A. degree from the University of Oklahoma and taught school at Taft, Pawnee, Spencer and Oklahoma City Public Schools.

Many know Mrs. Luper as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. She began the Oklahoma Sit-In Movement, August 19, 1958 when she led a group of students in a sit-in at an Oklahoma City lunch counter. This effort and continuing efforts resulted in restaurants in Oklahoma City and across the state opening their doors to African Americans. This was the first publicized sit-in in the nation. Mrs. Luper led the Oklahoma City Public School integration fight, participated in the historic March on Washington, D.C., Selma, Alabama and every major march in America. She was arrested 26 times in Civil Rights activities. She led with courage and persistence and taught that non-violence activism was the way to freedom.

Mrs. Luper also participated in the first teachers' strike in Oklahoma when she participated in the teachers' strike for a true contract in 1979. She is one of those who "Walked the Line in '79' that gave birth to the American Federation of Teachers union which remains the collective bargaining agent for the teachers of the Oklahoma City Public Schools. I have the honor of teaching at John Marshall High School where she taught for many years.

How to Fight a War Without a Shred of Conscience

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked if President Bush had any reaction to the death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq reaching 2,500.

Q. Tony, American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500. Is there any response or reaction from the President on that?

MR. SNOW: It’s a number

Me at the Oklahoma City Gay Pride Festival

I'm the One Wearing the Shades

This is a photo of me, in the sunglasses, at the Oklahoma County Democratic Party booth at the Oklahoma City Gay Pride Festival. The theme of this year's festival was "We ARE the People." With me are two friends and volunteers Jim and Lisa. Being there got me to wondering, the Democratic Party has taken courageous stands in its history for workers' rights, civil rights, women's equality, and now for the recognition of the worth and dignity of all Americans regardless of their sexual orientation. When, since the Civil War, did the Republican Party ever take a stand which required from them an ounce of moral courage. In Oklahoma and elsewhere, their motto is: Guns, God and Gays. All of these are popular issues with the dominant culture in America. They are willing to try to pass an amendment on flag burning, but not willing to renew the 1965 Voter Rights Act.

Dare to Be a David

(I was asked to give the invocation for the Oklahoma state AFL-CIO political convention. Here is what I prayed.)

God of All Creation. God of All Human Kind.

You beheld the work of your own hands and said that it was good.

You rested from your labors and blessed your time of resting.

God, look upon the labor of our hands. May we work to bring about a world where work is honored, rest is protected, and all who labor partake in the fruits of their labor through just compensation, safe working conditions, and the recognition that all are equally entitled to human dignity.

God, give us strength for our task. At times, those who work for justice seem small and weak while those who seek to control and exploit seem to be many and powerful. At times we feel that our task is too great, our resources too small.

We are tempted to be discouraged. Oh God, give us courage for our time. Give us the courage of your servant David who said to Goliath, "You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted.” In this spirit and with the assurance that we fight for that which is right, may we say, “You come at us with privilege and entitlement, but we come in the name of justice, which you have denied.”

May we hear the trumpets sound that shall never call retreat--the trumpet calling us to a life of sacrifice, a life of involvement, a life lived for the benefit of others.

And may at the end of it all we hear the words “Well done thou good and faithful servant. Enter now into the joy of thy Lord.”

Amen

“Anybody who contemplates a decision to use force. . . [assumes] responsibility for . . . massacre[d] civilians.

(Soldiers in urban warfare situations are called upon their governments to perform nearly impossible tasks. When a soldier cannot tell friend from foe, when a soldier is facing death at any moment, when a soldier sees his comrades die in one sneak attack after another, that soldier will reach a pont where he overeacts and takes his revenge on whomever is nearest to her be the person innocent or guilty. Such is the lesson of Iraq, such was the lesson of Vietnam for us, Algiers for the French, Boston for the British, Palestine for the Romans, and thus on and on throughout recorded history. The men and women who "planned", supported and carried out this war were and are short-sighted individuals, most of whom ducked combat when they had their opportunity to serve. They envisioned smiling Iraqis throwing flowers in the path of "liberating" GIs. They envisioned a quick war, "Mission Accomplished" in short order, troops home by Thanksgiving, and a pacified and compliant trading partner throughout the New American Century. The blood of innocents is on their hands, and this includes both Iraqis who are innocent, and American soliders who were innocent a long time ago.)

List of accusations of GIs in Iraq stuns experts
Officials point to stressed troops, greater scrutiny as possible reasons
The Associated Press

The accounts are brutal: An Iraqi man dragged from his home, executed and made to look as if he were an insurgent. Three prisoners killed by their Army captors. A team of revenge-seeking Marines going home to home, shooting down unarmed Iraqi men, women, children.

The recent flurry of accusations against U.S. servicemen has stunned military analysts and experts. Many see a critical new point in the war — though few agree whether it shows the toll of combat stress, commanders resolved to stamp out war crimes, or, as some claim, an overzealous second-guessing of the troops.

But the number and gravity of the latest allegations have drawn the greatest outcry against U.S. military actions since the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.

“All of a sudden there seem to be charges right and left,” said Loren Thompson at the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank in Arlington, Va. “It clearly has happened in some cases. But it’s hard to tell whether this is a pattern of wrongdoing on our part or just a pattern of closer supervision.”

List of alleged incidents
So far, none of the troops accused in the latest cases has even been tried:

On Friday, a Pennsylvania National Guard spokesman said two Guardsmen were being investigated in connection with the shooting death of an Iraqi earlier this year.
On Wednesday, seven Marines and one Navy corpsman were charged in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man in the town of Hamdania. Charging documents claim the man was taken from his home, forced into a hole, shot and left with a stolen AK-47 near him to make it look as if he fought the troops.
On Monday and Wednesday, three soldiers and a noncommissioned officer were charged in the May deaths of three unarmed Iraqis in military custody in Salahuddin province. A Pentagon official told The Associated Press that the detainees were shot while trying to flee.
Those accusations come a few months after another disturbing charge — that in Haditha, a town in the Sunni hotbed of Anbar province, members of a Marine unit killed up to two dozen unarmed Iraqis in and outside their homes after a roadside bomb killed one of the troops. Neighbors told the AP that a small group of Marines went house to house over three hours, while others stood watch.


The death penalty is a possible punishment in at least some of these cases.

Combat stress theory
One view is that, if proven true, these incidents reflect the toll Iraq has taken on U.S. troops. Since 2003, they have dealt with constant heat and filth, blurred lines between civilian and enemy, and insurgents who rely on dirty tactics like suicide and roadside bombs, lack of uniforms and beheadings.

“This is one of the nastier kinds of fights you could be in,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. American troops “obviously lost a lot of their own compatriots, a lot of them have been there a number of times. Morale is still pretty strong, but I would think there’s a psychological toll.”

Some say that’s to be expected, but criminal behavior still must be prevented: War crimes are an indictment of leadership.

“It’s symptomatic of a combat stress management system that has failed,” said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-based military think tank.


“Anybody who contemplates a decision to use force, anybody who contemplates putting boots on the ground has to understand that part of what they’re assuming responsibility for is stressed-out soldiers are going to massacre civilians. It just comes with the territory.”

Letter to Congressman Duncan Hunter

(This is a letter I sent to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R. California, after reading a USA Today article on problems associated with the US Missle-Defense system. Some in the Bush administration have discussed the possibility of using the system we have should North Korea carry out its missle launch test.)

Dear Rep. Hunter,

I am writing to you in response to your statements in the June 21st edition of USA Today. The article entitled “U.S. still working kinks out of defense shield”, ends with the following facts:

 Last year, the program exceeded its budget by $365 million.
 It delivered fewer interceptors than planned.
 The interceptors delivered are unproven.
 Their assembly, according to the GAO, lacked adequate oversight leading to the possibility of shoddy parts being used.

