The Curmudgeon Manifesto

Coming on like gangbusters... by Dana Wall

2007-01-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

A weekly crime fighter program was broadcast from the late 1930’s until the mid-fifties when television flushed all radio stories from listeners’ living rooms. “Gang Busters” was a popular police drama. The program signed on with ear-splitting sound effects. There were the noises of loud car engines, screeching tires, crashes, explosions, sirens, and machine gun fire, loudly mixed, and ending with a voice announcing dramatically, “Gaaang...Bussssters!”

Within a short time, at least as new usages are coined, people said about something that started with a bang, excitement, loud noises, or great energy that, “It came on like gangbusters.” The way the radio show “came on.”

I recall my eccentric uncle, for example, describing his energetic two-year-old nephew: “He comes on like gangbusters!”

People who remember the program are few. The expression has changed slightly, and now is dictionary defined: “GANGBUSTERS: go (or like) gangbusters used to refer to great vigor, speed, or success : the real estate market was going gangbusters | it's growing like gangbusters.”

Nothing is said about the radio drama origins of the expression, and the usage has changed to omit “coming on,” as the sound effects did when each episode began. It is interesting that the dictionary now includes “success” as a possible meaning for “like gangbusters.” That was never a connotation from the sound effect introductions to the crime show, although the law officers did always win.

The Associated Press recently quoted the General Electric International CEO, Ferdinando Beccalli-Falco, as saying, “We are living in an exceptional period of time when all of these economics are growing gangbusters.”

A reader familiar with neither the origins of the phrase, nor the present meaning of, “growing gangbusters,” might logically wonder what kind of vegetable a “gangbuster” is, and how economics might grow it. But probably not. I do wonder, though, if either Beccalli-Falco or the AP reporter knows the origins of the term.

The CEO is also contributing to another slight modification of the expression. He did not include the word “like” between “growing” and “gangbusters.”

If the expression survives in some form or another for another seventy years or so, the radio drama origins of “coming on like gangbusters” may be all but lost.
The CEO’s version is a good example of the ever-changing American language. Perhaps Google will preserve it by archiving this blog post.

“Honest” is another word undergoing meaning modification these days. When I was in tenth grade, the English teacher emphasized that “honest” was one of the words that “could not be compared.” A person was either honest or dishonest. The word was like “unique” in that way. “Unique” means “one-of-a kind.” We were, therefore, forbidden to say or write, “very unique,” or “more unique.” Unique was unique, and honest was honest.

The teacher rhetorically asked, “How much more honest is ‘more honest’ than just ‘honest’? A lie is a lie, a thief is a thief, and there is only honesty or dishonesty.”

Our present vice president, who sometimes comes on like gangbusters, by the way, had a different teacher. Commenting on his former assistant and friend, “Scooter” Libby, Mr. Cheney recently was reported to have said, “He is one of the more honest people I know.” “..one of the ‘more honest’”?

“Honest” is simply “honest,” Mr. Vice President. It is not a comparative word.

Yet hardly an American eye blinked. My English teacher is still spinning, however. The Cheney sentence tells something, perhaps, about the evolution of “honesty” and also something about both the Veep and those he “knows.”

Using “more” or “most” with the word seems to render “honest” less than honest. So long as he made the word a comparative, why did Cheney not say Libby was, “one of the most honest people I know”? Did he mean that Libby is not just “honest;” he is “more honest,” but he is not “most honest”? Please!

Think of the power in the lie had Cheney simply said, “Scooter Libby is one of the honest men I know.”

Cheney’s version is a bad example of the ever-changing American language. These days, bad examples seem to be coming on like gangbusters.

~~ ~~

...tis the season...

2006-12-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

There is general consensus that Thanksgiving, a holiday, marks the beginning of "the holidays." Between then and the end of that season, there are both official and unofficial holidays. Christmas Eve is a holiday. So, of course, is Christmas. Then there is New Year's Eve, ushering in a holiday atmosphere all over the world. New Year's Day is a holiday. There is the holiday known as Quanzaa. And there are the days of Hanukkah. Holidays, all. There are other celebrations I may be forgetting. Do Druids still celebrate the winter solstice as a holiday? I hope so. And there are all the football bowl games. Of course they are unofficial holidays, but the jubilant atmosphere often seems to produce a holiday mood, and fans of Ohio State will call it a holiday a whole week after New Year's Day. Florida fans may be less jubilant.

What I am pointing out is that there are many days between Thanksgiving and the BCS Championship Bowl game which are, or seem to be, holidays for many of our good citizens. In the spirit, then, of this "holiday season," may I quote the greeting cards that came to our house years ago when I was a boy?

So many Christmas cards in those long ago days said, "Season's Greetings." And so to you, seasons greetings, and let's work for a happier 2007!

schools like factories? then why not factories like schools?

2006-12-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

There is a large segment of society that seems to think of American schools as factories. Those people see students as raw material to be shaped, polished, and graded, so that all know the same “basic” facts and skills, and all are able to prove their identical knowledge by passing the same “standardized” tests. Teachers are simply factory workers.

Converting the perception of schools to factory-like institutions is a movement that causes more problems than it solves. To illustrate, let’s look at the school-as-factory notion from the other side of the window. For a fictional and, it is hoped, satirical minute, consider a factory that might copy its operational procedures and philosophy from an education model.

So, “Once upon a time,” as all good fairy tales begin, a furniture factory decided to hire as its CEO an experienced educator and former school superintendent. The new CEO was given unlimited power to make the factory productive and the products competitive in the ever-changing world of furniture making in the Twenty-first Century.

The superintendent/CEO initiated sweeping changes. First, a “Strategic planning” session was held to determine what basic design might be best for the factory’s product. Members of the committee included four other CEOs from other types of businesses in the area, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a representative from the local chapter of the National Organization of Women, a clergyman from the community, the CEO’s personal secretary, and, representing the workers, a retired lathe operator from the factory itself.

Early in the first meeting, the retired lathe operator asked what the difference was between “planning” and “strategic planning.” The new CEO said that “planning” was what one did to lay out the steps for accomplishing a goal or set of goals. And “strategic planning” was developing a list of strategies for accomplishing a goal or set of goals. He emphasized the word, “strategies.”

The lathe operator saw the two as the same, but the other committee members nodded at the CEO and glared at the lathe operator; so, he thought he must have missed a distinction between “laying out the steps” for accomplishing a goal and “developing a list of strategies” for accomplishing it. He kept quiet throughout the rest of the meeting.

The local newspaper, which had not been represented at the meeting, reported that a representative ten-member committee had engaged in strategic planning to keep the local factory competitive in the changing world of the Twenty-first Century. The retired lathe operator thought the article sounded as if the CEO had written it. But, again, he kept quiet.

Then the new CEO announced that the factory was non-discriminatory and would accept shipments of lumber of every type. He proclaimed far and wide that the factory motto would be, “No wood left behind.” Suppliers were soon including balsa wood, oak, pine, cedar, spruce, redwood, cottonwood, birch, and even plywood, among others, in their shipments.

The CEO mandated that all shipments be treated equally, that the timbers all be put through the same saw, the same planer, in fact, through all the same procedures, and be cut and shaped exactly according to his recommendations, which he claimed were based on both strategic planning and the best available research.

The wood, therefore, was cut into three-foot lengths of two-inch square posts or into six-inch wide planks one inch thick and four feet long. The posts were to be legs, and the planks would be fashioned into tabletops.

Some of the scrap lengths were cut into one-inch square “support” posts exactly fourteen inches long. They would serve as braces, fastened at an angle from the tabletops to the legs to provide rigidity, or what the new CEO called, “rigor.”

Factory workers were upset. There was no need for designers or lathe operators, as the factory would be using no variations of product design. Cabinetmakers left for other jobs or took early retirement.

Supervisors were hired to oversee one-product production, with each piece passing inspection to make sure it was the same as every other piece. Those who stayed on became demoralized, but needed the work; so, they complied with the new plan and did not deviate from it, knowing they would still be working after the current administration had moved on.

A committee was formed to write plan manuals for every step in the table making process. One old-time factory worker was appointed to the committee. He was a foreman, nearing retirement. No other factory workers could be spared from their workstations to serve on the plan writing committee. Other members were mostly from the community at large: a banker, a travel agent, a representative from the Board of Directors, a member of the stockholders’ association, plus two of the newly hired supervisors, and the CEO’s personal secretary, who took all ideas from the committee back to the office. It was she who typed up the manuals.

The new supervisors conducted in-service training with the manuals as the curriculum, and workers were given copies. Copies were also given to factory stockholders and to the media. A newspaper account praised the process going on at the factory in an article written by the CEO and his secretary. It was printed as submitted.

Assembly of the new product began. All pieces for the tables were given the same amount of sanding. And at first, as mandated, all were coated with the same varnish. But inspection revealed that various woods responded to varnish with differing results! Varnish seemed to sink into the balsa wood leaving little color. Conversely, the varnish brought out varied patterns in the grain of several other woods. It had little effect on some woods and a brilliant effect on others. Varnish failed to penetrate the hardest woods and smeared when touched for several days after application. The workers snickered behind their hands.

The CEO thought about how to achieve equal appearing results with the varieties of lumber and not leave some wood behind. And so it was that all tables with their same sized tops and identically shaped four legs of randomly selected woods were able to pass the test, to look alike, and to display equal shaping and finishing. They were all given thick coats of enamel. Non-glossy, white enamel!

Announcements from the CEO were made to the media and at public gatherings about the new product and how efficient and effective the factory now was. All tables were said to pass the same tests!

There were one or two exceptions, at first. Occasionally a table with legs, chosen at random so as to avoid charges of favoritism or discrimination, came out with two or even three balsa wood or cottonwood legs. Painted, they appeared the same as the oak and redwood legs randomly placed on other tables. But the softer woods did not bear as much weight for long periods.

Remediation was sought. A special department was created within the factory to add supplementary support to the weaker woods. Thin strips of harder woods were glued to the sides of the balsa wood legs, after first shaving them a bit so that the added woods would not affect the leg’s dimensions. That process meant another manual needed to be written, another supervisor hired.

The same problem was found with the occasional tabletops of balsa or cottonwood. The surface was so soft that it was easily marred and nicked. Again, remedial carpentry was employed to give the softer woods a veneer of hardwood. When the tables were covered with white enamel, no potential buyer could tell the difference, a goal spelled out in the new manual.

And so it was that the factory turned out thousands more tables than it had ever manufactured in any year before. Publicity and claims of quality made them sell well for a time.

But soon members of the public tired of the sameness. An owner here and there stripped the white from the table to refinish it according to his or her own tastes and needs, and it was discovered that the tables were built of a conglomeration of woods, some suited for the furniture and some not.

The factory warehouse soon held hundreds, then thousands of tables, all with the same look, which were not viable in the marketplace. A protest movement began, slowly at first. The factory shareholders demanded that a committee investigate and report. At first the CEO stood by his philosophy and methods.

Critics pointed to articles in furniture manufacturing journals suggesting that factories should be diverse, employ more than one designer, product, method, and produce a wide variety of furniture suited to the various woods.

The evidence was presented, and the CEO relented. He allowed a committee to be formed. Again, no actual workers were consulted or appointed to the committee. Those appointed, quite naturally, then, blamed the factory workers for the faulty products. The newspaper printed the finding under banner headlines.

The committee members also recommended hiring a new CEO, a visionary, perhaps, with a new organizational strategy and a strategic plan for professional development of the factory workers, enabling them to produce an improved product line. The final recommendations included a call for employing highly trained designers and better-trained carpenters to fashion diverse furniture items, each suited to the variety of woods available at any one time.

“No wood left behind” gave way to “All woods shaped to take advantages of individual qualities.” A two-inch article on page ten of the local paper announced the new goal statement.

The CEO was fired and given a ten million dollar contract buy-out plus medical benefits for life. A search committee was formed to find the next CEO.

In fact, that committee is conducting interviews at this time among leaders of various businesses and industries around the country. The leading contender seems to be the head of a company that developed the Reading First program, which was created soon after the federal No Child Left Behind legislation in 2002.

The old retired lathe operator was also asked to be a member of the nine-member search committee, and his only contribution to the discussions, so far, was a response to a Reading First publicity statement read at the first search committee meeting which states, “Reading First is built on years of scientific research showing that students who develop strong reading skills at an early age are most likely to remain in school.” The lathe operator said, “Well, DUH!” The other committee members glared at him.

In addition to company literature, the Reading First executive also sent a statement of his leadership intent should he be named the new head of the furniture factory. It says, in part, “If selected, my approach would include building on a solid foundation of research, with a program designed to select, implement, and provide professional development for factory workers using scientifically-based carpentry programs and to ensure accountability through ongoing screening and factory-based assessment.”

The committee voted almost unanimously, the lathe operator dissenting, to ask the man to come for an interview.

The candidate is named Neil Bush.

And no one lives happily ever after.

~ ~

Author’s note: Though this is a fairy tale, there really is a Neil Bush, a first brother, formerly of the Savings and Loan Association failures of a few years ago. The Neil Bush whose wife divorced him when it was learned that he had been serving as a “consultant” in China, where prostitutes were sent to his door in the evenings, and he did nothing for China but talk to officials... and provide a link to his brother. The Neil Bush who is now an executive of Reading First, a federally supported software company developing materials for, among other things, “helping students to pass competency tests as part of No Child Left Behind.” The Neil Bush whose mother, Barbara, contributed money to Hurricane Katrina relief with the stipulation that it be used to purchase Reading First materials for New Orleans schools. That Neil Bush. And he is all too real. All other characters and the furniture factory are fictional. According to many, so is the author.
--Dana Wall

2006-10-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

There is so much in the political news these past few days to cause gasps, head shakes, pursed lips, sadness, and disbelief that an old curmudgeon hardly knows where to begin a rant.

But consider this item. Henry Kissinger has been outed in Bob Woodward’s new book, STATE OF DENIAL, as being a regular advisor to both Cheney and Bush on the Iraq war. Kissinger confirmed that it is true. News broadcasts now also have played a clip of a pre-publication Woodward interview with Cheney where the vice president acknowledges the close relationship and admits that Bush also sits regularly with Kissinger, the former Viet Nam War “consultant.” (Actually, he was Nixon’s National Security Advisor.) The “Kissinger-as-Bush-advisor role” had not been public before the book’s release. I wonder if Condi knew. Or Rumsfeld.

The revelation helps explain so much about the war and perhaps the White House secrecy behind it! Kissinger’s role also raises many questions. I’ll quit with just one sarcastic query: Whassa matter, wasn’t Robert McNamara available?

An eye for an eye for an eye for an eye for an eye for...

2006-09-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

News and comments swirl around another “intelligence report.” According to the media, this report represents the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. I had forgot that there are 16 agencies gathering intelligence. And I was amazed, at first, that 16 agencies could reach consensus on anything. That may show how obvious are their conclusions.

The document is called a “high-level” intelligence report, and was classified. But portions were leaked, and Bush has now declassified four pages of the 30-page document, “so that everyone can draw their own conclusions about what the report says.”

On one hand, I am not sure four of thirty pages are adequate for that. On the other, I am amazed that four pages of a 30 page consensus report by the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies is thought necessary to tell the world what nearly everyone already knows.

I do wonder, however, what surprises may be in the other 26 pages. Nonetheless, following is a short summary of the released pages. See if there is even one surprise in them.

* The Iraqi war is described as a “major catalyst for Islamic radicalism around the world.”

* One of the main conclusions reads: “We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”

* The report also says that al-Qaida is now exploiting the war to attract donors and recruits. Further, it states that fighters with experience in Iraq are likely to function as leaders in a new generation of jihadists.

* The Iraq conflict is described as a recruiting tool for Islamic militants, a training ground for Muslim jihadists, and a laboratory for new terrorist methods now increasingly being exported to other countries.