You are quoted as claiming that a limited anti-missile capability is better than none at all. In other words, even though the program is over budget and of dubious value, we should be grateful for having it at all.

Fair enough.

Suppose that a report came out that a federal food assistance program had the following problems:

 The program was $36 million over budge
 Despite this, the program helped fewer people than it was designed to help.
 The nutrition the program delivered was inadequate
 The program’s administrative cost exceeded the number of people it helped.

Should this happen, would you be willing to claim that this nation should be grateful that we are trying to do something to help the problem of hunger in America. Or perhaps you would call for the scrapping of a program so inadequate, so inefficient, so mired in problems.

If it works for guns, shouldn’t it also work for butter?


Sincerely,



Mr. Lynn Green
The Village, Oklahoma

Monument to W

(Got this from a friend)

Dear Friends and Relatives:

I have the distinguished honor of being on the committee to raise $5,000,000 for a monument of George W. Bush. We originally wanted to put him on Mt.Rushmore until we discovered there was not enough room for two more faces.


We then decided to erect a statue of George in the Washington, D.C. Hall Of Fame. We were in a quandary as to where the statue should be placed. It was not proper to place it beside the statue of George Washington, who never told a lie, or beside Dick Cheney who never told the truth; since George could never tell the difference.


We finally decided to place it beside Christopher Columbus, the greatest Republican of them all. He left not knowing where he was going, and when he got there, he did not know where he was. He returned not knowing where he had been, and did it all on someone else's money.


Respectfully,


George W. Bush Monument Committee


P.S. The Committee has raised $1.35 so far.

God Forgive Us and Give Us Hope

(Note: I was asked to provide the invocation for the Oklahoma Democrat Party's Carl Albert Awards Dinner. This is the Oklahoma Democratic Party's equivalent of the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner which our national party and many state party's have. At it, we award the year's top Democrat. This year's award winners were Sandy Garrett, State Superintendent for Public Instruction and Pat Hall, former ODP Executive Director and tireless Democratic Party advocate. My congratulations to two very deserving Carl Albert recepients. The following is the invocation I gave.)

God of all Creation
God of Many Names
Who is worshipped in Many Ways

We first ask your blessing on those whose labor has gone into our meal this evening. May we ever be grateful for those who work and service make possible the quality of our lives.

We ask also for your forgiveness of our many shortcomings.

You are the God of Love
Yet everywhere we see hate and intolerance.

You are the God of Peace
Yet everywhere we see violence and war.

You are the God of Bounty
Yet everywhere we see deprivation and want.

You are the God of Compassion
Yet everywhere we see indifference and persecution.

Yet we remember that you are the God of Hope: the Hope of the Laborer’s Bent Back, the Single Mother’s Aching Feet, the Farmer’s Sunburned Face, the Business Owner’s Worried Brow. You have left unto us the work of fulfilling Hope.

God, may you bless our land and guide the work of the Democratic Party. May we always work to sustain the Hopes of the American People. Give Us the Hope that our labor is not in vain. Give us Hope that in our great land we will one day see Justice for All.

Amen

Lest We Forget

"War does not confer a license to kill for personal reasons ... War is not a license at all, but an obligation to kill for reasons of state; it does not countenance the infliction of suffering for its own sake or for revenge."

--Telford Taylor, US chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trial

Why We Need to Leave Iraq

Iraqi Woman in Labor Tries to Rush to the Hospital. Instead is Killed at Checkpoint.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two Iraqi women were shot to death north of Baghdad after coalition forces fired on a vehicle that failed to stop at an observation post, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Iraqi police and relatives said one of the women was about to give birth.

A car entered a clearly marked prohibited area near coalition troops at an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings, the U.S. military said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

“Shots were fired to disable the vehicle,” the statement said. “Coalition forces later received reports from Iraqi police that two women had died from gunshot wounds ... and one of the females may have been pregnant.”

The statement said the incident was being investigated.

“The loss of life is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to prevent them,” the military said.

If You Have Nothing to Hide, Then Don't Worry?

I just love Tom Tomorrow!

What happened in Haditha?

Witnesses, others tell consistent story as Pentagon investigation continues

By Richard Engel
Middle East bureau chief, NBC News

HADITHA, Iraq - On Tuesday, for the first time, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke about the Haditha case. He said that Iraqi and multinational forces must respect human rights and the rights of Iraqi citizens, and a family cannot be killed because someone is fighting terrorists.

“We have to be more careful,” he said.

Haditha is now the subject of two U.S. military investigations — one into what happened, the other into a possible cover-up.

Witnesses, doctors and an Iraqi human rights group tell NBC News a consistent story, but one we have not been able to verify independently.

A crater is all that's left of a roadside bomb attack on Nov. 19, 2005, but controversy remains over the chain of events it triggered.

7:15 a.m.: A convoy from the 1st Marine Division is hit by a roadside bomb — a Humvee is destroyed, and 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas is killed.

7:25 a.m.: Witnesses say Marines search the area for the bomber. They storm a house directly across from the attack, shooting as they approach.

A video shot by a local journalism student purports to show the bloody aftermath of what happened. Inside are 76-year-old Abdul Hamid — blind and in a wheelchair — his 66-year-old wife and nine of their sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren.

Local coroners’ reports obtained by NBC News say Abdul Hamid was shot in the stomach and head. The reports say his wife and five other relatives were also killed by multiple gunshot wounds.

Four inside the house survived, including 10-year-old Iman.

“The Americans came into the room where my father was praying and shot him. They went to my grandmother and killed her, too,” Iman says.

During the raid, Abdul Hamid's house caught fire. Witnesses say Marines then moved next door to the house of Younis Hamid. Nine people were inside, and eight were killed — five of them children.

Twelve-year-old Safa says she survived by hiding under the bed.

“They came in and shot all of us,” she says. “I pretended I was dead.”

Witnesses say Marines then moves to a third location — a taxi parked by the side of the road. In it, residents say, were four university students and a driver. A witness watching from a nearby rooftop says Marines took the five men out of the car and executed them.


One witness says the driver screamed in English, “Please, please!” but they shot him in the body.

Other witnesses say two hours passed as more Marines and helicopters arrived to lock down the neighborhood.

Around 10:30 a.m., Marines stormed the house of Eid Ahmed, where they allegedly separate his four sons from the women and children — before killing the men.

Nine-year-old Khalid was in the house.

“This is my father!” he screams. "God will take my revenge!"

In El Paso, Texas, the Terrazas family has made a memorial to Miguel Terrazas, but they told NBC News their grandson cannot rest in peace with so many unanswered questions remaining about the hours after his death.

NBC News asked the U.S. military to comment on this report. So far, the U.S. military here in Iraq only said that it takes the allegations seriously but cannot comment on ongoing investigations.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

© 2006 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13053200/

What Goes Around

Do we wonder why the world see us as hypocrits?

Dubya Admits He May Have Made a Mistake

Nothing to Worry About?

Pray for the Dead and Work for the Living--A Memorial Day Thought

On this Memorial Day observance, we Democrats do well to remember that for soldiers, a war is never over simply because the last gun has been silenced. Soldiers truly never leave their battlefields. We should this day pray for the dead and work for the living and for their families.

A country has a spotty history at best when it comes to caring for those who have borne the battle. However, as Democrats, we have reason to be proud of some landmark achievements to aid our men and women in uniform. On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the "Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944," better known as the "GI Bill of Rights." The famed legislation for World War II veterans has since been recognized as one of the most important acts of Congress. This act made it possible for the United States to escape some of the problems veterans had faced after World War I when they returned to civilian life. Later, U.S. Rep. Gillespie V. Montgomery, a Democrat from Mississippi, was responsible for an active duty GI Bill which bears his name.