* According to the media report, the veteran analysts concluded, “Despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in number and in geographic reach since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.”

See what I mean? Nearly everyone knew all that before those portions of the document were released. Perhaps that is why the four pages of the 30 were declassified. But, as I said, what is in the other 26 pages? And why do they remain “classified”?

Anyway, the comparative few who will refuse to believe the released information may be either the radically religious, who see the Mid-east conflict as some kind of crusade, or those Republicans who would support any leader they voted into office simply because they are incapable of believing that they may have voted for the wrong leader.

There is another group who may neither believe the report nor care what it says. Some of them are both thoughtful and articulate. I think they are also wrong. They seem to believe it does not matter what devastation the war has caused, how many innocent civilian deaths, how many military casualties, how many parents and widows and orphans now grieve, how much money is spent, how much corruption exists among war profiteers, how many lives are disrupted, how many marriages ended, how many laws broken, how many lies told, and how much the rest of the world objects. In their minds, past terrorist actions against this country justify everything the administration has done and will do both to our own laws and citizens and to terrorists and innocent civilians in other countries.

Not only do they dismiss any criticism as unpatriotic, but they also seem to see no other option than what the leaders they voted into office pursue, and they repeat the administration talking points robotically. “Better to fight them there than here,” for example. Better for whom is not a consideration.

Won’t pursuing “an eye for an eye” long enough leave everyone blind?

~ ~

Going all the way...

2006-09-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

You know how statistics from “studies” often do not tell the entire story. Like those studies that show how many men versus women have illicit, heterosexual affairs. The percentage of men is always higher in any study than the percentage of women.

No one seems to ask who the men are having heterosexual relations with. Do the women who have illicit sex have it with more partners than men who do? Or are some men lying about having the illicit sex, saying they do when they don’t, thus making the male percentage higher than women’s? Or do women lie and say they do not, when they do, making their percentage lower than that of males?

Or? I don’t know. It just always makes me wonder when I read yet one more study saying that, for example, seventy percent of men and forty percent of women have had a heterosexual affair.

Anyway, I recently read a study saying that pre-teens who choose raucous rap and heavy metal performances (I can’t in good conscience call it “music”) are more likely to have early sex than those kids who choose less raucous sounds such as ballads, or even country-western or classical music.

What the newspaper report did not say was what the researchers believe is cause and effect. The report implies that listening to raucous music may cause pre-teens to seek sex earlier than those listening to melodies.

Perhaps there was more to the study, and the newspaper chose only that part to report. But one needs to ask about the kids studied. Could it not be that pre-teens who seek sex earlier than others want the wilder music because of their raging hormones, and not that the music causes their hormones to rage? Then the kids who wait longer for sex are those types who seek quieter music, perhaps? It may not be that the music soothes their savage breasts.

Again, I don’t know. My dad was angry with me in the 1950s for listening to Frank Sinatra croon, “All The Way.” He thought it suggestive and even "dirty": “When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless he loves you, all the way.” Etc.

I wasn’t successful in finding it, but sex was something I sought back then. Suppose that was Frankie’s fault?

~ ~

Painting by numbers...

2006-09-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

I grouched about this a few months ago, but the subject has come up again. The Department of Homeland Security is “cracking down” on U.S. citizens who order prescription drugs from Canada. Prescription drugs. Brand names, ordered from reputable Canadian pharmacies. It is against some law or other, but has not been widely enforced until comparatively recently.

A clear and present danger?

Let’s play a little game of “connect the dots” and see what picture you get. Pencils ready? Begin.

Dot #1. The public record shows that pharmaceutical companies were among the biggest contributors to the election campaign of George Bush and other Republicans running for office in 2004.

Dot #2. Records also show that the number of lobbyists registered as working for pharmaceutical companies is now huge, far larger than in 2000.

Dot #3. President Bush went on the air in 2004 to warn U.S. citizens about the potential dangers of buying prescription drugs from “foreign countries.” He cited Canada as one example of a foreign country whose prescription drugs may be suspect. He did not say how he knew, nor what he suspected.

Dot #4. In late fall two years ago it became public that there was a shortage of anti-flu vaccine in the United States. Bush, when questioned, explained that the problem was with this country’s supplier. The company had experienced manufacturing problems resulting in an inability to fill the order. It was a British country that supplied U.S. flu vaccine. British. Foreign.

Dot #5. After screams from all sides about whose fault the shortage was, Bush was back explaining that efforts to solve the vaccine problem were working, that the shortage would be short lived, and that we would soon be getting all the flu vaccine we needed, shipped from companies in…ready?...Canada! (See again, Dot #3.)

Dot #6. Last fall, according to an article by Susan Q. Stranahan in the current AARP BULLETIN, “Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection quietly stepped up its confiscation of prescription drugs from Canada.”

Dot #7. Again according to Stranahan, officials claim that the new policy is to protect consumers. People paying $115 for a three-month’s supply of Fosamax, for example, are now forced, instead, to pay $75 for a one-month supply of the same brand from their local pharmacies. Buying from Canada is illegal, and “it is not safe,” repeat officials.

Dot #8. A 2004 Government Accountability Office study concluded that prescription drugs from Canada are comparable to those bought in the U.S. Florida Senator Bill Nelson added, “And the fact is, most drugs sold in Canada come from the same companies and same assembly lines as drugs sold in America.”

Dot #9. There is pending legislation to support “legal and safe” importation of prescription drugs from other countries. The bill currently languishes in committee.

Dot #10. Ken Johnson, vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, has said that the proposed legislation “undermines the government’s ability to assure the American public” that drugs are safe.

Dot #11. Americans questioning the confiscation of their prescription drugs are regularly led to believe that it is just big government’s way of protecting them.

Dot #12. As drug prices have risen dramatically in recent years, some two million people have looked to Canada for medicines. Illinois led a number of states in directing their citizens to Canadian markets. But not until a governor-ordered study concluded that Canada’s pricing and distribution system was less likely than this country’s to foster counterfeiting of drugs and low-quality products.

Dot #13. Americans in recent years have spent between $500 million and $1 billion annually in Canada where brand-name drugs, including those made by U.S. companies, are often “significantly cheaper.”

Dot #14. This one is an “opinion dot." Conservative Republicans in Goldwater’s day might have suggested that any administration claiming to be that protective was either lying about whom they were trying to protect or sticking their liberal, big-government noses into the public’s affairs in areas of personal freedom where government has no place. Perhaps especially a government that has turned a blind eye to the outsourcing of jobs by so many (campaign contributing) American companies in recent years.

Take a moment to finish drawing your conclusions. ... O.K., Stop. Put your pencils down.

The situation has inspired a silly idea I am here passing along to any one of the writers of Saturday Night Live. Or, perhaps, it fits better those who write and stage the skits at the Washington Press Corps’ annual Gridiron Club dinner and “roast” of all things political.

Here it is: The curtain goes up. Karl Rove is talking with the head of the OBGYN doctor’s organization, as well as the head of the American Dental Association and the head of the U.S. optometrists. Karl is explaining that if those organizations want to stop celebrities like Angelina or Anna Nicole from going to Africa or the Bahamas to give birth to American babies and promoting that alternative to American hospitals, there may be a way. And if they also want to stop citizens from traveling to Mexico, for example, for eye exams and glasses, or for dental work, then, perhaps they should all help fund the reelection of lawmakers who could become sympathetic to their views of protecting Americans from foreign hospitals, optometrists, and dentists.

The heads of the organizations repeat that Americans seeking medical treatment outside the country should be protected from potentially endangering their health. Karl nods, agrees again, and once more suggests supporting a President and legislators who may have the power to help. --Curtain--

Get the picture?

~ ~

Toppling "reasons" for invading Iraq

2006-09-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

Bush and Cheney have both finally admitted publicly that they were wrong in saying that Saddam Hussein had ties either to 9/11 or to Ossama bin Laden. They have also admitted that they were wrong about Iraq having stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (wmd).

Those were among the reasons we were given daily during the run-up to the first-ever American pre-emptive war -- against Iraq, more than three years ago. Bush and Cheney now hide behind the statement by adding that "everyone" believed it. Everyone did not. But many did, because, back then, many believed the President! I won't argue about their "errors" being lies. History may do that.

Let's address one of the other reasons for that invasion still being used. Both Cheney and Bush have recently repeated their charge that Saddam once had wmd and "even used them against his own people."

Bush slid that statement into his recent interview with TODAY show's Brian Williams, and it went unchallenged, again. Williams should have asked the following: "Mr. President, when did that horrible killing of thousands of Iraqi Kurds take place?"

The Bush statement has imbedded itself in the consciousness of Americans who probably imagine nuclear weapons used by Saddam against any who disagreed with him right up to our invasion of the country and deposing of the regime. But not so.

The Saddam war against his own people, horrible as it was, took place in 1988. That is fifteen years before our invasion of the country. That was two presidential administrations ago. It took place when Bush's father was President, and was before the first Gulf War, the first Bush's "desert storm" war to free Kuwait from the invading Iraqis.

Don't misunderstand. I am all for holding leaders accountable, no matter how long it takes. But I think using Saddam's actions against the Kurds in 1988 as a reason for invading Iraq in 2003 is a bogus reason.

The trial of Saddam now going on is hearing testimony about that 1988 massacre. So our actions have brought the tyrant to court. That is good. But is that reason enough to invade, destroy Iraqi infrastructure, kill thousands of Iraqi military and civilians, and fight a war that is killing our own military personal daily and costing American taxpayers billions of dollars?

If Bush can continually make that statement, without anyone questioning it, then how far back may our country go in punishing leaders for transgressions against their populations? Is it too late to invade Cuba and depose Castro for his mistreatment of his opponents right after his succesful revolutionary coup?

How about China? May we invade and topple the government there for the horrible slaughter of intellectuals and political opponents, begun decades ago, and still going on?

How about North Korea? Iran? Ethnic cleansing is going on today in African countries. How long after it ends shall we wait before invading because of it? Tibetan leaders have a record of killing members of their population, as well. Years ago.

I know. I am being ridiculous. But it is also ridiculous for us to let Bush and Cheney continue to repeat, unchallenged, the notion that our invasion of Iraq three years ago was in part because Saddam once had wmd "and even used them against his own people," back in 1988.

~ ~

Explaining the Bush speaking style

2006-09-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

I recently listened to the first dunce go on about why we stay in Iraq and the threat of N. Korea. It occurred to me that he "sounds" almost like his handlers must sound as they teach him what his rationale is while coaching him to speak publicly.

That would explain his own condescending, simplistic "explanations." He is subconsciously imitating those who have been teaching him what to say.

I can just see Rove, Cheney, or Condi leaning in before his press conference and explaining to him with a tinge of exasperation: "...So, now listen, we have a number of nations involved with talks about North Korea. Six nations at this time. And that is what we want, got that? A number of nations with a single purpose, one mind. A coalition. And we will talk with those nations. All of them. That is our purpose, remember, to talk with all six of the nations who are concerned about the problem in North Korea. That is what a coalition does. It talks things out and gives support. And it is right that we talk to them all. We are not a nation that wants to go it alone in these matters. We need to emphasize that. We want to cooperate with the world community, O.K.? And so it is…, that is…, remember, we will keep the lines of communication open to all the nations concerned with the North Korean threat. That is just the way it is. We will stand firm on this."

And Bush nods at their prompting and then goes before the cameras to recite. Only not quite so well. A little like Tim the Tool Man Taylor interpreting to his wife what his face-hidden neighbor, Wilson, has told him about some weighty issue on the old sit. com. "Home Improvement."

Stop me before I foam.

~ ~

more about autism from another source...

2006-09-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

Someone pointed out that there is an article in the current SLATE about autism. I had written a theory of mine in this blog some time ago, suggesting television as a contributor. (6/12/06) Readers may want to be amazed at a few similar ideas in the SLATE article. "In Search of the Cause of Autism: How about television? By Gregg Easterbrook" We may be on to something!

Check it out: http://www.slate.com/id/2149002/?GT1=8506

No news is good news, perhaps, for Republicans

2006-09-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

Last July I drove from Phoenix to Las Vegas and then on to visit friends at Lake Tahoe. I just returned from three weeks of August vacation in the other direction. I drove across Arizona, New Mexico, the Texas Pan Handle, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Western Iowa. A side trip with friends from my hometown of Sioux City took us across South Dakota, then north and west, out to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands of North Dakota. The area may well be the best-kept secret in the park system. But that is another post.

The trip covered just over 5,700 miles. Add that to the approximately 1600 miles in July to Incline Village, Nevada, and I have traveled well over 7,300 miles this summer, all in the American “Heartland.” Never mind the photos. They are all great. And the friends and family. Even greater.

What I began to notice, slowly at first, was the lack of print information available in local newspapers to readers across America from Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, to Iowa and South and North Dakotas. Eleven states.

You know how it is when you travel. You watch little television and read few papers, grateful to have a vacation from the news of the day. We had laughed with friends in Nevada about the small town nature of news in the Reno paper. I thought little more about it, then. But on the later trip, I noticed slowly that there also was little world or national news in any of the other papers that I did take time to read along the way. And that discovery was made more apparent when I read my hometown Sioux City JOURNAL for August 23, 2006. The paper seems to have become a small town rag, boosting the area, but reporting little national or world news.

The paper contains not a word about Afghanistan. (I kept it as proof.) Almost no news from Iraq, none about the fighting. A tiny mention of Iran. No word of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, North Korea, trouble spots in Africa, nor even news from Cuba. No mention of Iraqi civilian deaths, American military casualties, or destruction in the Middle East.

Here is another finding, or lack of one, I found most amazing: There was no mention in the paper of George Bush, Dick Cheney, what is happening in Washington or with any of the Bush League politicians. The 100,000 residents of the metropolitan area served by the daily publication have to be calmed by the lack of troubling news! I thought for one happy moment that peace had broken out everywhere!

The front page has a feature on what makes small towns click. Small towns whose populations also subscribe to the JOURNAL. Another story tells of a neighboring community seeking input before building hiking/biking trails. Nearly half the page is given to a feature about a couple who make friends with wedding balloons. Could I make that up?

There is a four column wide photo of the couple and a two column one of a bride and groom exiting the church under a barrage of balloons. I haven’t read the story.

Inside are stories of a milk man who retired after 70 years delivering milk, a report of a grant given to a job training agency, and a feature about a couple who wed after a twenty-five year relationship. I haven’t read that one, either. There is a report that the county wants the state to pick up care costs. Three candidates are profiled briefly for the fifth district congressional race. A reporter has a column telling about finding an article written in 1958 which incorrectly predicted a number of things that were to come about by the year 2000, but didn’t.

There is a story of ten Russian women who will spend time in the area learning about women in leadership roles in America. None of the women leaders are journalists dedicated to reporting the news, I’ll wager.

A one-column wide, four-inch story on page seven tells of the Marine Corps planning to call up troops for active duty because enlistments are down, and more are needed in Iraq. But the story seems to emphasize that the problem is due in large part to recent reductions in troop numbers, always good news.

Following the opinions page, with no political opinions other than two about the recent George Allen faux pas, there is a page of comics. And on page 11, a short article headlines that Iran is ready for serious negotiations on the nuclear dispute. A soothing headline that invites readers to skip the story.

A six-page sports section shows that JOURNAL reporters work at getting local and state games covered. They also include stories on the PGA, Mets vs. Cardinals, and the Little League World Series. Far more news of what is going on in the sports world than in the political one.

Section “C” is labeled “Community.” Two more stories about Russia are there. A plane crashed. And in Spain, a Russian genius solved a 102 year-old problem.