I want to share with you a poem written by good central Oklahoma Democrat, Bob Bearden

Our Honored Dead

Family and friends go off to war,
Some never come home again,
Each of us have lost loved ones,
From our family and our friends.

War is not what they wanted,
But, they were proud to serve,
Many have sacrificed their lives,
And not once lost their nerve.

No matter how we may perceive,
Nor abhor the horrible act of war,
We cannot ever forget their sacrifice,
Nor how they stood straight and sure.

If wars were fought by our leaders,
Then all wars would be ended today,
Sadly they yet still send our children,
To go and fight and die in harm's way.

So let us each honor those who died,
Fighting for what they believed was right,
With the last full measure of their devotion,
They kept to their honor and freedom's light.

Amen, Bob, may we continue to be a party that honors its soldier in its deeds rather than in its words alone.

George MacDonald's Testimony

Note: My parents sent me this exerpt from the 19th Century Scottish Writer George MacDonald.

George MacDonald, From the book George MacDonald, Scotland’s Beloved Storyteller by Michael Phillips

(This is a letter responding to a lady who questioned his faith.)

“Have you really been reading my books, and at this time ask me what have I lost of the old faith? Much have I rejected of the new, but I have never rejected anything I could keep…With the faith itself to be found in the old Scottish manse I trust I have a true sympathy. With many of the forms gathered around that faith, I have none. At a very early age I had begun to cast them from me; but all the time my faith in Jesus as the Son of the Father of men and the Savior of us all, has been growing. It is were not for the fear of its sounding unkind, I would say that if you had been a disciple of his instead of mine, you would not have mistaken me so much. Do not suppose that I believe in Jesus because it is said so-and-so in a book. I believe in him because he is himself. The vision of him in that book and, I trust, his own living power in me, have enabled me to understand him to look him in the face, as it were, and accept him as my Master and Savior, in the following whom I shall come to the rest of the Father’s peace. The Bible is to me the most precious thing in the world, because it tells me his story; and what good men thought about him who knew him and accepted him.

But…to those who hold to the common theory of the inspiration of the words, instead of the breathing of God’s truth into the hearts and souls of those who wrote it…..are in danger of worshipping the letter instead of living in the spirit, of being idolaters of the Bible instead of followers of Jesus…it is Jesus who is the Revelation of God…Jesus alone is The Word of God.

With all sorts of doubt I am familiar, and the result of them is, has been, and will be, a widening of my heart and soul and mind to greater glories of the truth…the truth that is in Jesus…not in Calvin of Luther or St. Paul or St. John, save as they get it from Him, from whom every simple heart may have it, and can alone get it. You cannot have such, proof of the existence of God or the truth of the Gospel story as you can have of a …chemical experiment. But the man who will order his way by the word of the Master shall partake of his peace, and shall have in himself a growing conviction that in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

One thing more I must say; though the Bible contains many an utterance of the will of God, we do not need to go there to find how to begin to do his will. In every heart there is a consciousness of some duty or other required of it; that is the will of God. He who would be saved must get up and do that will….if it be but to sweep a room or make an apology, or pay a debt. It was he who had kept the commandments whom Jesus invited to be his follower in poverty and labour…

From your letter it seems that to be assured of my faith would be a help to you. I cannot say I never doubt, nor until I hold the very heart of good as my very own in Him, can I wish not to doubt. For doubt is the hammer that breaks the windows clouded with human fancies, and lets in the pure light. But I do say that all my hope, all my joy, and all my strength are in the Lord Christ and his Father, that all my theories of life and growth are rooted in him; that his truth is gradually clearing up the mysteries of this world…To Him I belong heart and soul and body, and he may do with me as he will…nay, nay…I pray him to do with me as he wills: for that is my only well-being and freedom.”

(Personal Note: I particularly like this statement: "though the Bible contains many an utterance of the will of God, we do not need to go there to find how to begin to do his will."

We get so caught up in faith statements and creeds that we forget that most of Jesus teaching was that we were to be doing the good that God wants to see done in the world. In fact, little of Jesus teaching was new. Most of it can be found in earlier religious teaching. (the Golden Rule had been uttered by earlier Rabbis and can be found as a part of practical every religion in the world as C. S. Lewis pointed out.) When people ask me, "Are you a Christian>" (Or more often these days "Are you saved?"), they usually mean have you followed a set formula, said the right words, been baptized the right way, think the right things. Usually I answer, "I am a follower of the man from Nazareth." That satisfied 99% of them. What I mean is that I want my life to pattern his life, his teaching, and his sacrifice. This, I hope, is pleasing to God.

"Have You Been to Jail for Justice?"

(I really recommend you buy this album: HAVE YOU BEEN TO JAIL FOR JUSTICE?

© 1998 Anne Feeney (BMI)

Was it Cesar Chavez? Maybe it was Dorothy Day
Some will say Dr. King or Gandhi set them on their way
No matter who your mentors are it's pretty plain to see
That, if you've been to jail for justice, you're in good company

Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand
Cause sitting in and lyin' down are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice? Oh, you're a friend of mine!

You law abiding citizens, come listen to this song
Laws were made by people, and people can be wrong
Once unions were against the law, but slavery was fine
Women were denied the vote and children worked the mine
The more you study history the less you can deny it
A rotten law stays on the books til folks like us defy it

The law's supposed to serve us, and so are the police
And when the system fails, it's up to us to speak our peace
It takes eternal vigilance for justice to prevail
So get courage from your convictions
Let them haul you off to jail!

It just gets worse and worse.

Is privacy becoming passe' in the United States?

Stalemate in Ramadi

(In the 18th Century, Great Britain discovered in American Revolution that it was too costly and highly ineffective to remain for long where they were just plain not wanted. We discovered the same thing in Vietnam. The Russians learned this in Afghanistan. Looks like History is about to deliver the same lesson to us again.)

from the Associated Press

RAMADI, Iraq - Whole neighborhoods are lawless, too dangerous for police. Some roads are so bomb-laden that U.S. troops won’t use them. Guerrillas attack U.S. troops nearly every time they venture out — and hit their bases with gunfire, rockets or mortars when they don’t.

Though not powerful enough to overrun U.S. positions, insurgents here in the heart of the Sunni Muslim triangle have fought undermanned U.S. and Iraqi forces to a virtual stalemate.

“It’s out of control,” says Army Sgt. 1st Class Britt Ruble, behind the sandbags of an observation post in the capital of Anbar province. “We don’t have control of this ... we just don’t have enough boots on the ground.”

(Another article I read said that the old Cold War word "containment" is making its rounds in the White House. Mission Accomplished?)

I'M SO LOATHSOME I COULD SPY

Lyrics by Paul Hipp | Music by Hank Williams

You call your sweetie on the phone
There's breathing on the line
Don't worry, that's the NSA
I'm so loathsome I could spy

Don't bother me with FISA courts
I haven't got the time
I bend the law until it breaks
I'm so loathsome I could spy

Why can't people trust in me
I'm such a stand up guy
Just ask Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson
I'm so loathsome I could spy

Verizon, Bell South and AT&T
Know the enemy is nigh
Tens of millions of Americans
I'm so loathsome I could spy

To doubt my intentions is un-American
And to question me is a lie
Haven't I won your trust so far?
I'm so loathsome I could spy

Some Thoughts from Rev. Robin Meyers, my pastor

"Religion cannot be personally redemptive without being socially responsible."

"The 'Health and Wealth' Gospel asks its followers to change nothing about the way they live. In place of the Jesus who preached the Sermon on the Mount, they substitute a Jesus who boosts their present lifestyle somewhat like a religious STP added to their spiritual gas tank."

"The cause of violence is self-interest. Only a reverence for the other can end violence."

"Most Christians know more what the church taught about who Jesus was than they know what Jesus taught about who we are and what we should be doing about it."

Robin Meyers book, Why the Christian Right Is Wrong: A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future , has just been published by Jossey-Bass
Why the Christian Right is Wrong

Circular Reasoning in the Immigration Debate

A circular argument makes a conclusion based on material that has already been assumed in the argument:

"The study of literature is worthwhile because great literature repays close reading."

The argument sounds convincing until you realise that it could be phrased thus:

"The study of literature is worthwhile because literature is a worthwhile subject."

The statement does not raise an issue or allow for argument.

Q. Why are these workers "illegal aliens"?

A. Because they have broken the law.

The real question is, why does the law exist? Is the law a practical law? Is it a just law?

It was illegal for women to vote. Some women did vote and went to prison for it. Theirs was not an overnight stay. They suffered because they did something illegal.

While the actions of illegal immigrants does not rise to the level of true civil disobedience, their action and the problems we have in finding a just response to their actions, should cause us to question the basis for our present immigration policy.

I don't know the answer, but I do know one thing, we will never take care of this problem by attacking it on the supply side. As long as employers are allowed to hire such workers, there will be a steady supply of them brought over here by any means available.

No fence, no National Guard at the border, no jail, no waste of taxpayer dollars will be able to stop them.

For the Common Good

In his Annual Message to Congress on December 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln said these famous words in his conclusion: "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give, and we preserve."

What Lincoln means is that what when we recognize and perserve the dignity of others, we perserve our own dignity as well. For "slave" and "free", substitute the pair of terms "male" and "female" or "gay" and "straight" and you begin to get a true vision of why civil rights and justice are so important.

(I know that some would also pair up "unborn" and "born". I will reserve my thoughts on this matter for another post.)

Big Brother's Listening to You?

NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans - most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made - across town or across the country - to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

New Soup

Feasting on Diego Cuervo

Feasting on Diego Cuervo
by Lynn Green

Gov. George Wallace addressed the Democratic National Convention in 1972. That year Wallace ran for the Democratic presidential nomination until he was shot and crippled by a would be assasin. He addressed the convention while in his wheel chair. While he was speaking the camera panned several black delegates who listened to Wallace in polite but stony silence. Afterwards, one of them was asked what he thought of Gov. Wallace’s speech. The man replied, “This is the same thing that we heard in the South for decades: politicians giving poor white people Jim Crow for supper rather than a real meal.”

The hot issue today before Congress is “immigration reform”. Hearing some politicians talk one would think that illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers) are the cause of most of our country’s ills. Immigrants cause unemployment, create low wages, overburden the social system, increase crime rates, threaten our security, endanger marriage (oops, wrong scapegoat!), and cause a host of other social ills. I think that soon someone will blame them for global warming and ozone depletion.

Pardon me if I doubt the sincerity of these concerns. First, I am certain that if we didn’t have these workers, the rest of us wouldn’t be living as well as we presently are. Imagine an America where we had to rely solely on documented American citizens perform all our services. I think the first thing to go would be every restaurant and every hotel in America. Then, things would be a lot, and I mean a whole lot, more expensive. That ugly beast, inflation, would rear its ugly head only much uglier than ever before. We would face the problem of getting exactly what we wish for.

Second, if those who are wringing their hands so much over this issue were really sincere, they would be attacking this “crisis” from the demand side rather than the supply side. As long as there is a demand for aliens willing to work for low wages, there will be a supply of aliens who have no choice and will risk all to get those jobs. Why haven’t we heard more about prosecutions of those companies who hire undocumented employees, more about huge fines for companies who hire illegals? Why is everything about building walls, building jails, hiring guards? Why isn’t there a discussion in this country about raising the minimum wage to the point to where working low level jobs is actually attractive? You don’t suppose that, just maybe, someone knows that we need people working for crappy wages so the rest of us can live a little better than we otherwise would?

I smell red herring here. I hear the bleating of a scapegoat. I think the con is on. Maybe those who raise the specter of illegal immigrants “invading” our sacred soil want us to focus on something other than the fact that we haven’t raised the minimum wage in this nation in nearly 10 years, that our public health system is the worst in the industrialized world, that we have cut social service funding 6 straight years, that the gap between the bosses and the workers is larger than at any time in our nation’s history. Maybe they hope that a good healthy serving of Diego Cuervo (Jim Crow in Spanish), will keep us satisfied and distracted, away from seeking real answers to why we feel so bad about things.

Workers Earning $20,000–$40,000 Likely Don’t Have the Health Care They Need

Bush's Solution is for Workers to Pay More; Corporations to Pay Less
by Tula Connell

Yesterday, union members in Wisconsin succeeded in introducing commonsense legislation that would ensure all state residents have access to quality, affordable health care.

But the rest of the nation isn’t so lucky.

Not only are uninsured rates among U.S. adults rising, but there has been a marked jump among people with modest incomes, says a new study by The Commonwealth Fund.

According to Gaps in Health Insurance: An All-American Problem, prepared for the fund’s Commission on a High Performance Health System:

Two of five working-age Americans with incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 a year were uninsured for at least part of the past year—a dramatic and rapid increase from 2001 when just over one-quarter of those with moderate incomes were uninsured, according to the new report,

The survey finds that most of these individuals are part of working families: Of the estimated 48 million American adults who spent any time uninsured in the past year, 67 percent were in families where at least one person was working full-time.

In his State of the Union address last January, President George W. Bush proposed so-called Health Savings Accounts—a program that would cost consumers more while offering less health care.

Making workers pay more and corporations pay less is Bush’s answer to the nation’s health care crisis—like his answer to so many of the other disasters piling up under his administration.

Of the nearly 46 million Americans without health insurance, nearly one-quarter—or more than 10 million—are children.

Something needs to be done. The AFL-CIO supports universal health care. But as AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:

Until we have a new administration and a new Congress that give a damn about the people of this country, we’re taking the fight for affordable health care to the states.

Wisconsin is just the beginning.

New WH Policy Chief Was "Brooks Brothers" Rioter

Bush's "Brooks Brothers" Riot in Dade County, Florida,
November 22, 2000. To intimidate the Dade County
election board, Bush's campaign flew in Republican
House and Senate staffers who staged a fake riot and
shut down the recount


By Justin Rood

The man Bush tapped to fill Karl Rove's spot as his policy wizard is none other than Joel Kaplan, who took part in the infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" of 2000. That's when a bunch of Washington GOP operatives, posing as outraged Floridians, waved fists, chanted "Stop the fraud!" and pounded windows in an effort to intimidate officials engaged in the Florida recount effort.

In George Bush's Washington, there's no shame in staging a fake protest to undermine a democratic election, apparently: last year, the Washington Post's Al Kamen noted that "the "rioters" proudly note their participation on resumes and in interviews." Kaplan was even the one to cheekily dub the fracas the "Brooks Brothers Riot."

The Decision to invade Iraq was an intelligence failure not a policy failure--Senior CIA Official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA had evidence Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction six months before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion but was ignored by a White House intent on ousting Saddam Hussein, a former senior CIA official said according to CBS.

Tyler Drumheller, who headed CIA covert operations in Europe during the run-up to the Iraq war, said intelligence opposing administration claims of a WMD threat came from a top Iraqi official who provided the U.S. spy agency with other credible information.

The source "told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs," Drumheller said in a CBS interview to be aired on Sunday on the network's news magazine, "60 Minutes."