On page five of that section is a five-inch, one column wide story reporting that Iraq has opened its own probe into the alleged rape and murder of a girl, “even though” the soldiers involved will face American military justice. That is the first sentence. Paragraph/sentence two moves to the capture of “more than 100 known or suspected al-Qaida terrorists.” Known or suspected? How many of each? None of them had anything to do with the alleged rape and murder. Why is that sentence in this story? The third, fourth and fifth sentences return to the soldiers' “alleged” crime and the Iraqi procedures for investigation. How many read all five sentences? Especially after the second one?

Remember, this is a daily newspaper serving a metropolitan area of more than 100,000. I know. That is not a huge circulation. But think about it. The readers of the JOURNAL are voters. As are readers of all the other “small town” papers I scanned on the trip through eleven states.

Many of those readers may be lulled into thinking everything is going well, since there is no report to the contrary, nor even a report of how well they think things are going. That’s the scary part.

I called a friend in Sioux City who has worked for the paper. He has contacts there yet. When I began my rant, he agreed quickly, interrupting me to say that he had talked to a reporter about the same thing. He was told the syndicate that owns the paper wants it that way. “They” want local features. Boosterism. Good news about locals, etc.

And that brings me to the question: “Why do ‘they’ want that?” Say it is all economics and that the good folks of Siouxland will buy more papers with stories of local people than they will buy papers that report what is going on in the world. But I doubt that is either true or their reason.

I found little political or world news in local papers anywhere in my travels! In fact there was far more “news” about Teddy Roosevelt in Madora, North Dakota, than of George Bush. I saw but one mention of the President, and that was a framed campaign button from 2000 hanging on the motel wall.

Liberal media? Not those at the head of newspaper syndicates who support the Bush League! I don’t know how many papers Lee Enterprises owns other than the Sioux City JOURNAL. But I assume they all get the same directives from the top management, designed to keep the readers from getting news without going to television or other sources. After all, voters can hardly be critical of the administration’s activities if they know little or nothing about those activities from their hometown papers.

A CNN broadcast at the end of the week reported that it had been one of the bloodiest weeks in Baghdad, ever. Readers of the JOURNAL who missed the broadcast do not know that. I wonder if many care.

And what of other newspaper syndicates? Are they supporters of those who run our puppet president? Or do they support reporting the news? I’d bet there are other media moguls in on what I see as the master plan of our national minister of propaganda, Karl Rove.

I'm a curmudgeon, but I may have stumbled onto a little part of that bigger plan. Admittedly, it was a limited survey, but it seems to me that those who daily stage the Presidency are keeping a sizeable number of the Republican “base” complacent and content by controlling the news that gets printed in local papers. And every vote counts. Except in Florida, 2000, or Ohio, 2004.

So, if a few thousand voters here and there in the Heartland are kept ill informed, there is a better chance they will continue to support those they voted into office, especially when they want so badly to believe their vote was right. And a few thousand voters here and there, as part of the overall plan, may help keep those in power, those who have purchased the President, the ones holding the strings to the puppet.

Did you read this week that the Army will hire a PR person to help news sources with stories painting the war in better tones? Really. It was reported in at least one paper. But perhaps not yours. Anyway, who came up with that idea? Shall we guess?

~ ~

Daylight will remain during daytime hours, and it will get dark after sundown

2006-08-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, there was no television. There were three radio networks. Each had a fifteen-minute world newscast in the late afternoon, followed by another fifteen minutes of weather news and sports from the local affiliates. As I recall, the weather and sports news took less than five minutes, total, and the local news was delivered in about ten.

Now? Ow!

Maybe some viewers “need” all the local weather reporting that goes on. But it can be annoying for a curmudgeon.

We get the same “facts” delivered repeatedly over ten minutes or so, with three slightly different “maps” showing the same fronts, clouds, and temperatures. We also get a meteorological lesson with each broadcast. “And when moist air from the gulf moves up from the South and is met by a cold front moving down from the North, that is when precipitation usually forms all along the front.”

The worst part is enduring the redundant blather of the weather forecasters who obviously do not hear themselves. Or, if they do, they are so captivated by the sounds of their own voices that they do not listen to what they say.

“Currently now the temperature at this hour stands at 90 degrees at this time out at the airport here at the six o’clock hour.”

“There are high clouds all around in the immediate vicinity area, but they will be moving on off.”

Most recently I heard, “Temperaturewise, as we speak, the current temperature now stands at 88 degrees, at this time.”

AAARGH!

I don’t need that. Just tell me how hot it was, how hot it is, and how hot it may be tomorrow. If there is a good chance of precipitation, tell me that. If we had precipitation, tell me how much. Throw in wind direction and speed if you must. Then get off the stage!

Whatever union may have made it mandatory for weather broadcasters to get equal camera time with news people could improve their members’ images by also requiring that weather reports be professionally written, revised, edited, and then “read” by the meteorologists. After all, news reports are prepared and read by the anchors, not ad libbed in front of photos.

I suppose if the repetitious wordiness were removed from their sentences, the weather people would either have to talk slower, or go over it once more, with yet another graphic, in order to fill their time on camera. That would mean even more times along a line from “there” to “here,” with winds possibly shifting aloft, bringing clouds and a chance of precipitation during the night.

Or, worse, we might have to listen to another lesson on how clouds form, fronts move, or what shifts in the winds may or may not do.

Still, requiring prepared scripts to be read might eliminate the semi-literate redundancy so many weather broadcasters now spew without thinking. . . or listening. I might be able to take the rest if we could eliminate the babble.
~ ~

we made fun of them, but they were right

2006-08-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

I'm sure the timing is a coincidence.

The House restaurant recently restored the name "French Fries" to the menu after the potatoes had been listed as "Freedom Fries" when it became "unofficial" that we hated France.

Remember that nonsense? The Bush League's lies, misrepresentations, and manipulations convinced a majority of both parties in this country that a first-for-America, pre-emptive war was necessary. There were many who did not go along with the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, had ties to 9/11, and posed an imminent threat to the region and world. But they were shouted down in this country by patriots in both parties who then believed their President.

Bush was not believed in much of the rest of the world, including France. The French government doubted the intelligence the Bush League was quoting as slam dunk assurances. The French decided not to go along with America. They refused to become a part of the coalition of the willing, unwilling to send their youth to stand along side Americans in the desert to kill and be killed in a war that should not have been waged.

So we hated them. They were not merely arrogant about their language. It was more than their expecting tourists to speak French. More than their rudeness, their different notions of personal hygiene, and their liberal views of love and life. The French were cowards who would not fight in Iraq.

Never mind that the French were the first to support our own fledgling nation. They were overrun twice by German armies in World Wars one and two, showing they were unprepared for those onslaughts, though hardly cowards. The French fought valiantly, and those who were able to escape German capture fought again another triumphant day. The French underground operated bravely throughout the German occupation. More than once the French risked numerous lives to save one downed American flier or escaped prisoner. Their courage was never called into question then.

But they arrogantly refused to believe the Bush League, refused to allow their own military to take part in the Iraqi war, and so we began making jokes about their cowardice, comments about their willingness to surrender, and called for boycotts of everything French. That included a couple of fuzzy thinking representatives in the House getting the restaurant to change the name of potatoes and toast to "Freedom Fries" and "Freedon Toast." And that really showed the French!

But truth gets out. We now know that the Bush administration had faulty intelligence. They used it to get their war. They said the fighting would be brief, that we would be welcomed as liberators, that Iraqi oil would pay for the war and rebuilding. When all that quickly was shown to be erroneous, they changed their tune to sing that democracy was on the march to the beat of Bush's drum! The world knows how off key that song is, too.

For whatever reasons -- the passage of time, the reasonableness of reflection, whatever -- potatoes and toast are now back to being "French" in the House of Representatives cafeteria.

And almost immediately after that word leaked, it was announced that French and American leaders had hammered out a U.N. resolution together that calls for a cease-fire in the Israel-Lebanon war. It has little chance of working in its present form and time, but the cooperation of America and France and the need for a Mid East cessation of the killing will eventually work together to stop this war's slaughter.

As I said, the timing must be a coincidence. But the two events, restoring French Fries, and a joint resolution, may indicate that we no longer "unofficially" hate the French for being right about Iraq. Check Jay Leno for a cessation of ugly jokes about the French to be sure.

~ ~

tax dodges, patriots, and killing without plans

2006-08-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

You know, if I were one of the nation’s super rich, I would be so pleased my efforts in the land of opportunity had paid off that I would cheerfully pay whatever taxes were due on my mega-fortune. I would undoubtedly have enough left over, were I among the super rich, to live far more comfortably than I do now.

Call it patriotism or gratitude or a willingness to share. Maybe a sense of fairness. Or a lack of greed, maybe. But I really believe I would not seek tax loopholes such as off shore accounts and overseas corporate registrations to keep from paying taxes on my mega-wealth. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are two in that wealthy group who also seem to believe as I do. But all the super rich do not agree.

An acquaintance much wealthier than I complained to me at the time President Clinton got his tax increase bill for the richest Americans through congress some years ago. “Well, we’re going to see our taxes go sky high!”

Without thinking that it might seem insulting, I immediately said, “I wish my income made the bill affect me! You are so lucky if you are in that bracket. I’d love to be making enough money to have the higher tax rate apply.”

The man chuckled, a little sheepishly, perhaps, and changed the subject. The only tax increase I felt under Clinton was the added federal gasoline tax of four cents a gallon. And I really do wish I were in the income bracket to have paid more.

This tirade came about as a new report hit CNN saying that seventy-billion dollars in tax revenue is lost each year in America because the super rich use loop-holes to make it legal to pretend to be an overseas company.

I do not know the particulars. I do know that our budget deficit could use the infusion of seventy billion dollars each year, money being hoarded by the wealthiest among us. And I would like to know to what political party most of those moguls belong. To which party have they contributed how much money? How did their tax dodges become “legal”?

Also, how can they shave without cutting their own throats for pretending to be patriotic Americans?

“But it is legal!” the greedy chant. Right. As I said, why is that?

It may be legal, but it is not patriotic, moral, ethical, or right. I’m no expert, but doesn’t that mean it is also not Judeo/Christian?

~ ~

An Associated Press story says that Bush dismisses a call for a Mid east cease-fire that would be simply “stopping for the sake of stopping” without a plan for lasting peace.

Read that again. Bush won’t (at this time, anyway) call for a cease-fire because there is not yet a plan for lasting peace. So the killing will continue on both sides. The US wouldn’t want the killing to stop simply for the sake of stopping the killing, without a plan for peace. Do I have that right? One more time. We will condone the killing of men, women, and children into the future rather than simply ask them to stop the killing for the sake of stopping the killing.

The mind boggles, even after more than five and a half years of that saucer-shallow fellow pretending to be President.

But the more one thinks about it, the more the outrageous Bush League comment seems somehow consistent with the continued killing in Iraq after more than three years with no visible plan for lasting peace there.

~ ~

"... and cabbages and kings."

2006-07-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

Some people in Minnesota get it. Education officials and company spokesmen around the country who seem to want schools to train employable technicians, rather than to educate students, have long hammered away at the notion of compelling schools to offer more and tougher math and science courses as student requirements. Minnesota’s leaders were no different.

But a statewide assessment of interests was recently given to over 91,000 people in Minnesota. The surprising aspect is who were surveyed. Not college and university personnel so fond of telling public schools what they “should do.” Not politicians decrying America’s educational preparedness for the Twenty-first Century. Not pundits and journalists critical of schools and society. Not employers looking to hire technicians already trained to do their company’s work. and not school administrators, nor even parents.

The assessment was given to more than 91,000 eighth and tenth graders! Minnesota actually asked students about their interests! Amazing. And they found that “only” eleven percent of eighth graders and twenty-one percent of eleventh graders have enough interest “to make them suitable candidates for careers in math, science, and technology.”

State officials are reported as “disturbed by the news.” I do not see why.

Do we really think that more than twenty-one percent of any class should go into advanced math, science, and technology? Even in the foggy future of the Twenty-first Century?

Come on, Minnesota officials. Think about it. The interest assessment shows twenty-one out of every one hundred sophomores are interested in math and science careers. That seems like a large number to me. What if twenty-one of every one hundred students were interested in being a poet? Would that seem like a large number then?

There are seventy-nine Minnesota students out of each one hundred who, instead of math and science, are interested in art history, or home economics, or auto mechanics, or literature, acting, history, psychology, culinary arts, sculpture and painting, geography, house painting, music, carpentry, writing, fashion design, theology, military service, ceramics, cooking, sales, journalism, film making, even politics. Or they are interested in other fields not listed, fields of study which society hopes some students will pursue every year.

Do the Minnesota officials reported as “disturbed by the news” that “only” twenty-one percent are interested in science and technology really think students should abandon their interests in favor of more tough math and science courses and careers? Society in general can’t really think it believes that. Someone tell the “disturbed” officials in Minnesota, most of whom, I’ll wager, are not math or science whizzes.

So, applaud whoever in Minnesota gave the interest assessment. They asked the right people the right questions. Now, let’s listen! And spread the word.

Schools in America should be designed to educate all students according to each of their interests, abilities, and needs. “Tougher” math and science courses and careers simply do not fit everyone. Just ask the students. Minnesota did.

~ ~

Julius Caesar wrote, “Omnia Gaulia est divisa in partes tres.” He never knew the Bush League. All “gall” is not divided into three parts, but seems concentrated in far more than three of those bozos. (O.K. so I am showing off that I remember sophomore Latin and can make a bilingual pun.)

Anyway, after five and half years of turning down invitations to speak before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Bush spoke before the group the other day. I caught the entire speech on C-Span and was uncomfortable. His condescending tone and the Bush speechwriter’s superficial recounting of Black history for the President to read were bad enough. No wonder the audience seemed mostly polite but slightly insulted.

The gall of the President was especially apparent, however, when he leaned forward over the rostrum, smirked, and said, as if he were teaching a lesson to a child, “For too long our party wrote off the African-American vote, and for too long the African-American vote has written off the Republican Party.” The “vote.” Not the people. Their votes.

That is what he said after five and a half years of turning down an invitation to speak and after five and a half years of the Bush League politicians doing almost nothing for the poor among the Blacks or the homeless. This after the Bush League henchmen successfully disenfranchised thousands of Black voters in Florida in 2000. And, most recently, after the Bush League nearly ignored those most in need of help from the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina. But now, after those five and a half years, the Bush handlers have the gall to tell him to accept the invitation to speak, and Bush says, in effect, “It has been too long.”

A reporter asked the presidential press secretary, Tony Snow, why Bush accepted this year. And Snow said, “Because he wanted to.” Think about that.

The answer must mean that in previous years, Bush did NOT want to.

A follow-up question ought to have been, “Why did he want to speak to the NAACP convention this year, but not in previous years?” It did not need to be asked, however, for anyone who understands what the answer, “Because he wanted to,” means also knows why he didn’t want to before now. And he didn’t really “want to” this year, you can be sure. That’s another fib.

But this is an election year, and polls indicate that the Bush League needs every vote they can muster, including the scant four percent Presidential approval bunch among the Black community. So his handlers sent Bush groveling, with self-deprecating humor, a condescending tone, and a re-cap of Black history complete with statements of how well the race has prevailed! Of all the gall!

~ ~

People look at both actions and words as clues to character. The inadvertent open mic conversation between a cud-chewing Bush and his lap dog British Prime Minister Blair was certainly revealing of character at the recent G-8 summit conference. If ever in history there was a better example of the cluelessness of a man than that idiotic exchange between two world leaders, I don’t know what it might be.

Never mind the profanity. Nor the remarks about speakers who talk too long. Never mind the inane remarks about the sweater gift. Forget the unwanted and crass back rub Bush had given to a surprised and insulted female head of Germany.

Consider just one revealing example from the overheard drivel. Bush tells the Brit that “they” (others) need to call Kofi Anan at the UN and get him to do something about the situation between Israel and Lebanon.

Aren’t Great Britain and America two nations who most certainly are a part of “they”? Not only that, but the remark that others, “they,” should get the UN to do something comes after years of Bush deprecating the usefulness of the United Nations. The guy not only has gall, he is clueless.

~ ~

The New York TIMES reports that there were 14,338 civilians killed in Iraq in the first half of this year. There were more than 100 a day killed in June. The paper also reports that Iraqi women have lost some of the freedoms they used to have. There are regular kidnappings of citizens by insurgents for ransom. And more ugliness, according to the TIMES report.

One could go on to recount the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, homes, and businesses. One might also include statistics about the number of Americans killed and the thousands mentally and physically wounded who will never be able to return to the way of life they led before the Bush League maneuvered America into accepting an invasion of a country that posed no immediate threat.

Perhaps the staggering war costs, immense damage, and terrible casualty numbers, growing daily, are why the Bush League politicians and their puppet president no longer chant the daily mantra of a year ago: “Iraq and the world are better off than before we invaded.” Remember that crap?

~ ~

whispy secrets among cloudy thoughts from a foggy mind

2006-07-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

People Magazine interviewed President Bush in the first week of July, 2006. Here are two of the questions and Bush’s responses, plus my commentary within brackets.

People: Could you and Al Gore ever be friends, like your dad and Bill Clinton?

Bush: I don't know. I know that Bill Clinton and I have got a very good relationship.

[Notice that the President hurries to say he and Clinton are friends, too! Bush wants us to know it isn’t only his dad who is now a friend of Bill. That whispers something about son vs. father, and it is not a response to the question. “Me, too!” he insists, after running against Clinton for the past six years!

[A strict grammarian might also mention the use of “got” with “have” as unnecessarily redundant and once even considered crudely non-standard. But strict grammarians have long ago given up on Bush practicing precise and effective communication skills.

[Bush moves further from the question at this point. What follows has nothing to do with any possible future friendship with Gore.]

Bush: In two and a half years I'll be a member of the ex-Presidents’ club. But I'm very busy these days. I've got a lot to do, and so I'm really not worrying much about my post-presidency. I have vowed that I will sprint to the finish line and use every moment I've got to achieve some big things.

[He is not worrying “much.” He is very busy with a lot to do. Evidence could make a case for that being a stretch. His handlers seem to ship him out of D.C. as often as they can; so, that may be another Bush whisper: “I have (got) to say I am busy, and then maybe I will appear to be.”

[Is “things” a precise word to describe what Bush vows to achieve? Do people achieve “things”? I suppose if one considers goals and accomplishments “things,” then “things” can be achieved. Still, it seems shoddy thinking/speaking.

[Wouldn’t a great follow-up at this point have been for People Magazine to ask what one or two of the “big things” are that he wants to achieve? Why does it seem that no one asks follow-up questions? When Bush vows “to use every moment I’ve got to achieve some big things,” it sounds like O.J. vowing he will search every day for the real killer.

[Also note that Bush used eleven personal pronouns in just seventy-two words! Of course the interview is about Bush. But such egocentric repetition whispers character revelations, nonetheless.

[And there is another use of “I’ve got.” That means, “I have got.” Again, the strict grammarian could mention the ugly redundancy of adding “got” to “have.” Perhaps the standard English alternative, “..every moment I have…” would help earn a better grade at Yale, even today.]

People: Do you think Gore is right on global warming?

Bush: I think we have a problem on global warming.

[Is this a first-time admission by the President that there is a problem? Good on you, People. Follow up! Or is Bush saying that the problem is the global warming issue? And, out of curiosity, is the problem “ON” global warming?]

Bush: I think there is a debate about whether it's caused by mankind or whether it's caused naturally, but it's a worthy debate.

[The debate is over! Bush says, “I think…” but he must know. His big time supporters polluting and contributing to the problem do not want him to say that, but he must know. No reputable scientist in the world doubts global warming, nor that mankind is hastening it. Bush must have heard that. His “worthy debate” add-on statement seems to be an attempt to placate both sides of the debate.

[Now look closely at the following reversal of Bush’s mind. You can see that he knows. He has said he thinks the debate is about whether mankind is causing warming or not, and then advances all the things he is “doing” to “solve” the debate, a statement that makes no sense. One does not “solve” debates. Bush probably means, “solve the global warming problem.” If so, then he is revealing that he thinks global warming is caused by humans, for his “solutions” are all meant to curb manmade activities adding to the problem.]

Bush: It's a debate, actually, that I'm in the process of solving by advancing new technologies, burning coal cleanly in electric plants, or promoting hydrogen-powered automobiles, or advancing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.

[See? He knows.

[And he is “actually” solving the debate! How? Well, Bush is “advancing new technologies.” Why did People Magazine not ask about that?

[Bush is also “burning coal cleanly in electric plants.” I know, that’s nuts; but it is what he said he is doing. He must mean that he approves of companies doing that.

[“or” Bush is “promoting hydrogen-powered automobiles.” Do Halliburton and Exxon Mobil approve? What has he done to promote hydrogen power since mentioning it in a speech over two years ago? We need follow-up questions, People!

[“or” he is “advancing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.” Right. Still, the translating of Bush’s response shows that he knows global warming is caused, in large part, by humans. So let’s hope that “solving the debate” “on” global warming is one of the “big things” Bush vows to use every moment he “has got” left as President to achieve. There is no bigger “thing.”]
~ ~

... having your cake and eating it, too

2006-07-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

I remember learning the “rules” for caring for, and flying, the United States flag. We sixth grade kids were absolutely afraid we might let the flag touch the ground whenever we were chosen to lower it and take it to the janitor’s dingy office in the basement after school. Letting the flag touch the ground would violate one of the rules of flag decorum. And we watched our partner carefully, fully prepared to tattle if he let the flag droop onto the soil.

Another example: on a vehicle, the flag shall be firmly clamped to the right front fender. It is not to be flown from a radio antenna nor are decals of the flag permitted on windows or bumpers. Nothing is said in the code about more than one flag flown from a vehicle. Perhaps the code was adopted in less ostentatious times. At least less affluent ones.

We kids learned that the flag should never be used as apparel. Flags as t-shirts, bikinis, shirts, sweatbands, or on the back of a Hell’s Angels leather jacket, for example, are not approved. I wonder today about those flags sewed onto flight jackets of air force pilots. One might also make a case that flag lapel pins are a violation of that “apparel” guideline.

Another guideline says the flag is not to be used in any way to advertise. “In any way.” The code also prohibits the flag to be used as a costume. I guess uniforms are not, technically, costumes, unless worn by someone not actually in the military. Perhaps standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The cynical side of me also sees that little flag lapel pin as a costume, as well as a kind of advertisement. I’ll even bet it does not have thirteen stripes nor fifty stars. That means it is an inaccurate representation of the nation’s flag, a fake. Another violation of the code. And it is probably also a product of China or Japan. The code does not address foreign made U.S. flags, but perhaps it should.

The code states the flag is not to be carried flat or horizontally. Does that not prohibit draping Old Glory over a coffin and then carrying it horizontally from the battlefield to the warehouse to the church to the cemetery?

A cake decorator’s representation in frosting of the flag is also a multiple violation of the code’s statements against the flag as decoration, being represented horizontally, and represented with fewer than thirteen stripes and fifty stars, unless the decorator globs fifty bits of white frosting in the blue frosting field. Which is doubtful. I am thinking now of the news clip of the cake with a frosting flag on it presented horizontally to the President in honor of his sixtieth birthday.

The President and his guests ate our American flag!

How are we directed by the code to dispose of a flag no longer serviceable? Well, it is not to be eaten. It is to be burned. Really.

Now those items of the flag code were all set forth as guidelines, and strict adherence to them has been held unconstitutional in every case. Some of my objections are rather silly, except that they are truly violations of the existing code suggested for proper flag decorum.

The recent one-vote loss of the Senate’s proposed amendment against flag burning is obviously a case of the loser legislators having an emotional and political agenda different from prohibiting the actual burning of a piece of cloth. The Senators may not even realize what their agenda is. They probably all wear those phony Chinese made flag pins as decorative advertisements and apparel. And they have witnessed many violations of the flag code and probably have been guilty of dishonoring the flag in other ways, at least according to the code. Some may have been invited to help the President eat that flag on his cake! No, it is not flag code violations they are against.

It must, therefore, be the political statement represented by flag burning that inspires the administration’s anger again this election year. And I can’t remember when the last such flag burning demonstration occurred in America. But never mind that.

It is the free speech statement such action may represent in our land of no longer wholly free speech which rankles the Senators. They and others wanting to divide the voters into wrapped-in-the-flag conservatives and the rest of us are against critical political statements. But first amendment rights allow that. And so far, the courts have sensibly ruled that flag burning demonstrations are a type of political comment.

So, since dissent is what some neo-cons really want to stamp out, they need a Constitutional amendment against the political statement that flag burning may represent!

If it were really honoring the flag, which the administration wants, then the proposed constitutional amendment would also address the other ways the flag is dishonored, according to the flag code of our past. A great place to start might be to prohibit foreign made, tin lapel flag pins. And flag bikinis.

Also outlawed as dishonoring the Stars and Stripes would surely be frosting flag decorations for the President and his friends to eat with their cake!

~ ~

On another matter, here is a quiz item suitable for inclusion in a David Letterman bit. On what occasion, and by whom, was the following said?

“There can be no excuse for anyone entrusted with vital intelligence to leak it – and no excuse for the newspaper to print it.”

Not FDR warning against loose lips sinking ships in 1942. Nor Nixon speaking against the publication of the Pentagon Papers during the Viet Nam conflict.

Oh, you say it was said by Bush when pledging to ferret out any administration leak of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative. Not quite, though he did say something rather similar at that time. He then pledged to find out who was the perp-a-traitor, and pledged that if it were a member of his administration, “he or she would be taken care of.”

We now know that it actually was administrative personnel, perhaps including Cheney himself, who “leaked/planted” the Plame name. And boy, are they being taken care of!

No, the statement is more recent. Yes, Bush said it; so you get partial credit for that. It was said in response to the NY TIMES printing information about the government’s computer ways of following terrorist money. That is the program Bush, himself, had bragged about shortly after 9/11, and since, as proof that he was doing something about terrorism. A program we Americans and the terrorists all knew existed.

Being outraged about it now seems rather obviously designed by the Presidential Uniter to stir the conservative base and divide the nation at mid-term election time. A little like stirring the ultra-conservative base with an emotional regurgitation of the proposed flag burning amendment. Or railing against same sex unions as if they were a threat to “the sanctity of marriage.” (The biggest threat to the “sanctity” of marriage is divorce, but, so far, no one is suggesting an amendment prohibiting that.) Read the Bush quotation again, remembering the Plame revelation as you do.

~ ~

One more comment: Bush buddy, Kenny boy Lay, died. After being found guilty, but before he was sentenced for his part in the Enron shenanigans and bankruptcy. The local paper printed a Lay quotation the day after he died. I wonder if those who believe as he claimed to believe are thinking about it.

Lay said, “I firmly believe I’m innocent of the charges against me. We believe that God, in fact, is in control, and, indeed, He does work all things for good for those who love the Lord.”

I’m not sure who “we” includes nor the purpose of the “in fact” and “indeed,” but if Lay meant that he and his supporters are the “we,” then, in fact, and indeed, those of them who love the Lord must be wondering about Kenny’s death being God’s work for good. Are you listening, Pat Robertson? Will you claim this was the Lord smiting an evil doer?

~ ~

a mental condition in which fantasy dominates over reality…

2006-06-12T00:47:00.000-07:00

I find unproven theories interesting. The wilder they may seem, the more fascinating. Conspiracy theories, not so much. But scientific, pseudo-scientific, or science fiction theories are fun. So are the musings of daydreamers who inhabit study halls and math classes.

Count me in that last group. I have not sat in math class recently, but the patio is a great place for daydreaming about what causes various problems for mankind. Take autism, for example.

The computer dictionary defines it: “Autism |ˈôˌtizəm| noun – Psychiatry: a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts. • a mental condition in which fantasy dominates over reality, as a symptom of schizophrenia and other disorders.”

I know little more about it. I am not a psychiatrist, but I play one around the house. And reports say that autism is on the increase among young people in our society. Why? No one knows. There must be theories other than my own. So if you have one, contribute it, please.

Mine? All right.

It is a long story. An example to start: In the late forties a group called “The Ink Spots” had numerous musical hits. I recently heard one that was a favorite of both kids and adults back then. “You were only fooling, but I was falling in love.” Thirteen syllables in that line, sung to thirteen notes. Slowly. I timed it. Nineteen seconds from the “you” to the end of “love.” That pace was typical for many songs sung for the pleasure of the silent generation. Almost none of whom were/are autistic.

Stay with me. Some of you remember when Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In” premiered on television in the early seventies. I think it was then, maybe late sixties. People sat around coffee shops and gathered at water coolers the day after each broadcast to laugh at the craziness and marvel at what the program was getting away with on the air.

People also remarked, before they got used to the pace, that “Laugh-In” moved so fast one could hardly keep up with the patter and rapid-fire jokes. But we did reprogram our minds to get used to it.

The so-called “advancements” of technology in music, graphics, filming and editing since then, and the pace of words and images now bombarding each individual conscious make “Laugh-In” seem slow and dated. Re-runs today have us wonder why we once thought it fast paced. Much of television and movie stuff is far faster than “Laugh-In” ever was.

Think about it when you watch the next commercial. For any product. Time each scene. If the camera stays on one person, one scene, one speaker or activity for longer than four seconds, it will be the exception. Try counting “one thousand one, one thousand two,” etc. Start over whenever the camera shifts. You will seldom get to “one thousand four.” Words rattle out accompanying the rapid-fire scenes so fast that if you blink, you miss a bit of action.

Watch a musical number, other than Lawrence Welk reruns. The performer(s) belt out indistinguishable words, partially drowned out by loud instruments, made even less comprehensible by the lack of enunciation. And the camera shots? Not more than four seconds on any one. Start with a close-up of the lead singer. After four seconds, switch to the back ups, giving two seconds to each, go immediately to the drummer for a second, and then his hands and drumsticks for another, then to the guitarist’s hands on the instrument for about two seconds, up to his face for a second, over to the lead singer for three seconds, to the back ups for two, a long shot of the group on the stage for a second before a fast zoom in on the lead for a second, and back to the drummer, the guitarist, the back-ups, the feet of the singer, her legs, her torso, her face, all in two seconds, back to a long shot, as the mind is trying to keep up with processing all that is being flashed momentarily before eyes while decoding the noises pounding the ears at the same time.

Watch a dramatic show. I used to close my eyes at the beginning of “NYPD Blue.” The rat-a-tat-a-tat-tat-tat kettle drum roll accompanying hand held camera shots waving around among people’s faces, people walking, a car, a building, a pedestrian, a crime scene with tape, a body on the ground, a close up of Sipowicz, a building doorway, a street scene, a window in a brick building, and then a pull back shot of the building, seen as the police station. In about six seconds. It made me a bit dizzy and momentarily slightly nauseated.

Most dramatic shows are the same way. Of course they nearly all have background music drowning out the mumbled dialogue. Take a close look.

Movies? I almost never go any more because of the noise overriding the dialogue and the rapid scenes exploding across the screen, seemingly put there simply because moviemakers can. A teen friend loaned me a DVD of his all-time favorite show, “The Matrix.” I watched it, with numerous pauses to allow my eyes, ears, and mind to catch their breaths.

Still with me? Imagine a newborn. The child has seen nor heard nothing that makes sense to a mind without experience. It needs to learn to see and hear and make meaning from what it hears and sees. In other words, the child needs to focus on what it sees that accompanies what it hears and let the mind learn to process it all as meaningful reality. Slowly at first.