"The (White House) group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested," he was quoted as saying in interview excerpts released by CBS on Friday.

"We said: 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said: 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change'," added Drumheller, whose CIA operation was assigned the task of debriefing the Iraqi official.

He was the latest former U.S. official to accuse the White House of setting an early course toward war in Iraq and ignoring intelligence that conflicted with its aim.

CBS said the CIA's intelligence source was former Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and that former CIA Director George Tenet delivered the information personally to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top White House officials in September 2002. They rebuffed the CIA three days later.

"The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy," the former CIA agent told CBS.

U.S. allegations that Saddam had WMD and posed a threat to international security was a main justification for the March 2003 invasion.

A 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, to which the CIA was a major contributor, concluded that prewar Iraq had an active nuclear program and a huge stockpile of unconventional weapons.

No such weapons have been found, however, and U.S. assertions that they existed are now regarded as a hugely damaging intelligence failure.

But Drumheller, co-author of a forthcoming book entitled "On the Brink: How the White House Has Compromised American Intelligence," rejects the notion of an intelligence failure.

"It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure," he told CBS. "This was a policy failure."

Taking a Stand Against Theocracy

In February 2006, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdock ruled that a Maryland state law banning same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. In response to that decision, state lawmakers opposed to same-sex marriage introduced a resolution to impeach Judge Murdock (a move which was defeated in the Judiciary Committee) and a bill calling for the amendment of Maryland's constitution to prohibit all same-sex marriages. Although the bill failed to garner sufficient support for passage, it was reintroduced in a version that would define marriage as a union between a man and a women only but would still allow for civil unions. The latter bill was being debated by a Senate committee on 1 March 2006, when, according to the Baltimore Sun, "Clergy, constitutional law experts and children of gay parents were among those who packed the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee room to speak out on the issue."

Part of that debate featured some give-and-take between Nancy Jacobs, a Republican state senator, and Jamin Raskin, a professor of constitutional law from Washington's American University over the influence of the Bible on modern law. The Sun reported the following exchange taking place between the two:
"As I read Biblical principles, marriage was intended, ordained and started by God — that is my belief," [Jacobs] said. "For me, this is an issue solely based on religious principals [sic]."

Raskin shot back that the Bible was also used to uphold now-outlawed statutes banning interracial marriage, and that the constitution should instead be lawmakers' guiding principle.

"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible," he said.

Free Abdur Rahman, NOW!

I find the silence from the religious right on the fate of Abdur Rahman very curious. Rahamh is the Afghan who faces the death penalty in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity. The Afghan consitution, based largely on Shariah law and which stipulates that no law in Afghanistan can contridict the Koran, apparently allows the death penalty in cases of "apostacy". Apostacy in Muslim countries means that once you convert to Islam, you cannot change your mind about your faith.

As I said, the "Religious Right" has been rather silent on this. I checked the web site for the Christian Broadcasting Network which Pat Robertson founded to counteract the "secular humanist media" has nothing about this on their front page. When I did a search on the name "Abdur Rahman", I got this as the result:

Your query [Abdur Rahman] returned [0] results.

You would think that a case where a Christian who was facing martyrdom for his faith in an Islamic country would be cause célèbre in the evangelical world, but apparently when the cause is caused by Mr. Bush's war, the right wing is not so, well, célèbre.

We liberals are often accused of being such relativists that we see nothing as immoral. We are condemned when we discuss cultural values for denying absolute truth. Yet here is a case where, if some moral value is not being violated, then one would think that no moral value can be absolutely firm.

This liberal, at least, see something very immoral over the fact that Rahman faces even the remotest possibility for being punished for his decision to adopt a new faith. I'm sure that I am not alone among my fellow liberals for thinking this. And I am looking beyond the fact for a moment that I consider any application of the death penalty immoral.

Rahman should be a free man. Free to walk the street of Kabul unmolested, free to adopt his faith, free to proclaim his faith to anyone who cares to listen. That's what we call freedom of conscience, and any society, any culture, any government that does not uphold it cannot be called a free society. That's why I thank God, and I am a praying man, for the fact that we have separation of church from state in America. I praise the Lord that the founders of our nation, the writers of our remarkable Constitution, wanted to create a secular government. A secular government is a moral government because it is the only type of government that can secure justice for all.

But back to Rahman, Afghanistan, and the government there, a government that exists only because our soldiers are still fighting and dying over there. Our president has said that he is "concerned" over Rahman's fate. Concerned hell! Supposedly, the reason we went into Afghanistan was that we thought the Taliban had created an oppressive dictatorship. Yes, we wanted to find Osama bin Laden and serve justice on him, dead or alive. But when we didn't get him, some say because we took the units necessary to complete the task out of Afghanistan and sent them to Iraq, we stayed around to defeat the rest of the Taliban and set up a better, a more just government in their place.

Look what we got for all our casualities, billions of dollars, and continued presence! I repeat, "Concerned Hell!" Our "leader" should be saying to the Afghan courts and government, you let this guy go about his business or we outa this place. We didn't give you the flower of our youth just so you could perpetuate the same system you complained so much about before.

I would say, "Free Rahman now, or we are already gone."

How about it, evangelicals? Time to stick up for what is right, what has been right, and what always will be right. Justice for all or you're on your own, Afghanistan.

On Birthdays and Baseball

On Sunday, I am the worship leader for our congregation. The worship leader leads the congregation in our "Prayer of Repentence" which the entire church says in unison. The WL is also responsible for presenting a little talk before calling for the offering called "The Prayers and Thoughts of the People" which is our church's attempt to have the laity add something to the worship experience. The WL can talk about anything. This is what I am presenting tomorrow.

On Birthdays and Baseball

Tomorrow, around 12:26 in the afternoon, Spring begins. A few days after that I will be my birthdate. I’m not telling you this to get sympathy or presents. I simply wish to talk about the fact that as a child, I was happy that my birthday fell a few days after the beginning of Spring because that meant I could usually persuade my parents to give me some type of baseball equipment for my birthday. Sometimes it was a new bat or glove. Sometimes it was simply a new baseball. Having a baseball in my neighborhood was very important because that meant that you could always get into a game regardless of your playing ability.

Once I was privileged to live in a city that had a major league team. For a couple of years in the early 60’s, my family lived in Kansas City where the Kansas City Athletics played in old Municipal Stadium. One game I particularly remember happened in August of 1961, the year of the Maris/Mantle homerun race when I got to see the New York Yankees play. Roger Maris hit his 51st homerun of the season in that game.

My clearest memory of that day came before the game when I got to go down into the box seats to see the players during batting practice. That’s when I stood no more than 6 feet away from Elston Howard, the Yankees’ All-Star Outfielder/Catcher, and their first black ballplayer. I did not know then that Howard once called Municipal Stadium his home ballpark having played there for the Mighty Kansas City Monarchs, probably the greatest team in the history of the Negro Leagues. Elston had played with legends like Buck O’Neil, Cool Papa Bell, and Satchel Paige.

The baseball has taught me many lessons. While I won’t say that "Everything that I needed to know, I learned from Baseball", the great American Game has, at least, taught me this much:

1. If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to leave home and get out there where it’s not so safe. But, do take advantage of the safe places when you can.

2. No one succeeds all the time. In baseball, if a player over the course of a career fails two out of three times at bat, you know what happens to him? They put him in the Hall of Fame.

3. Life doesn’t always play it straight, so be prepared for when Life throws you a curve, or even a slider. Above all, look out for the screwballs.

4. It’s possible every now and then to hit a homerun, but more often, you’re going to need to have someone help you around the bases. In fact, baseball is one of the few sports where assists, know as RBIs, are a more important statistic than Runs scored.