Place that kid in front of manic media with ever more rapid-fire delivery during the last twenty years or so. Then wonder why so many more kids are failing to have their brains connect reality with meaning and language. Read the definition again: “Autism; a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts.”

I wonder if there is an explanation for an increase in autism blasting us in the face every time we turn on television.

How many have read this far? Did attention deficit disorder (ADD) cause some to quit reading after the first paragraph or so? Those who quit may have barely escaped being autistic, then. That’s another theory of mine.

Crazy theories? Perhaps. So, you explain the rise of both autism and ADD in American society. Air pollutants? Growth hormone residue in meat products? Fluoride in the water?

Please!

Guilty of far more than the convictions say …

2006-05-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

Enron former CEO Jeff Skillings has been found guilty of conspiracy and fraud. Enron founder Ken Lay has also been found guilty of conspiracy and fraud, as well as insider trading and false statements. I think that last one means “lying.”

I cannot imagine anyone is surprised by those verdicts. But the two men are guilty of so much more than the charges. Lest we forget, think back to some of what the leaders of Enron have done.

First, return to the year 2000. Enron was flying high. George W. Bush was running for President. Kenneth Lay, was one of the best financial friends George W. Bush has ever known, this side of Saudi Arabia. Lay and a number of Enron employees essentially bankrolled Bush's presidential campaign that year.

Even before Bush got White House stars in his eyes, he worked very closely with Enron on energy policy in Texas. So, during that first presidential campaign, he was also flying high -- from campaign stop to campaign stop -- in the Enron corporate jet loaned by Ken Lay, whom Bush publicly called, “Kenny Boy.” Bush touched down on tarmac after tarmac to stand in front of Lay’s Enron jet and pledge at each stop to restore dignity and honesty to the White House. In April, Bush interrupted a campaign schedule to fly to Huston in order to be there for his friend when Kenny Boy threw out the first pitch in the new Enron Field, since renamed.

After Bush was appointed President, he, and/or Cheney, temporarily installed Kenny Boy in a West Wing office where he interviewed candidates for high-level energy department positions in the new administration. Lay was also the one who handpicked the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission--a former lawyer for his company accountant, Arthur Andersen. Kenny and his group from Arthur Anderson also made sure that accounting firms would be exempt from numerous regulations and would not be held liable for any irregular bookkeeping by their clients.

Kenny Boy spent time with his old buddy, Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton. Enron and Halliburton, you should remember, got the big contracts from the first President Bush to "rebuild" Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War, back when Cheney was Secretary of Defense, shortly before he became CEO of Halliburton.

Early in this new Bush administration, Lay and Dick Cheney formed an “energy task force" to put together the country's new "energy policy." A secret policy. Cheney still doesn’t want the names known of those who helped him with that secret American policy. For obvious reasons. It isn’t that the public can’t handle the truth; it is that Cheney cannot.

Enron soon went on to shut down electricity in California with “rolling black outs.” And Enron made out like those cliché bandits while "trading" the energy California desperately needed. Who got blamed for the rolling black outs? The Democrat governor of California, of course. Among other problems and charges, Governor Davis was blamed for not building more power plants.

Governor Davis was recalled; Republican Schwarzenegger was elected. There still have been no new power plants go on line in California, and the summer following the Enron manipulation was even warmer in the state. By then Enron was no longer a “player.” There was, therefore, no California energy crisis.

When Enron collapsed, Kenny Boy took the fifth and refused to answer questions from the Senate committee initially investigating the company. He kept saying, “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.” Remember that. He feared the truth would incriminate him.

Now he has finally been convicted, and Kenny Boy still tells the press that he is absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing. Don’t you wonder, then, why he took the fifth so many times in those early inquiries about his company’s failure?

Kenny Boy sold millions of stock shares in the weeks just before the collapse of Enron, while touting the company’s solidity and stock value to his employees. Enron’s collapse is reported to have obliterated over $60 billion in market value, more than $21 billion in pension plans, and some 5,600 jobs. It is the largest corporate bankruptcy in history.

One cannot help but hope the judge remembers all that when deciding the sentence for the convicted Skillings and Lay. We all need to remember.

So, return, again, to the year 2000, before the collapse, when Kenny Boy was Cheney’s and W’s good buddy. Look at a partial list of the first term Bush League with ties to Enron.

(1) Lawrence Lindsey, chief economic advisor and a former advisor at Enron.

(2) Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, once the CEO of Alcoa, whose lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the #3 contributor to the Bush campaign. Vinson and Elkins is the law firm representing Enron. O’Neil proved to be an outspoken critic of the Bush League, however, and was counseled to resign. That is, he was fired.

(3) Timothy White, the Secretary of the Army, a former vice-chair of Enron.

(4) Robert Zoellick, the first term Federal Trade Representative, a former advisor at Enron.

(5) Karl Rove, the man behind the President, owned a quarter-million dollars of Enron stock.

(6) Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held a large Enron stock portfolio.

(7) As mentioned above, SEC Chairman Harvey Pitts was handpicked by Ken Lay for the position, partially due, perhaps, to his aversion to governmental regulation of any kind.

Individually, where is the impropriety in any one of those appointments? Collectively, there is an appearance of blatant cronyism, at the least.

Changing the subject only slightly, one might wonder what example or signals gave those Enron higher-ups the idea they could rip off employees, stockholders, and the public with lies and dishonest practices and reporting of earnings.

I don’t know, but consider this. The first term Bush administration needed 1.4 trillions of dollars to buy off middle class America with a three hundred dollar check while W’s millionaire supporters got millions in tax reductions. So, the Bush League just had those friendly bookkeepers at Treasury make it look as if there were no deficit, until after the bill had passed. Only then was it publicly confirmed that the Clinton-era surplus was gone, and the deficit was escalating rapidly.

Where, then, you ask, did those Enron foxes get the idea that they could misrepresent earnings, profits, and not mention losses and overhead in their hen-house company and scam millions for themselves before the bubble burst? Where, indeed! Perhaps they saw how easily it had worked for the Bush League at Treasury. The administration set a great example for the Kenny Boy crowd, if they needed one.

The foxes in charge of the Enron hen house were connected at the hip to Bush and the Bush League and knew they had a friend and fellow fox pretending to be the President. After all, they had helped buy the Presidency and install the figurehead. So who would care that foxes were in charge? Kenny just kept Enron problems quiet and told everyone else how great the earnings were and inspired the employees to buy stock while he sold his. A truly foxy deal.

Here’s a warning that needs wider recognition: “When foxes take over the hen house, other animals should be wary of investing in either chickens or eggs.” The end of Enron.

Back to the future, the Bush League plan for retiring the national debt now seems to be to bill our grandchildren, if China doesn’t foreclose on their loans to America first. And with the Enron debacle winding down since the conviction of Skillings and Lay, we await the judgment of their future. So let’s not forget the details of it all before the sentencing, the Fox News interviews and spin reports, the inevitable appeals, and later, the presidential pardons.

_______________

On a non-related matter: Ultra right wing, fanatic Christian shill Pat Robertson claims to have leg-pressed 2,000 pounds. Stop that laughing!

It’s possible, by employing the same math used to figure the age of Methuselah.

~ ~

Yes, of course, we can handle the truth

2006-05-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

There are statements that have little literal meaning, but are repeatedly made anyway. When an official of government or a large corporation unexpectedly “quits,” for example, it is always reported that he or she “resigned” or “retired” (read those words as, “was fired”) “…in order to spend more time with his [or her] family.” Does any reporter who writes that believe it? Does any reader?

An investigative reporter gets an official to reveal information not wanted to be revealed by the principals involved, and the one telling the truth uses the reporter/source confidentiality rules to remain anonymous. “The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.” We have read it countless times. But the statement has recently evolved.

Now we read, “An administration source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation said that…”

What does that mean, “because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation”? I think first of that movie a few years ago when the Jack Nicholson character on the witness stand tells the Tom Cruise lawyer character, “You can’t handle the truth!”

“…because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.” Such crap. We aren't allowed to know who is telling the truth about the case because of the sensitivity of the investigation? What difference would it make to know who it was who leaked/planted/revealed the truth during a “sensitive investigation”?

What we need is for a reporter to write, “A government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wanted the truth to be known, but feared being ostracized or fired, said that...”

Nicholson is a great actor. But his character was wrong. Perhaps liars can’t handle the truth, but the rest of us can. It is just that we are so rarely told what it is.

Competition among gas stations is not like it was

2006-05-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

I am old enough to remember adding just over five gallons of gasoline to Dad’s car after an evening of cruising the streets of my hometown. It was 18.9 cents a gallon at the new, cut-rate station, 20.9 at all the others. Dad was unaware of how far I drove, since the car's odometer had long ceased to function. It cost me one dollar to disguise my cruising. Some nights I added only fifty cents worth, two gallons and a dribble.

When the cut-rate station opened, jokes and urban legends began circulating. A friend knew someone who had a friend who filled up at the new station, and his car stalled before he drove it a mile. People claimed cars using the cheaper gas were towed in for repairs, and the owners discovered the carburetors were hopelessly gummed up. One joke: “Name two cars that start with ‘P.’ Answer: “Pontiac, and any car that uses the cut-rate gas.”

But the station did big business, and the owner thrived and became a civic leader and a city councilman. That all began in the 1950s.

Back then, there were “gas wars.” Station managers seeing that the cut-rate business was cutting into their own businesses lowered their prices to 18.9 cents a gallon to compete. The cut-rate station immediately lowered its price to 16.9 cents a gallon. Other stations followed suit, and for a few days or a week or two, prices fell as competition kept drivers adding inexpensive gas to top off their tanks every day or so. I remember that for one brief day, gas was sold for ten cents a gallon at a competing station. After each round of competition, prices returned to 18.9 and 20.9 cents a gallon until the next “gas war.”

Competition is one of the basic laws of economics we used to have in America. But it no longer exists among filling station owners. It wasn’t so long ago, really, that gas was approaching one dollar a gallon in the nation. I remember the televised newscast that showed the first station to raise the price that high. At least the first in the city where the filming took place. The dollar gas was advertised on a huge sign at a corner station, and on the opposite corner stood a station with gas advertised at ninety some cents a gallon.

What amazed me then, and now, is that there were cars at the pumps where gas was a dollar! I had thought that the station would have sold not a drop, with cheaper gas right across the street. What happened to the economic law of competition? At that moment, it seemed to change.

I now live in the sixth largest metropolitan area of the country. Gasoline prices vary considerably all over town. Why? If it is because some stations lower their prices to attract customers, then why don’t those stations do so much more business that the others will lower their prices to compete?

I recently saw a station manager raise the price to over three dollars a gallon. Stations on two of the other three corners advertised it for less. Did the high priced station stop doing business? Not at all. Motorists lined up in the usual numbers to pump the $3 gas. The other stations followed with gas above three dollars within a day or two.

It is easy to be a curmudgeon and cynically observe that it seems to be a case of individual stations gouging the public for as much as their customers will pay. Perhaps station managers now compete to see who can get away with the highest prices, not to see who can compete for the most business by lowering prices. If that isn't the case, then explain why stations in the most affluent suburb sell gas for ten cents more a gallon, on average, than stations in the least affluent suburb of this same metropolis. They are all, undoubtedly, served by the same tank trucks and suppliers.

Perhaps motorists are, on average, too affluent to care about competition and gas "only" two cents or a dime a gallon cheaper across the street from where they usually buy fuel. I don’t know how else to explain it. But if the old laws of economics worked, stations that raised their prices first would cease selling gas, and those with cheaper prices would notice an immediate increase in customers.

“Let the buyer beware,” but pay the full price anyway...

2006-04-24T18:29:00.000-07:00

I recently browsed through a local drug store and stopped at a carousel rack of reading glasses. Most of them were half-glasses with oval or rectangular lenses. A few looked as if Benjamin Franklin had crafted them. One buys a pair according to a number designation. The numbers are 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5. They refer to the amount of magnification. The glasses all are sold with cases. Tin cases with a pocket clip, nylon envelope cases, or leather ones. You have seen them, I am sure.

Have you ever tried on a pair? And then have you looked at the price?

I mention that because I recently visited an optometrist and had my eyes examined. I also bought new glasses. The examination was a good thing as a check on my vision. But buying the new glasses now seems foolish. They cost more than a hundred dollars. And they are only for reading. I do not need them for driving or seeing at a distance of more than a couple of feet. The doctor said so.

I chose the least expensive frames in the optical store and waited an hour for the lenses to be fitted…and perhaps for the manager to check my credit rating and credit card balance. Who knows? The glasses were well over a hundred dollars, as I said.

The reading glasses in the drug store cost about ten dollars, depending on which style and case. Ten dollars! And they have frames and glass lenses! The frames are attractive. Plenty good enough to wear in public.

So, tell me why frames, alone, at an optometrist’s shop ought to cost over a hundred dollars when one can buy frames with magnifying lenses for ten dollars in a drugstore. Or sunglasses for a few bucks with frames also as attractive as those optometrist ones costing more than a hundred.

I bought a drugstore pair of reading glasses, by the way. They are on my nose as I type. I see the screen and keyboard better than with the prescription pair. With either eye or both. (I just checked that out.) I could have saved a bundle.

But I saved money on a new printer.

Have you bought one lately? Costs have really come down, haven’t they? I have seen some deals where, with the rebate coupon redeemed, the printer is almost free. “How can they do it?” I asked myself about ten months ago while setting up the new machine.

I have figured it out. The company charges twenty-five to forty dollars for the black and color ink replacement cartridges! Little plastic cases that cost, perhaps, a few cents each to manufacture, once the mold and machinery are set into motion. And a few more pennies worth of “toner” powder. I would bet that the packaging and labeling costs more per cartridge than the cartridge itself.

So one buys a new printer for very little and is hooked into purchasing outrageously priced ink every month or so to keep it running! I have spent about $200 on printer cartridges so far, and will no doubt keep the printer for many more months and spend hundreds of dollars more for a few bucks worth of ink. And that is how companies can almost give printers away.

That seems like the same plan of drug pushers who give away samples until the new sap is hooked. Then they charge big fees, when the user needs to continue. That person also has no choice.

We are hooked on prescription drugs, too, of course. We are told that the high prices are to finance the research and development of the companies saving our lives, sex lives, and general health. Right. Foreign countries are not asked to share in the costs of American research and development, I assume, because the same drugs in identical packages can be bought in Canada and Mexico for less money. No one has explained adequately why foreign markets shouldn’t share in the costs of research and development if they buy and sell drugs from those businesses doing the research and development.

I suppose one might make a case for newly developed drugs costing a bit more than the actual cost to make each pill. But explain why a large bottle of brand name aspirin, a drug that has been around for decades, is sealed and shipped from the U.S. to Mexico, and sold in pharmacies there for the equivalent of sixty cents while we still pay dollars. Isn’t the original cost of developing aspirin pretty well paid for by now? What does each little tablet cost to make these days? Couldn’t they be bottled and sold for sixty cents in this country, with the company making at least the same profit per pill as they do from the ones sold to Mexico?

American pharmaceutical companies contributed heavily to the last Bush election campaign. But that wouldn’t influence the president to warn Americans away from cheaper drugs in foreign countries, I am sure. Yet a little over a year ago he told us of the potential dangers of buying foreign drugs. We run the risk of buying contaminated products, he said. Bush was even specific and warned against buying in Canada.

A few weeks later it was learned that this country was running out of flu vaccine, with winter approaching. The supplier had had problems with the manufacturing process. A British supplier. I wonder if Bush knows Britain is a foreign country.

Not to worry, however. Bush soon announced that the shortage would be temporary because the United States was buying enough flu vaccine for everyone from…ready for this? Canada!