5. Every now and then, you will be called to sacrifice yourself for the good of the team.

6. If all goes well, and if you work together with your team, you will be finally brought home in triumph where everyone will be very glad to see that you made it back safely.

PLAY BALL!

65% is No Solution

The American journalist H. L. Mencken once wrote, “For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.” The proposed “65 % solution” for Oklahoma public school funding is an example of Mencken’s dictum.

This mandate states that Oklahoma school districts must spend at least 65% of their budgets solely on “classroom instruction” rather than “administrative expenses.” According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), school districts nationwide devote 61.5% of their budgets for such purposes. However, it is interesting to look at the list of items the NCES considers administrative expenses. These include school counselors, school nurses, libraries, teacher training, food services, school buses and bus drivers, classroom aides and service aides for special needs children. All these are vital components to a child’s education. All would suffer under the 65% solution.

This proposal is no more than an attempt to sooth voters into thinking that its proponents support more efficient public schools, and that this can be achieved without pain or sacrifice. It is a “feel good” scheme that offers no new money for education, no help for Oklahoma’s children. All the “65 per cent solution” does is force yet another mandate on our public schools.

Dubai Ports Deal Collapses

I must give credit to Republicans in Congress for standing firm on this. They, as all politicians do, had an eye on the polls. They saw the damage this deal would do to them in the mid-term elections and stood up to Bush.

Ironic, isn't it that a man who proclaimed that he was a "uniter, not a divider" has succeeded in uniting both political parties against him.

In this case, the Republicans were right, and this must be acknowledged by this Yellow Dog Democrat.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Dubai government-owned company said it will sell its US port operations in a move that spared President George W. Bush a showdown with Congress.

Dubai Ports World (DP World) made the announcement after leading Republicans told Bush that Congress would block the takeover.

"Because of the strong relations between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the US operations of P and O Ports North America to a United States entity," said a company statement read by Republican Senator John Warner.

Standing on Bottles

Her hair is never in place, and
She pulls it back over her ear once more as
She lifts the tray again which
Now weighs as much as a manhole cover and the
Bottles have bottoms made of springs.

She carries the tray to
Another group of lost souls with too much
Time and too little purpose.

She depends on them for her pay.

The Rent,
The Car Payment,
The Groceries, and
The Child Care
Depend on this
Group of Bottles.

Then,

She is bumped by a drunken VP in a
Designer Suit, and
The Bottles Sway and
Shift the
Foundation on which
She Stands.

Politicians and Science Curriculum

(This essay is from a "Letter to the Editor" I have sent to several local newspapers.)

Rep. Sally Kern, a former Oklahoma City Social Studies teacher, has introduced a bill to “allow” science teachers to present alternative theories to evolution which attempt to account for the origin and development of life on Earth. Her argument seems to be that her bill strikes a blow for academic freedom and debate on what she sees as a controversial issue. In her passive/aggressive way she is saying “what’s wrong with giving teachers the freedom to teach alternative ideas.”

Well, first, politicians should not dictate what should or should not go on in the classroom curriculum. Ms. Kern should know that curriculum should be left to those who know something about it. As an English teacher, I would no more dictate what the math teacher should be doing in her class than I would want the math teacher making regulations for my class.

Second, if a science teacher teaches his pet theories for the origin of the species be it intelligent design, creation science, or Sky-Woman and Big Turtle (an Iroquois myth) rather than the science curriculum, his students are faced with a dilemma. Do I go along with what the textbook and curriculum say, or do I go along my teacher’s bias? In other words, the student may face the possibility of being penalized if she does not bend her responses to the teacher’s subjective opinion.

This is a problem students often face in courses where there is not the mathmatical or scientific certainty of math and science. Students in Social Studies classes often complain that their grade suffered because their social studies teacher wanted a particular answer to a question. We do not need this sort of chance for bias introduced into the science class curriculum.

Wal-Mart Health Care Spending Decreases

You are not going to believe this. Wal-Mart’s health care spending per employee actually went down, and the number of Wal-Mart workers without company health care has risen to a whopping 775,000 workers or 57% of the company.

In response, our campaign is releasing a shocking new report titled, “America Pays, Wal-Mart Saves: The Growing Cost of the Wal-Mart Health Care Crisis.” The report estimates the Wal-Mart Health Care Crisis cost American taxpayers nearly $1.4 billion in 2005 with a projected cost over the next five years of $9.1 billion.

Please download your copy of the shocking report and take action today:
Wal-Mart Health Care Crisis

As you know, we have been working vigorously to enact Fair Share Health Care legislation all across America to stop corporations, like Wal-Mart, from shifting their health care costs onto taxpayers. Although Wal-Mart and its allies are spending untold sums of money and hiring lobbyists in every state to defeat us, the will of the American people cannot be stopped.

We are launching a new tool on our website to help you make your voice heard in your local community. You now have the ability to find your local newspaper and submit a letter to the editor by going to WakeUpWalMart.com

Please make your voice heard on the Wal-Mart health care crisis by going to:
Health Care Letter

Wal-Mart’s shockingly bad health care numbers prove more than ever how important it is to build public pressure to change this corporation. We need your help now! We have to grow our movement from 182,000 supporters today to 1 million supporters. As our grassroots army becomes larger, we will become an even more powerful force for change.

Only you have the power to change Wal-Mart and change America. Make sure to download your copy of the “America Pays, Wal-Mart Saves” report and ask your friends, family members and co-workers to join our movement to change Wal-Mart and build a better America.

Thank you for all that you do,

Paul Blank

WakeUpWalMart.com

What a Difference a Photo Op Makes!

From the Bill Wineke Blog

Renewable Energy Lab Rehires Researchers

Do We Really Have an Appropriations Process?

President Bush said in his State of the Union address the government was going to try to lower its dependence on Middle Eastern oil, in part, by improving research on how to make fuel from such stubstances as switch grass, corn stalks and wood chips.

Sharp-eyed reporters -- no doubt aided by government whistle-blowers -- immediately noted that the government has only one national laboratory for renewable energy resources and that the budget for that lab had been slashed and several of its researchers would soon lose their jobs.

All of that was kind of embarrassing since President Bush was traveling to Colorado Tuesday to tout his new energy program at that self-same laboratory.

So, over the weekend, the Energy Department appropriated a quick $5 million to restore the jobs of the researchers (though not to fund the work of the lab, which will still be down more than $20 million).

I would guess that's a good thing. But it certainly raises some disturbing questions, the main one being, do we really just dump $5 million on a lab in order to avoid having the president embarrassed? I mean, presumably the first budget cuts went through a review process. Why was that process dumped overnight? And, if Bush had chosen a different venue for his Tuesday speech, would those researchers still be out-of-work?

We know the answers. The answers are that the $5 million was restored because the Energy Department didn't want the president embarrassed. The remainder of the research funds wasn't restored because the embarrassment wouldn't have been that great.

In the vast scope of the federal budget $5 million isn't all that much. But it does spell the difference between a good job and an unemployment compensation check for a few researchers and the decision was, from anything I can see, completely arbitrary.

bwineke@madison.com Renewable Energy Lab Rehires Researchers

Cuts in Renewable Energy Funding Force Layoffs

(Didn't Bush say something in the State of the Union message about reducing America's dependence on oil? You don't suppose he was lying again, do you?)

Budget Shortfall Forces Renewable Energy Laboratory to Lay Off 32 Staff

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Golden, Colo. — The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) reduced its staff by 32 people today to help meet a $28 million budget shortfall.

Twenty-seven are regular staff, and five are temporary employees. Of the 32, eight were research staff and 24 worked in support positions.