I know; this rant includes grossly over simplified economics. But you get the point. We are being misled and gouged by more manufacturers and companies than just those of the oil industry. And we have no choice.

he didn't do it, and he won't do it again...

2006-04-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

Most pundits say that President Bush will not fire Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Critics claim that firing him would be an admission of error on Bush’s part. One report claims Bush said it would be like firing himself. Now there is an idea!

Cynics among us say snidely that Bush won’t fire Rummy because the President doesn’t really have that authority. Rumsfeld, under that acid statement, is seen as a part of the cabal pulling Bush’s strings. Rice, Rove, Cheney, and Rumsfeld may be the ones actually running the government. Bush would, therefore, need permission. From Rumsfeld.

Anyway, the Secretary of Defense has been doing a series of fluff interviews with non-critics, including Rush Limbaugh and Bill Cunningham, trying to increase his support level. On the Cunningham Show, Rumsfeld recently said the following about the retired generals’ criticism of his management of the war.

“Of course, the implication that there was something wrong with the war plan is amusing, almost, because of the fact that the war plan is fashioned by the combatant commanders, and it is reviewed in great detail by the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; then it’s recommended to me and the President.”

In other words, Rumsfeld is saying that there was nothing wrong with the Iraq war plan — and even if there was, the plan isn’t his. The “combatant commanders” and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are the ones who made the bad plan… although there is nothing wrong with it. And, don’t forget, the plan was ultimately sent to Bush.

So far, Rumsfeld hasn’t made those kinds of statements to the mainstream media, perhaps because he realizes a “pass the buck” strategy wouldn’t go over well. Except with his ultra-right wing base of ditto-heads.

A Fox News poll, no less, claims this week that Bush’s approval rating is now down to 33%, the lowest yet. Again, cynics among us wonder how there can still be that many ditto-heads.

Meanwhile, a new report of America’s war spending puts the monthly figure at nearly ten billion dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost ten billion dollars a month!

I wonder if there is anything we could spend that on in this country that might be more worthwhile than killing Iraqi and Afghanistan civilians and insurgents, and paying our contractors to rebuild what we destroy there, and feeding and giving free medical attention to all those peoples, and keeping our own troops in harms way as daily maiming and killing of soldiers continues, while Iraq moves ever closer to all out civil war.

We are told that our military presence is temporary. But huge, fortified, bases are being built and occupied in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Built by contractors making millions (billions?) for their government war work. One report claims that a large US base in Iraq has two fast food franchises and a car dealership inside the fences.

A temporary base.

I guess it depends on what the definition of “temporary” is.

(A) Humans may lie. (B) Government officials are humans. (C) Therefore, government officials may lie.

2006-04-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

A segment of the public seems to want to think of their elected leader as larger than life, possessed with greater powers of perception, with more knowledge and greater wisdom than mere humans. Those people may see themselves as loyal and devoted “children” and their leader as “Daddy,” impossible to do wrong, and able to “lick” anyone else’s old man. People who sincerely believe that about the head of their own party, even subconsciously, are often willing to defend the leader’s actions, no matter what.

Others see political leaders as human, with human traits that allow for mistakes, lies, greed, and personal agendas that may supersede the common good. They also see those same humans with the potential for doing what they believe is right for the majority of Americans and the world. But, first and foremost, they see humans who ought to be held accountable for their actions when they hold temporary positions of national leadership.

Those defending the current charges against the President concerning his alleged authorization of “leaks” sound tragically humorous as they blether on, skirting the truth, searching for a straw to grasp, defending, and twisting and spinning the information as it surfaces, comically unable to admit that their leader may have done wrong and lied about it.

Those who see their leaders as human are shaking their heads, wondering what facts will come out. But they do not doubt that any man in high office could have done what Bush and/or Cheney are accused of doing. They simply wish it were not so.

If you see elected leaders as human, and not often the best humans who could have been chosen, walk through a possible scenario with me. I have no proof of its truth. I only know some of the ways of humans, and I can speculate.

First, a review of what we know. Someone leaked classified information that lead to revealing a CIA operative’s identity. It seems like an attempt to discredit the operative’s husband. He had written an article before the Iraq war began casting real doubt on the administration’s contention that Saddam was buying enriched uranium from Africa, as Bush had confided in conspiratorial tones during a State of the Union Message while he prepared for the invasion. At any rate, it is a crime to reveal the identity of operatives. It also turns out that the “declassified” information released about the Africa purchase proved to be “erroneous intel.”

Bush went on television after the CIA operative had been “outed,” and in sincere tones said he wanted to find out if there was a leak. He assured listener/viewers that if it turned out a member of his administration was involved, he “would be taken care of.” Most people were satisfied. A few wondered, cynically, if being “taken care of” meant the “perp-a-traitor” would be protected, even pardoned.

Investigators eventually discovered that Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, was the one who first gave the information to a journalist. Libby has now testified that Cheney told him to do that. And further, it is reported that Libby said he was hesitant to leak the information until Cheney told him that the action was authorized by Bush, himself.

Now for what leads to speculation. Look at Cheney’s record of lies, deceptions, and his behind-the-scenes way of running the government. Where to start? How about during the first years when it seemed so obvious that Cheney was running things, and Bush was not, that late night comedians jokingly said Bush was only a heart beat away from the Presidency. Cheney’s.

There is a long list of incidents from the beginning showing Cheney seeming to be in charge. Skip forward to 9/11. Bush sat frozen in a Florida classroom when told the nation was under attack. Cheney in DC was putting the nation on alert status. Further, Cheney advised Bush that he should not return to DC because Air Force One was a target. Later there was an official admission that there was never any evidence of that. Cheney, in other words, had lied.

But, instead of rushing back to Washington to take charge of the government, Bush hid out at Offutt Air Force Base, in a cave, near Omaha, NE, while the New York mayor rushed down town to help, and Cheney took charge of the White House.

Two days later, Bush showed up at ground zero with a bullhorn, and the mayor loyally said afterward that the tremendous support and leadership of the President was wonderful to behold. Or words to that effect. The nation cheered Bush’s leadership! Cheney was sent to an undisclosed location as the Bush handlers worked to make the President a hero. Some have speculated that Bush was not happy with Cheney’s visibility immediately after the terrorist attack. Perhaps.

There have been reports speculating that Cheney and Bush have had a falling out. We don’t know. But think of them as humans, and consider a few more facts we do know. Again, early in the first term, Cheney met secretly with oil industry officials to form the nation’s secret energy policy. Criticism of that continues to hurt the administration. Cheney pushed through the first round of tax cuts for the super rich, and when Bush questioned the need for a second round, asking what about the lower income people, Cheney was reported to have said, “Remember our principles, remember our principles.” (Did he mean, “Remember our principal”?) The second round was passed, and the national debt soared.

A small plane headed into White House air space on a working week day as Bush was riding a bike in Maryland. Cheney, however, was working at his desk and ordered an evacuation, including Laura Bush. The President was not notified of the potential attack on the White House and his wife until he returned some time later, after the alert was over. Even, Laura, the First Lady of Stepford, said that the President should have been told at the time. Some see that incident as a turning point in the Bush-Cheney relationship.

Whatever the case, it is true that not long after, Cheney went on a vacation to Wyoming while Bush spent August in Texas, and Hurricane Katrina roared toward New Orleans.

Remember, Bush and Cheney are humans. So Cheney, who had been taking charge for years, sat in Wyoming, perhaps thinking he’d let the little guy take care of it himself, since Bush had been so upset with the evacuation scenario at the White House and Cheney’s role right after 9/11.

And, perhaps the little guy didn’t know what to do, relying on others as he had from the start, assuming others would take charge, again, as they had from the beginning. That could have been partly his thinking, or lack of thinking. Humans act that way sometimes. Whatever the thinking, Katrina came ashore while FEMA did almost nothing right.

And the destruction and continuing fiasco on the Gulf Coast was and is too tragic to describe adequately here. The criticism was loud. Bush had to hear it.

So what did he do? Again, I am imagining, based on knowledge of fallible human nature. But it seems as if he decided to show Cheney and his critics and the nation that he could, indeed, take charge of an issue. Bush surprised everyone, including his staunchest supporters, by nominating his advisor, friend, and one of his biggest fans, especially during those trying post-Katrina days, to the Supreme Court! Surely you still remember Harriett Miers.

Another peek at possible relationships occurred when Cheney had that hunting accident. He not only didn’t notify authorities for many hours, he never did call the President to inform him. And Bush did not call Cheney to talk about it after the news was made public. That indicates strained relations to me.

Though there is much more, that may be enough to give a possible view of the relationships and ways of thinking going on in the White House. So, go back again to Scooter Libby’s recent testimony. He testified that Cheney told him it was Bush who authorized the leaking of classified information, later proven inaccurate, but information that lead to revealing a CIA operative’s name, a felony, and helped deceive the nation to accept war with Iraq.

It is interesting that so many journalists today are saying Bush authorizing the leak. What Libby testified to was that Cheney told him that Bush had authorized the information be put “out there.” There is an important difference, but the media has assumed that both Libby and Cheney were telling the truth, Libby to the Grand jury, and earlier, Cheney to Libby. So, the media says, “Bush told Cheney to get the information out, and so he did, through Libby.” But is that the way it happened?

Put that Valerie Plame leak into the context of the time it occurred, back when Cheney was taking charge and there seemed to be no split between him and Bush. So, did the President authorize that leak? If so, did he know what he was authorizing? Or did Cheney, who may have been in charge more often than not back then, simply lie and tell the hesitant Scooter that the President had authorized release of the information?

Don’t call me a conspiracy theory nutcase. Something happened back then. Humans in the White House leaked, or planted, information, seemingly for their own purposes. They were not larger than life leaders knowing what was best for mere humans. They were, and are, humans. They had personal agendas and acted in ways that might push them forward. So think about it within the context of how humans can behave in order to maintain power, get their way, or achieve their goals.

An Associated Press story on April 7 said the following. “Bush merely instructed Cheney to ‘get it out’ and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said.”

I think that report fits my scenario, though one must suspect the complete accuracy of the anonymous lawyer source.

The AP story continued: “It is not known when the conversation between Bush and Cheney took place. The White House has declined to provide the date when the president used his authority to declassify the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified document that detailed the intelligence community's conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Those are the “conclusions” that proved erroneous, by the way. But as interesting as that may be, there is another question.

Why would the Bush League decline to provide the date of declassification if there were nothing to hide? And if the information were declassified, why was there a need to plant or leak it to the press?

To summarize: Bush may have authorized the leak. Or he may have told Cheney to “get it out;” “it” being the National Intelligence Estimate, the information, though wrong, he thought would help his case. Or Cheney may have lied to Libby about Bush authorizing the leak. Or Libby may be lying now, but today, that seems least likely.

Conclusion: Someone in high office is lying. And not just about his sex life.

Show your work; don’t just record the answer

2006-04-01T13:31:00.000-08:00

I feel my blood pressure rise whenever sample, standardized test questions for schools are printed in the newspaper as examples of “what kids ought to know.” I want to rant against the test makers who decide that. And then at the media and public who buy into it.

Next, I look at the questions to see what ambiguities there are to confuse the brightest kids, if not the slowest. I can always find ambiguity at the thinking levels of young students. My reasons for doing that are complex, perhaps, but part of it is the result of a test I took in the first grade.

Back then, almost no reading instruction, as such, was given in kindergarten. So we learned about reading in first grade. After only eighteen weeks, our class of nine six-year-olds was given a standardized reading/achievement test. I remember almost nothing about the questions.

I do remember one item, however, and two of the possible answer choices. There were probably at least three choices, most likely four. I missed the question.

I would never have known that, but the principal and teacher called me to the desk to look at the test and to explain my answer. The principal, Mr. Kitch, told me that it was the only question I had missed, and he wanted to understand my reason for marking the wrong choice. Imagine you are six years old and faced with that.

“I only missed one?” I said, showing where my priorities lay, perhaps. But I looked at the paper.

The test word was “mansion.” Pupils were to draw a line to the picture that represented the word’s meaning. I stood before the teacher and principal, immediately recalling my confusion in deciding.

As a depression era child from a tiny home on a dirt street in a blue-collar neighborhood where few families had cars, some families were without steady jobs, and there were almost no luxuries, I had had no experience with large houses. The word “mansion” held no meaning for me. I could recall neither hearing nor seeing the word before. But I had learned the skills necessary to “read” it.

I remember looking at the picture of the huge building with a large porch, wide windows, and tall columns and wondering if the word might mean that structure. First, I used the process of elimination to disregard the other pictures, thinking I knew the words that should be used to describe each of them. I drew a line to the house.

Then I erased it, for one other picture suddenly held confusing meaning. A man in a postal worker’s uniform and carrying a mailbag was another choice. My family called that a “mailman.” But as I sat pondering, I dissected the word “mansion,” and do clearly still remember thinking that the syllable “man” certainly could refer to the mailman. “Perhaps,” I thought, “the syllable ‘sion’ refers in some way to his uniform or to his job of delivering mail.” After drawing a line to the house and erasing it, I drew the line to the mailman.

Remember, the test was designed to show aspects of reading inability. It revealed my vocabulary limitation, perhaps as intended, and my socio-economic experience level. It failed to show that I could pronounce the word upon seeing its spelling or that I could divide a word into its syllables.

The teacher and principal were wiser than the makers of the test. Not only that, with a class of nine pupils in a small school, both the teacher and principal had time to dig into instruction as well as pupil thinking and learning. I explained the syllable “man,” and my confusion about the syllable “sion” as best I could. Mr Kitch nodded and smiled, and the teacher, Miss McNeil, turned to him and said, “I had a feeling that was the case.” She patted my hand and explained that “mansion” was a name for a really large home. She also told me that my thinking through the question was very good, even though I had selected an incorrect answer.

I have never forgot. And I now look for ambiguity, from a student point of view, in test questions.

The local paper recently printed a few sample items Arizona schools claim they believe every sixth grader must know. Here is one. “Read the following phrase from the poem: Salty sausages and sweet syrup

This is an example of which element of poetry?
A> alliteration
B> onomatopoeia
C> rhythm
D> repetition”

Forget that similar questions appear in high school literature textbooks. The state of Arizona has decreed that sixth graders should know the answer. Never mind that most adults have forgotten the answer, or have forgotten what the other choices might be as poetry elements, if they ever knew. Or needed to know.

So, imagine that you are a sixth grader, not yet twelve years old, less than 144 months of life coursing through your young body. Let’s say you are relatively bright and know even more than the test asks. You repeat the poetic phrase in your head a few times. There is a definite rhythm. Hmmm. Is the answer “C”?

But four of the five words begin with the letter “s.” Surely the answer is “repetition,” because the “s” sound is repeated so often. And also, you bright little sixth grader, you know that sausage, by its nature is salty. Syrup is sweet. Therefore “salty sausages” seems almost what the teacher introduced as “redundant”; “sweet syrup” seems the same. You remember that redundancy is a kind of repetition. The answer must be “D --repetition.”

Wait. There was something about repeating initial sounds of words close together. “Initial sounds.” That must be the first sounds of the words, the sounds of their initials. It wasn’t just repetition. What was it? Maybe “onomatopoeia”? No, that means a word that sounds a little like its meaning, such as “buzz.” So was that element of poetry called “alliteration?” Maybe. Or “assonance?” But “assonance” isn’t one of the choices. They have similar meanings, though. Something about sounds in the words.

There is so much repetition in that phrase, and of two different kinds, both structure and meaning, that with a high level of sixth grade logic, you decide to settle on “D - - repetition.”

The test-correcting machine will mark it wrong. People who never met you will interpret the score, but they will not look at the answer you gave in order to understand how you were thinking. Your score may help them decide you are mentally slow for your grade level. Slower than the kids who lucky-guessed the correct answer and slower than those who had memorized the definition of “alliteration,” but perhaps remembered nothing about “redundant” and “assonance” and “onomatopoeia,” and how to think through a multiple choice question.

The classroom teacher and the principal would know better, if they had the chance to go over the mandated standardized tests given to pupils they know, but whom the test makers do not. A situation like this could help people make a case for schools being given back to the communities and their control back to the teachers and administrators. Except that so many of those people have fallen for the nonsense of the federal, “No Child Left Behind” act, designed to produce cookie-cutter kids who can all recall the same trivia, but who may not have learned to think.

Anyway, do you remember the math teachers who insisted you show your work and not simply record the answers to the problems? One enlightened teacher gave partial credit for knowing the procedure, even if you made a simple calculation error.

Perhaps if we want to know how our students think, as well as what they can recall, we ought to ask them to “show their work” when they answer standardized reading questions or ones about the elements of poetry, for just two examples. Or we could give the schools and testing back to local educators.

Maybe, however, America wants schools to indoctrinate rather than to teach thinking; that is, perhaps we now believe recalling facts in order to answer test questions is proof of thinking and learning. If that is what we want, then standardized test scores might be proof that teachers have “indoctrinated.”

By the way, did you know that older first brother Neil Bush heads a company developing and selling computer software to parents, schools, and learning centers to help kids pass those mandated standards? Yes, that Neil Bush. The one whose mother gave money to a hurricane Katrina relief fund with the stipulation that it be used to buy software from his company for kids in the storm’s wake. The Bush brother who was divorced after it came out he had traveled often to China as a political “consultant” and was given women at his hotel door to help the “givers” gain the ear of his brother. Right. That Neil Bush, who was involved, but never blamed, for his part in the failure of the Savings and Loans a few years back that cost taxpayers billions. That’s the guy, getting rich from the federal testing mandate promoted by his brother. One report dared reveal that his software company was initially set up and financed by Arab friends of the Bush family. I’d love to see sample questions from his company’s software. I’ll bet there is ambiguity there.

I have a question, Mr. President…

2006-03-29T22:51:00.000-08:00

If I could somehow smuggle myself into one of those meetings whose invited attendees are friendly to the president, and if I could get called upon to ask Mr. Bush a question, here is my first one.

“Mr. President, we have heard you explain several times how firmly you believe in democracy for the world, that it is the United States’ responsibility, even obligation, to export democracy, to help make all peoples in all regions of the world free, and to change governments to democratic ones where they are not.

“Sir, I began taping your televised comments when you were a candidate in 2000. In one of your interviews from that year you responded to a reporter by saying, “I don’t think it is such a good idea for America to go around the world telling other countries how to live. I don’t think we should engage in ‘nation building.’ That only makes other countries hate the United States.” Your supporters agreed with you in great numbers.

My question, Sir, is: ‘Why did you flip on that position?’”

Is the answer a strong third party, or another revolution?

2006-03-23T11:02:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES syndicated columnist Cal Thomas has for years been an outspoken supporter of the far right wing of the Republican Party. His consistently conservative position has almost never strayed from the tenets of Republicanism held dear by Goldwater and Reagan and the ultra right wing religious neo-cons of recent years. And he has been a staunch supporter of nearly all Republicans.

I was, therefore, surprised to read the following in Thomas’ column on March 22, 2006: “The Senate vote increased the debt ceiling for the fourth time in five years. The statutory debt limit has now risen by more than $3 trillion since President Bush took office. That any Republican majority could preside over such fiscally irresponsible spending ought to be grounds for revoking their party membership.”

Ouch! Bush has vetoed exactly zero spending bills, you know! Zero bills of any kind.

Thomas continued, “This is mostly about politics, not terrorism. Republicans fear that only gobs of money will endear them to voters in sufficient numbers to re-elect their increasingly precarious majority.” And he asks, “Why should Republicans be re-elected when one of the major reasons the GOP exists is to reduce the size and cost of government and free more people to do for themselves instead of restricting their liberties through big government.”

Double ouch!

Thomas points out that the immense national debt is largely owned by countries that are, or who could become, our enemies. He mentions that Republican Calvin Coolidge and Democrat Bill Clinton left office with a surplus. “That a Republican Congress and administration are engaging in such promiscuous spending is obscene.”

Such obscenity seems to me to be dangerous to our national security, as well.

There is more. Thomas criticizes Republican increased spending for health and education programs and the folly of the money spent on No Child Left Behind when there is no evidence that increased money alone increases learning.

Thomas can’t quite advocate voting for Democrats, however. He assumes in print that they would be as guilty of deficit spending as the Bush League, even after mentioning the budget surplus of Democrat Clinton.

So what is the Thomas solution? “Maybe it’s time for a strong third party or, failing that, another revolution.”

Is Cal Thomas calling for American armed insurrection? Or simply a voter revolution at the polls? It is hard to tell.

It is, indeed, a different world, however, when I read that Cal Thomas seems to feel the Republican Party has left him! I know many other Republicans who feel the same way these days. Perhaps that includes most of the increasing number of registered Independents. But Cal Thomas?

Years ago Walter Cronkite broadcast his changed view that Viet Nam was a lost cause, and that we should not be fighting there. LBJ said something to the effect that he knew it was over when he lost the support of Cronkite. Soon after, he announced that he would not seek another term.

Well, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and the other puppeteers pulling the strings of the Bush League should similarly shake in their boots to read that ultra-conservative Cal Thomas is now advocating either a third party or a revolution as alternatives to voting Republican!

~ ~

Pick a number... any number

2006-03-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I stood in a grocery checkout line and noticed the tease headlines on a number of magazines in the rack. Nearly all advertised an article by including a number in the blurb. “3 Secrets Every Bride Needs for Her Wedding Night,” “The 6 Most Sensuous Places to Touch Your Lover,” and “2 Secrets Your Man Will Never Tell You About His Desires.” You get the idea. I chuckled and began looking at the way numbers are used to advertise.

Successes with that marketing ploy, and inflation, have made the numbers game a big deal in other areas of commerce than just magazine publishing. For example, disposable razors once had a single blade. Then two were a big hit, one cutting edge stretching the hair and the second shaving it closer to the skin! Next we were given a triple blade. After a few years, the Quatro was introduced, and we have recently been offered a five bladed, disposable safety razor.

Six must be on someone’s drawing board. “The first five blades each stretch the hair a bit farther out of the follicle, and the sixth blade cuts it so close that you need shave only once a month.” Or something like that.

Magazines may still be the best at using numbers to market their products, though. I stood before a rack in a Barnes and Noble bookstore yesterday and copied titles from covers of 18 magazines onto the back of the only paper I had – a long receipt from a shoe store and the credit card slip stapled to it.

BRIDES featured an article, “160 Creative Ways to Personalize your Day.” But who would buy that when next to it was MODERN BRIDE with a cover ad saying, “520 Creative Ideas”? Three hundred and sixty more ideas for about the same price!

The cover on the winter issue of WEDDING FLOWERS magazine brags, “108 Bouquets.” It has been some time since I attended a wedding; however, 108 bouquets seem to be more than needed for any ceremony. But what do I know? Perhaps wedding planners now have the bride issuing a bouquet to every woman in attendance.

The April issue of ALLURE suggests, “97 Tips on the Best Sleep Solutions.” I have never considered sleeping in a solution, though there are milk baths, and I have dozed in a tub of water, a wonderful sleep solution, especially if it is really warm. I wonder what the other 95 or 96 solutions to immerse oneself in might be. ALLURE readers know.

A magazine new to me is FAMILY TREE. The cover of the April issue claims, “7 Techniques to Analyze Ancient Evidence,” and another article, “6 Tools to Make Sense of Surnames.” Not the highest of numbers, but the only magazine on the rack with two “number articles” on the same cover.

MODEL RAILROADING has a special issue this month advertising, “12 New Track Plans.” Now, come on; who couldn’t create a new track plan? Come up with twelve, and get a special issue featuring them.

SMART MONEY for April claims, “9 Steps to a Healthy and Prosperous Retirement.” But KIPLINGERS offers, “89 Solutions, Strategies, and Secrets That Will Save You Thousands and Still Live the Good Life.” I am not sure of that syntax. Maybe I left out a word. But KIPLINGER’s 89 trumps SMART MONEY’s 9, for my money!

There is a magazine titled, FORBES CIGAR AFIECIONADO. The cover brags, “25 Best Cigars of the Year.” Don’t you wonder about the circulation of that publication? Perhaps there is a feature article waiting to be written: “Profiles of the 3 Readers of This Magazine!”

Sexual innuendo is still present, but does not seem so prevalent as it was in the past. March and April must be poor months for sex-help articles. The April COSMOPOLITAN does list, “7 Ways to Make Him Ache for You.” And the March issue was still on the rack, telling readers, “99 Things to Do to a Naked Man.” Female readers, I presume. And it would be tempting to try adding a number 100 for them.

The April AMOUR magazine headlines, “66 Dirty Details of Other People’s Sex Lives.” The dirtiest thing about that is AMOUR reporting on other people’s sex lives, in detail!

MS magazine claims in the winter issue, “5 Ways a Woman’s Heart Differs From a Man’s.” I suppose that could be physiological differences rather than romantic ones. But in MS?

The April VOGUE features, “53 Swimsuits for Every Size.” There are some sizes that no one want to see in even one swimsuit, let alone 53!

And the March HARPERS BAZAAR has, “783 New Ideas to Flatter You.” Seven hundred eighty-three! Not seven hundred eighty-two or even seven hundred eighty. Imagine the author going crazy trying to come up with just two more flattering ideas to make it a neat “785.” Like the author trying for an even 100 things to do to a naked man, the writer couldn’t think of even one more; so, the editor went with “783”! And all are “New Ideas.” It says so on the cover.

CONSUMER REPORTS for spring advertises “350+ Brand Name Products Rated.” Why not the actual number? Is it “351”? Whoever decided to say “350+” probably laughs at HARPERS BAZAAR saying “783 New Ideas to Flatter You.” The CONSUMER REPORTS editor would say, “780+.”

The April edition of LUCKY: THE MAGAZINE ABOUT SHOPPING features a cover blurb touting, “124 Bags You Want Right Now.” Insert your own joke here.

The champion numbers-game-cover-blurb among the magazines goes to a British publication. Frankly, that is not surprising. I have said before that the Brits seem so fond of superlatives that if anything truly unique needed describing in their country, they would be at a loss for words, having used all their adjectives to describe the mediocre. But that is another rant. Anyway, the British GLAMOUR magazine cover claims, “1243 Hot Spring Buys.” They win. Again, couldn’t the editors have found seven more hot buys for spring and made it 1250? I suspect many of the 1243 hot spring buys are bags.

The April issue of WRITERS DIGEST reveals, “23 Agents Looking for New Authors.” Naturally, I bought the magazine. All 23 agents will soon hear from me, too. We’ll see how truthful cover blurbs are. Let the bidding war begin!

Just don’t ask why I stopped the survey at 18 magazines. If you must know, there wasn’t room on the back of the receipt to write a nineteenth and twentieth.

Thank you, Kirby Puckett

2006-03-09T18:04:00.000-08:00

Three years before Kirby Puckett retired from baseball, my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson moved to a different community. My grandson endured the agonies of entering eighth grade in a new school.

Shortly after the move, another man from the office was talking sports with my son, who acknowledged being a fan of the Minnesota Vikings.

The man revealed that Randal McDaniel, then a Viking, is his relative. Talk continued, and the man asked how my grandson was coping with the move.

“All right. But he misses good friends and is finding it hard to get acquainted as a new kid in eighth grade.”

“Is he also a Vikings fan?”

“Yes, but he likes baseball better right now. He loves the Twins and idolizes Kirby Puckett.”

Perhaps two weeks later, the man walked into my son’s office and placed a brown paper bag on his desk. “Take this home to your boy.” Inside was a baseball, signed to my grandson, from Kirby Puckett.

The fellow had told Randal McDaniel about the eighth grade kid who had moved to a new school. McDaniel and Kirby were good friends. So, the story was repeated, and Kirby passed a ball along to a young boy coping with new surroundings.

No media. No public relations announcement. Just a gesture to an unknown fan he thought needed a lift. My son and daughter-in-law suggested that a “thank you” letter might be in order. My grandson happily wrote it.

The man in the next office later related that Kirby said it was the first “thank you” letter he had received.

I wish he could know that this is another.

Just the fact's, ma'am, just the facts

2006-02-24T12:38:00.001-08:00

Rants against government officials’ ineptitude are so easy these days. Perhaps that is why I have sat shaking my head in wonder recently instead of composing my irritation.

Look at some facts. Cheney accidentally shot a friend in the face, neck, and chest. He did not report it for about eighteen hours. He did not call the President before the incident was made public, nor after. The President did not call him, either.

At least one report said that a deputy sheriff was turned away by Secret Service people when he first went to see Cheney.

Eventually the woman hostess at the shooting ranch told the media about the accident and volunteered that there was no alcohol consumed at all. The deputy sheriff who did talk with Cheney about eighteen hours later went with that, presumably, and said there was no evidence of drinking. In later questioning, Cheney admitted to having a beer at lunch before the hunt. But that “evidence” would not be present after eighteen hours, of course.

So far, no one has asked Cheney, publicly, whether or not he also had a beer before lunch or after. O.K. so that is a cheap shot that doesn’t belong in my list of facts, even though it is true. File it under, “Typical way Cheney plays with words and meaning.”

Back to the facts as reported: Cheney and the victim were hunting with another person, first named as “another hunter” and also referred to in initial reports as “the third hunter.” Later investigation pointed out that the third hunter was a married woman. None of the spouses of the married group were in on the hunt, itself.

One report, at least, has mentioned the adult daughter of the widow hostess was also with the group.

First reports lightly said that the man shot had been “peppered,” and the wounds were “superficial.”

The victim was placed in intensive care. Later reports told of the seriousness of the wounds and the high number of pellets that penetrated the man’s body. One lodged in or near a heart muscle. The man had a mild heart tremor as a result. Cheney has explained the delay in reporting the accident as partly to see first that the man was going to be all right. From his “superficial” wounds.

When the Republican big donor was released from the hospital and talked with reporters, he apologized for causing the vice president anguish by getting shot!

Republican backers-to-the-death keep saying, “So what’s the big deal? Accidents happen. Move on!”

All right.

Moving on, a company in Dubai has purchased the British company that manages various ports in this country. President Bush was out of the loop and did not learn that Arabs would to be managing our ports until the deal was completed a few days before it was to be announced.

He then talked with some U.S. leaders and those who had been negotiating with the companies and announced it was a done deal.

Former senator and one-time Republican candidate for President, Bob Dole is now a highly paid lobbyist who was hired by the Arabs to help finalize the agreement.

Both Republican Senator McCain and former Democrat President Carter are on record as supporting Bush on this.

Bush has said that Congress should listen to what he, as President, says about the deal, and added that if they pass legislation against it, he will veto their bill. That would be the first Presidential veto during Bush’s five years in office.

There is bipartisan outrage against having Arabs from any country managing American ports.

“And that’s the truth. Pffftttttttt.”

Two "story problems" for your arithmetic assignment

2006-02-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

Years ago I read an article reporting that a new park in Nebraska, open to the public at no cost, was facing tough times and might have to close for lack of operating funds. It took about $50,000 to keep the archaeological site open in the warmer months as “Ashfall State Park.” The article reported on the nature of the digging going on at the site and concluded by telling that at least 50,000 people had visited the place each summer since it had opened.

Let’s see now: It cost $50,000 a year to keep the park public. Admission was free. More than 50,000 people visited each year. But it might have to close for lack of funds. Can anyone come up with a solution from the facts of the article?