Congressionally directed projects, or earmarks, reduced the budget available to the Department of Energy for funding renewable energy and energy efficiency research at the Laboratory, leaving $28 million less in operating funds for NREL for fiscal year 2006. The Laboratory made substantial cuts in other areas, including travel, outside contracts and other operating expenses, before reducing staff.

Regular staff affected by the layoffs will remain on payroll through Feb. 10 and will receive severance pay and job search help.

Research programs affected by the layoffs include biomass, hydrogen and basic research.

NREL Director Dan Arvizu, in a message to staff, said, "I appreciate how you have all responded to the challenges placed before us. NREL should now focus on the new opportunities and challenges that lie ahead."

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle.

For further information contact NREL Public Affairs at (303) 275-4090.

Six US Ports to be under Arab Control

(I keep asking myself, "What if a Democratic President had done this? What would the conservatives being saying right now?")

From MSNBC:

Chertoff defends Arab firm control of U.S. ports
Homeland Security director says government review provided ‘assurances’

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff on Sunday defended the government’s security review of an Arab company given permission to take over operations at six major U.S. ports.

“We have a very disciplined process, it’s a classified process, for reviewing any acquisition by a foreign company of assets that we consider relevant to national security,” Chertoff told Tim Russert on “Meet the Press.”

London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., was bought last week by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business from the United Arab Emirates. Peninsular and Oriental runs major commercial operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

(You can access the entire article at Homeland Security Chief Defends Arab Firm's Control of US Ports)

Okay, Okay, one more Dick Cheney Joke

Coming to a T-Shirt Near You Soon!

Raising a Democrat

My good friend and fellow Oklahoma Democrat, Jacquelyn Powell passed along to me this anecdote which shows she is raising her son as a good Democrat.

She writes, "As my 8 year old son and I were walking to our car from the University of Central Oklahoma reading clinic today, we saw some litter flying in the wind. Out of the mouth of this sweet boy came, 'What is wrong with people? You can't go buy a new earth in a bag!'
Expanding on his thought made me think about a recent ABC news report on Global Warming, and how the ice glaciers are now melting 50% faster than they were 5 Years ago. Republicans want to use their self coined phrase, 'Climate Change'. What a waste!"

Good for you, Jacquelyn, and keep up the good parenting.

You Heard the Lies During the State of the Union Speech. Now Here's the Truth

Inflation-adjusted median household income in 2000: $46,058
Inflation-adjusted median household income in 2004: $44,389
(Source: Historical Income Table--US Census Bureau)

Decrease in median household income from 2000-2004 in White households: $1066
Decrease in median household income from 2000-2004 in Hispanic households: $2,141
Decrease in median household income from 2000-2004 in Black households: $2,407
(Source: Historical Income Tables--US Census Bureau)

American manufacturing jobs in 2001: 17,101,000
American manufacturing jobs in 2005: 14,283,000
(Source: "The State of the Economic Union," Manufacturing and Technology News, Jan, 19, 2006)

Number of private sector jobs created since 2001, excluding those produced by increase military spending: 1,160,000
Number of American manufacturing jobs lost since 2001: 2,818,000
(Source: "The State of the Economic Union," Manufacturing and Technology News, Jan, 19, 2006)

Inflation adjusted average CEO pay at depth of recession in 2002 $7,773,000
Inflation adjusted average CEO pay as of 2004: $9,600,000
(Source: "Executive Pay" Business Week April 18, 2005)

Percentage increase in average American CEO's compenstation since 2002: 24%
(Source: Business Week April 21, 2003)

Increase in American worker productivity for 2005: 13.5%
(Source: Bureau of Labor Productivity and Costs)

Average number of fewer hours per week parents have to spend with their kids today than 25 years ago: 22.

Percentage decrease in average American household income since 2000: -3%
(Source: National Statistics: US Census)

Percentage of companies that provided health care to their employees in 2000: 69%
Percentage of companies that provided health care to their employees in 2005: 60%
(Source: The Kaiser Family Foundation, June 14, 2005)

A Valentine's Day Cartoon

Bush claims that we had to invade Iraq because of Al-Qaida. Well, they weren't there until he invaded. Thanks for nuthin' George.

A Couple of Cheney Cartoons

Think before you shoot has never been a strong suit of this administration.

Learning from Literature II

In response to my Julius Caesar post, one commentor suggested that W studied history rather than literature. I find this dubious because he seems doomed to repeat so many of history's failures. Perhaps he should have studied F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel on the theme of American excess, The Great Gatsby.

I, at least, find a strong resemblance between the two ultra-rich characters, Tom and Daisy, and the ultra-rich Bush.

Fitzgerald writes of Tom and Daisy:

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Language That Fails Love

Language that Fails Love
For Cat from Lynn (a sorta sonnet)

Oh, that my words had words so that
When I tell my love, of my love,
My words could say to her
What this poor, stamm’ring fool
Really means is . . . .
Poor words, how can you tell
Her that she centers me,
That she fills the corners of my life,
That I do not know where
I end and she begins. . . .
Poor metaphors, how can you compare
She who has no compare?
My heart is full, but when I speak,
My language limps, my words are weak.

Learning from Literature

My wife is also a high school language arts teacher. This semester she is teaching sophomore English. The literature text includes William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. She described to me her discussion of Brutus' soliloquy in Act II sc i of the play where Brutus, speaking his thoughts aloud, says these lines:

BRUTUS.
It must be by his death: and, for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown'd:
How that might change his nature, there's the question:
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg
Which hatch'd, would, as his kind grow mischievous;
And kill him in the shell.

In other words, Brutus says that he must kill Caesar, not for anything that Caesar has done, but for what Caesar may do.

"So it's like a preemptive strike?" one student asked.

"Exactly," my wife responded, "and what was the result of Caesar's assasination by Brutus' and the conspirators?"

"Civil war," another student said.

"So, Brutus kills Caesar in a preemptive strike not for what Caesar has done, but for what he could do. The result is chaos and civil war. What can we conclude from this?" my wife asked.

"George W. Bush didn't study Julius Caesar when he was in high school?"

Radical Freedom

I attend Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mayflower is rather unique among churches in our little "buckle on the Bible Belt." Our motto is that we are "unapologetically Christian and unapologetically liberal." We have no creed or dogma. Instead we covenant with one another to aid each of us in our walk with God.

Last Sunday, Rev. Robin Meyers' message concerned what we gain through our faith walk together in a church like Mayflower. He termed it "Radical Freedom" and defined it as "the end of striving."

Rev. Meyers explained it thusly:

Most of us spend our lives wanting to get somewhere and be somebody. Radical Freedom is the end of striving. This does not mean the end of obligation since we are obligated by the example of Jesus to a life of service. Instead, we realize that we do not need to strive because we have already obtained grace. Rev. Meyers noted that the theologian Paul Tillich stated that in the end one must accept the fact that you are accepted.

Those who accept Radical Freedom realize we no longer need worry about place and identity. God has saved us from ourselves, from our striving, from our separation from each other and from God, which is what sin is all about. When I realize that I need not worry about being different or superior to those of my community, I realize that I am free from the fear that I have missed out on the fullness of God's blessing. I am free to in St. Paul's words, "to become all things to all." And I am free to celebrate the life of faith with all faiths. I can enjoy fellowship with the Catholic, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu, Protestant (both evangelical and liberal), Jewish, Unitarian/Universalist, Bahai, even agnostic brother and sister.

"We fear most those who fear not They indict us because they strive not."--Robin Meyers.

Army Blasted over Soldier's Body Armor

By Eric Eyre
The Charleston Gazette
Wednesday 08 February 2006

Sympathizers raise nearly $6,000 to repay Army for missing item.

West Virginia's two US senators asked top military leaders Tuesday to explain why 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV had to reimburse the US Army $700 last week for body armor and other gear damaged after he was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

More than 200 people - from West Virginia and across the country - donated more than $5,700 to Rebrook after reading about his body armor payment to the Army.

Rebrook, 25, who was medically discharged from an army base in Fort Hood, Texas, last week, said he wouldn't keep the donations. He's passing along the money to charity and a Louisiana woman who lost her home in Hurricane Katrina. He said the woman's son helped save his life in Iraq.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday, demanding that the Army refund Rebrook's money immediately.

"I was outraged this morning when I read the story about what happened to Eddie," said Rockefeller, who nominated Rebrook for admission to the US Military Academy in West Point, NY, when Rebrook attended George Washington High School in Charleston. "I'm heartbroken that he can't continue his career, and I'm shocked that he has been treated this way by our military."

At a US Senate hearing Tuesday, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., asked why Rebrook was forced to pay for body armor damaged when he was wounded in Iraq.

"How can it be that the Army is charging wounded soldiers for replacing damaged body armor? Is this standard practice?" Byrd asked during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Department of Defense's 2007 budget.

Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, attended the hearing.

"That is a very unusual story," Schoomaker responded. "I have no idea why we would ever do something like that. We have issued body armor, the very best that exists in the world. Every soldier has it.

"We certainly have procedures that account for battle loss, and I just find it a highly unusual story. But we'll certainly follow up and correct it if there's any truth to it."

"First Cavalry Division leadership is going to do everything to ensure this issue is brought to a conclusion that is both in line with procedures that apply to all its soldiers and in the best interest of our veterans who have served so proudly and honorably in Iraq," Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, the division's spokesman at Fort Hood, told the Killeen Daily Herald for today's edition.

Bleichwehl said soldiers are not held financially responsible for any equipment lost, damaged or destroyed in combat.

Rebrook said he borrowed $700 from his buddies to pay back the US Army for the destroyed body armor and gear. He plans to pay them back out of his own pocket.

George Bush Joke

(But, as Mark Twain would put it, I repeat myself)

Poor George W. Bush couldn’t get anything to go right for him. First, George decided to become a big oil man just like all of the other Texans who were his family’s friends. So first he formed Arbusto Energy and got his friends to pour $3 million of their hard earned money to back him. But it all went bust. Then he got his buddy from college Philip Uzielli to give him another $1 million, but that soon went the way of the other dollars. Then Major League Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth convinced a bunch of his friends to buy the Texas Rangers for George. They even let George put his picture on a baseball card just like the real big leaguers. George traded away Sammy Sosa, and the Texas Rangers played like, well the Texas Rangers.

So George’s friends got him elected governor of Texas, and after he nearly bankrupted that state, he ran for president becoming one of three men in history to become president even though he came in 2nd in the balloting. It helped that he had 5 very good friends with the title “Justice” in front of their names.

George thought he was set for life, but then things went wrong again. He started a war in Iraq in March 2003 that he thought would be over by Christmas. We are still fighting it 3 Christmases later. He thought the people of Iraq would throw flowers in the path of the soldiers. Instead, they threw bombs and now over 2000 of them have died. He thought that oil revenues from Iraq would pay for the war. Instead, energy prices have sky-rocketed and the war has cost nearly a trillion dollars of US tax money.

Then his friends let him down. His friends in the energy business turned out to be cheating bastards. His friend Tom DeLay was arrested for taking bribes. He appointed friends who bungled their response to natural disasters. Finally, popular opinion held him to be lower than an armadillo’s ass.

One day, Bush knelt down on his knees and asked his Maker, why? “Why Lord? Why is the Iraq war going so badly? Why is there no end in sight to the bloodshed and the huge cost? Why are my friends turning out to be such incompetent idiots or outright crooks? Why are there so many natural disasters? Why do we look like the Three Stooges when we respond to them? Why Lord why? What do you have against me?

George then heard a voice as if from heaven above say to him, “Son, there is just something about you that really pisses me off!”

America's Sin: A Lack of Civic Virtue

My friend, Kerry, who has the excellent blog A Writer's Journal posted the following: "There are currently over 30,000 homeless people living in Detroit, Mi. But worry not America--most of the homeless citizens have been rounded up and housed in the old Tiger Stadium where they are being feed and kept off of the streets of Detroit until the Super Bowl XL festivities cease."

I have read other reports of the economic devastation that has been brought upon Detroit and other parts of Michigan by corporations who would rather race to the bottom in search of cheap wages than face up to the fact that they employ real men and women and not just marks on a business ledger. The following was my response to her blog:

"Detroit is the carnary in the cage that miners use to warn themselves that the air becoming poisonous. We are creating "3rd World America" in our major cities though an economic policies that trades our long term economic health for short term luxuries and conviences.

The most disturbing trend of our time is our lose of our sense of civic virtue: the feeling that we have a responsibility for the well-being of all our citizens.

You and I, we all, have a responsibility to live our lives so that everyone benefits. We must ask ourselves the question, "how does the way I live affect the lives of others? Can I say that by my actions, others are able to live better than they would otherwise be able to?" No other life is worth living."

As I have always said, the Bible speaks not only of our need to repent of our personal sins, it speaks of our need to repent of our social sins: the sins of prejudice, intolerance, and above all, exploitation.

Hear the words of the prophet Amos:
This is what the LORD says:
"For three sins of Israel,
even for four, I will not turn back {my wrath}.
They sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals. (Amos 2:6)

A Paucity of Justice

I listened to the State of the Union message on Tuesday. I am, by nature and profession, very interested in how language is used and what that reveals to us about the user. I examined the text of the speech and made these language discoveries:

Bush used the word "terror" or a form of it ("terrorist", "terrorism") over 20 times in his speech.

The word "economy" or a form ("economics") was used over 15 times.

The word "justice", except in the title "Supreme Court Justice", was used 3 times in the following sentences:

"And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran -- because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom, as well."

'A hopeful society depends on courts that deliver equal justice under the law."

. . .let us also work for the day when all Americans are protected by justice, equal in hope, and rich in opportunity.

So, out of the three reference to justice, only twice did Bush call for some form of justice at home in the United States. Out of those two, only one can be thought of as a call for the kind of social justice that people like Coretta Scott King devoted their lives to. (Several people people who watched the speech with me noted that Ms. King's tribute came from a man who has snubbed the NAACP, an organization Dr. and Ms. King worked through.)

Bush knows war. Bush knows money. Bush doesn't know jack about justice.

A Modest Proposal on the War on Terror

In his "State of the Union" message, Pres. Bush defended his "terrorist surveillance program" by noting that "two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al Qaeda operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. . . ." (Note: The CIA did know that two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, attended an al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia in 2000, and then traveled to the United States. The men simply were not put on a terrorist list, and the FBI was not alerted to their presence.)

Bush defended his warrentless survelliance as a necessary action in time of war and invoked, as always, September 11 to justify his claim to special war powers.

Fair enough. I would simply like to note that prior to September 11, 2001, we in Oklahoma suffered a terrorist attack on April 19, 1995. The bombing was carried out by an American Christian named Timothy McVeigh to avenge the death of fellow Christians at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. In addition to this, McVeigh was in contact with other fellow Christians at Elohim City in Adair County, Oklahoma.

Since we are in a permanent state of war of terror in the United States, I look forward to the revelation that our president has ordered the warrantless terrorist surveillance of these right wing Christian groups. And in the name of Homeland Security, I think that other conservative Christian groups will not think unkindly of our Federal Government if they too are subjected to this kind of secret, warrentless surveillance. In fact, since our president is the darling of the evangelical Christian community, I expect that they not only applaud such actions on the part of our chief executive, but that they demand that their members submit to having all their communications monitored by our government, which, after all, has only our best interests at heart.