Of course there is an admission fee today. When I visited, perhaps three years ago, the cost was five dollars per car. The site seemed to be thriving. I doubt anyone who had got in free during the first couple of years the park was open has refused to visit now because of the fee. It seems to me to be a good example of a solution to a problem appearing in the description of the problem.

Here is a much more recent “arithmetic story problem” describing a situation that has an explanation imbedded within the report. An Associated Press article by Lolita C. Baldor appeared in the paper I read on January 26. Baldor reported a study by the Rand’s National Defense Research Institute of reservists called to active duty. They found 72 percent of the troops surveyed made more money while on war duty than they did in their civilian jobs. The newspaper had headlined the story, “Most reservists make more on duty than off.”

The article also reported that Rand senior economist Jacob Alex Klerman said the researchers are “still working to understand why this differs so dramatically from reports about families struggling to get by when a primary wage-earner goes to war.”

Shall we clear it up for him? Seventy–two percent, or “most reservists,” making more money means that, as was also reported, “28 percent of the reservists lost money when they were called up.”

Baldor did not spell it out further, but it seems obvious. For every one hundred reservists called to active duty, twenty-eight lose money. For every thousand reservists called up, two hundred eighty families receive smaller paychecks. And how many thousand reservists have been called up? More than fifty thousand? If so, it means that across America at least 14,000 families have faced or are facing financial hardships! And counting. Some might call that a disgrace. You and I, for example.

But Klerman wants additional study to figure out why there are reports of reservist families struggling when the wage-earner is called to war, since 72 percent make more on duty than off. Let’s hope the Rand people read Baldor’s article and then do the math.

Why millions are turning off their television sets...

2006-01-25T20:58:00.000-08:00

I have developed a slight hearing loss, especially when it comes to sounds in the higher register. I have been tested. It is not yet serious. Millions of Americans are in the same category, I was told. Millions.

One of the problems is that it has become difficult to pick a voice out of the sounds of background noise in a bar, at a party, or from the god damned background music that movie and television film makers insist on piling onto their sound tracks simply because they can. I mean, music to accompany the so-called reality shows we see these days is certainly a far cry from reality. So there is no real reason to have any music accompany the action. There is a detective, for example, bending over a corpse in the desert, wondering to his partner how …how… Hell, I don’t know what. The symphony orchestra out there on the sand in the dark is drowning out his words!

I see the network is canceling “The West Wing.” I do not know why, but am reasonably sure that if viewers watched in high enough numbers, it would be renewed again. I do not know the reasons each of the viewers has left the show. But I know why I have. And dozens of others I have talked to about the problem say the same thing, perhaps with a milder vocabulary. The actors in that drama do not enunciate. They speed-speak without moving their mouths and mumble while background music there in the White House drowns out the words. Especially the women characters whose voices, typically, fall into a higher register than the male voices. When Allison Janney and that straight haired, straight faced, unsmiling blonde aide banter, it is impossible to adjust the volume so that one word in ten is understood through the loud music.

I have punched in the closed captioning feature a number of times. But it takes more work than I am often willing to expend to sit still and read what I cannot quite hear, though it is a relief to turn down that god damned symphony in the White House and just go with the story.

At a neighborhood party last week, the “West Wing” cancellation was discussed. No one in the group watches the show any more. And the reasons were all the same. “I cannot hear what the hell the characters are saying!”

Now before you chalk all this up to the title of my blog and decide I am more curmudgeon than anything else, let me say that I understand every word of nearly every commercial! In fact, I turn down the volume when they come on. So you see, it is possible for sound engineers in TV land to allow viewers to understand the words. I also understand every word of news broadcasts on both network and cable channels. Male or female, I understand their talk! It is not the speaker system of my television nor my ears! I can understand newsmen and commercial actors! I also understand every word Charlie Rose says, and everything those he interviews say as well. I hope his producer never decides to heap orchestrations onto the sound track, simply because he knows how.

When CNN shows the fighting in Iraq, there is no music. When ABC News shows the scene of a plane crash, no band drowns out the FAA investigators being interviewed. I, therefore, understand everything that is said.

So I channel surf looking for something to watch for an hour or so. Hey! A program on the Adventure, or was it the Discovery, channel called “The First Eve.” Great. And there are early humans wandering among the trees 35,000 years ago or so as a narrator describes how it all came about, and a god damned symphony orchestra tries desperately to drown him out. Did you know that a full orchestra accompanied the first humans out of Africa, playing loudly all the way?

Tonight the last straw fell and I shut the television off to vent right here. Public broadcasting showed a film called “The War That Made America.” All Right! And there were Indians, French, and Red Coated Englishmen fighting one another in a forest somewhere while a narrator tried in vain to tell me about it above the god damned noise of the symphony orchestra accompanying the fighting. I watched for three minutes and understood nothing I heard.

I would complain to whoever might make a difference if I knew who that was. All I know is that millions of Americans do not watch television as much as they would if they could understand what was being drowned out by that god damned background music that is anything but reality. Millions!

You take that back!

2006-01-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

If the neighborhood where you grew up was at all like mine, then you were occasionally denied your American right to say whatever you wanted, without repercussions. An older sibling, the neighborhood bully, or a friend who took umbrage sometimes changed your mind. You saw your buddy in fifth grade walk a whole block after school with a girl, for example.

“Tommy’s got a girl friend; Tommy’s got a girl friend,” you chanted as an American free to say what you thought. Until Tommy grabbed you, shoved you to the ground, twisted your arm behind your back and demanded, “Take that back!”

So you did. “Ow! Ow! O.K, I take it back!” Tommy let you up, and you skipped away from his grasp, laughed, and said, “No I don’t!” And you ran.

Well, of course you didn’t “take it back.” Neither Tommy nor anyone else ever thought that you really meant it when you “took back” the words, whether you accused him of having a girl friend, being a “cry-baby” a “tattle-tale,” or having a mother who wore army boots! You simply claimed to take it back, and then laughed. The rest of us laughed, too.

These days Pat Robertson regularly spouts juvenile nonsense that he seems to believe passes for religious thought. The Uber Christian recently implied that Israel Prime Minister Sharon suffered a stroke as divine retribution for returning land to the Palestinians. After several days of rebukes from Israel, from evangelical leaders, and from members of the mainstream media, Robertson has apologized. He “takes it back.” So are we to believe that he no longer holds the ignorant ideas he voiced a week earlier? Or is he just sorry he said them so publicly?

A second example: The overall World Cup champion downhill skier, American Bode Miller, was asked on camera about his party ways and the effects of drinking on his skiing. Miller admitted to having skied while “wasted.” A large portion of the world was outraged. So Miller has said he regrets the “confusion and pain” he has caused. “The most important thing,” he said, “is that I wanted to come straight out and apologize to mostly my family, friends.”

Everyone who believes that is truly the most important “thing,” stick your finger in your eye. What is Miller actually sorry about? His behavior, which he will now change? “Yes, of course, I take it all back, really.” Or is he simply sorry for having admitting skiing while wasted?

Since we all know that bending someone’s arm behind him until he “takes it back” is nonsense, why do we seem to put so much stock in wrenching apologetic words from people who say stupid things that they really mean? Why don’t we adopt the code of childhood and just laugh them out of their standing in the neighborhood?

Ktraveldan Network

2005-12-28T22:49:00.000-08:00

Ktraveldan Network Kim Riley wrote: "anyone who discounts the validity of astrology as a direct result of ignorance, misunderstanding, or fear must be stoopid, and that's all there is to it. Case closed!"

I laughed, for Adolph Hitler, Shirley Temple, Richard Nixon, Jesus Christ, (if you accept his celebrated birthday as actual) and I are all Capricorns. How valid does that make astrology?

Nothing went right, but all is right anyway

2005-12-20T23:34:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else questioned the headlines our president is getting in recent days for what everyone but Bush League politicians have been saying for months? “W” is suddenly acknowledging responsibility for what he is obviously responsible for!

So far, he hasn’t been held accountable, but newspapers are headlining his candor in claiming responsibility, anyway. For example, he now admits that intel about Iraq was faulty. He acknowledges that the war has not always gone smoothly. And he gets more and more headlines and, yes, praise for saying the obvious. His poll numbers have even climbed.

When we hail the chief for simply admitting being chiefly responsible, what does that say about our national expectations of the guy?

Published writers get published; wannabes get exploited

2005-12-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

I have long thought that one could write an exposé contending the most exploited group of workers in this country are writers, especially would-be authors. Think of the huge industry there is taking money from people who hope, mostly in vain. They hope that this or that book, this or that course, this or that editor, this or that workshop, this or that magazine, this or that paid-to-read agency, this or that "contest," and, finally, this or that vanity press, will somehow get their manuscripts published, and as best sellers! Ah, the hopes of the millions who wish to see their words in print! The proliferation of blogs is at least partly a result of that wish.

I cannot imagine that Tom Wolfe, for example, purchases a new copy of the WRITERS MARKET each year. But the reference book is expanded and updated yearly and sold for big bucks to thousands upon thousands of aspiring writers, some who have a closet full of older editions. The number of publishing houses who will not consider new authors grows with each fat edition. So do the number of notations that only agent-submitted manuscripts will be considered. Still, would-be authors by the tens of thousands buy the new edition each year and pour over the pages looking for the publisher of their dreams to reject their work.

I would even bet that there are few published authors who subscribe to WRITERS DIGEST. The large circulation figures of that magazine are made up of people who hope to be published, not authors of best sellers, Pulitzer winners, and other writers supporting themselves as authors.

There are other marketing volumes offering hope similar to that of WRITERS MARKET. Countless books with the promises of publication embedded somehow in the hopeful title fill bookstore shelves.

Who buys them? Not published authors! The wannabes fill their shelves with the latest on how to write, how to publish, how to market, etc.

Some struggling to publish have been willing to pay as much as $10,000 for the professional editing of a story they believe will make them famous and rich, in that order. Yes, there are “editors” advertising their services for such fees. No promise of publication accompanies their offer to edit, however. Editors make their money from the hopeful writer. The writer makes nothing. You don’t believe me? Then tell an editor you will pay his fees after you sign the six figure contract as a result, in part, of his editing your manuscript. See if the editor will work for and with you and take pay only after the sale, as you, the writer must do.

There are also books and articles and workshops, almost yearly, on how to write successful queries. How to write an outline. How to develop a plot. How to create believable characters. There was even a book a few years ago on how to name characters. I have come to believe that the best way to get published may well be to write a book on some aspect of how to get published! The potential market for such volumes is, obviously, huge and never ending.

So the "struggling writer," believing in himself or herself, tries everything, spends money by the buckets, and keeps trying and spending and spending and spending as the huge publishing industry, with all its tangental groups and businesses, makes money from the "writers'" efforts while almost never publishing the writer’s work.

There are many "Contests" requiring entry fees! Sponsors make millions and give away thousands in "prizes." Writers are pleased enough with a certificate of participation or one of the thousands of fancy ones mailed to “runners -up” that they happily send a check the next year with a new entry.

Anthologies of the best poetry, or short stories, of 2005, or the like, are announced yearly. And guess what? Enter six short poems (they don’t accept long ones) and likely be notified that one has been selected. There will also be a prepublication order form for a copy of the $75 book which will include your poem. In print at last! For only $75 dollars a book! And thousands of wannabes do it with every scam publication that comes along.

Magazines occasionally buy an article and all the rights to it from a new writer for a pittance or for complimentary copies of the magazine! Editors of poetry journals from the many university presses tell those who submit that subscribers to their poetry journal have a better chance of being selected for publication, and, “By the way, here is a subscription form.”

Many agents charge a fee to read and "evaluate" a manuscript. Those who don't charge for evaluation, charge for trying to sell it to the publishers where they have an "in." And they charge the author for phone calls, copying, and mailing done on the authors’ behalf. No one takes a chance but the writer. If the manuscript does sell, the agent makes even more from the writers’ talent.

Publishers who occasionally buy a manuscript tell the new author their "tentative" and grandiose plans for national marketing. If sales do not take off on day one, the publisher does not increase advertising and send the unknown author on a promotional tour, including television appearances. The company changes those "tentative" plans and sells the small first printing as best it can while looking elsewhere for the next book to publish.

I understand that the system is free enterprise. I understand that publishing is meant to be a money making business, not a subsidy of the arts or a promotion of literature. That does not change the exploitive nature of all who take money from would-be writers in exchange for hope.

And all the while published authors continue to publish. Anything they write. Their later works may be critically panned. The quality may deteriorate. It may be far less literary or readable than that of many unpublished writers striving to be published. No matter. If one is published, then one will get published. If not already published, then the chances are weighted heavily against the possibility of ever getting published.

Millions of unpublished writers collect rejection slips each year. Most may be accurate assessments of both the quality of the manuscript and the chances that it would make money for the publisher.

Some, however, are rejections of masterpieces that could become best sellers, contribute to the fine literature of the nation, and make millions for both the publisher and the author. If only a publishing company with sense and taste and a willingness to promote a new genius would read and accept the manuscript!

My own submitted and rejected stories are good examples.

I would expand on all this to a book-length manuscript, but where could I possibly get it published?

~ ~

Some punch lines go right over our heads

2005-12-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

If you have ever had the punch line of a joke flash through your mind regularly, then you may understand. For the last couple of years or more, I keep thinking at odd times of the one about the blonde who went through her marriage ceremony with her hair in curlers. “She was saving her coiffure for the reception.”

I know. Stupid. But that is what can happen with punch lines. Like tunes, they sometimes keep coming back like a song. (groan.)

Anyway, try a little mind game with me. First, pretend that you believed your president and the rest of the Bush League politicians during the run up to the Iraq war. Many of you probably did. But maybe you are among those who had doubts.

Perhaps you are among those who listened to Hans Blix and the UN inspectors on the ground in Iraq reporting regularly that they could find no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Or you wondered about the truth written by former ambassador Joseph Wilson saying he found no evidence of the Bush claim that Saddam was buying uranium "from Africa.” Or maybe you thought there might be something to what other nations were saying in doubting the imminent threat. In spite of what the League is saying now, there really were many nations of the world with doubts.

No matter. Pretend that you then believed Saddam had a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat because he would not hesitate to use them. I mean, “He used them against his own people.” Saddam is a tyrant. No, he is a mass murdering tyrant with weapons of mass destruction vowing to stand up to the Bush League and the world. So hold the pretense for a minute. O.K. You believe it.

Now, at what point should your belief be shattered? Keep that question in mind as you play along. One more “let’s pretend.”

This time, pretend that you are Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction and a hatred of America plus a determination to fight and win against any US attempts to invade, depose you, capture, or kill you. I mean, Saddam knew that was what Bush was planning to do if he could. So now pretend you are the murderous tyrant Saddam.

All right, here comes the “shock and awe” bombing of “your” country and then invasion. You, as Saddam, are losing! Your country is being destroyed, your army slaughtered or captured, and tens of thousands of your civilian population are being maimed and killed. And you are Saddam, the murdering tyrant, hating America, with a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, fearing for your life, if not for your country.

That seems to me the point in all the events of the Iraq scenario when the entire world, including the Bush League in particular, should have realized that Saddam certainly did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Think about it. If he had them, why didn’t he use them against the “American Satan” invaders? Was he saving them for the reception? Hell, he’s not even blonde!

~ ~

In November Bush visited South America, Japan, Formosa, China, Mongolia, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Maryland, and the White House

2005-12-01T15:51:00.002-08:00

With Rove and Cheney, at the least, "distracted" by investigations into their Valerie Plame CIA “identity plant,” Bush has been left to shift for himself more than usual. The disastrous Miers nomination may have been a result of that. Who knows? It might also explain some of the muddled responses to Katrina. Bush was vacationing in Texas, Cheney in Montana, and Katrina came roaring ashore with no one in the West Wing to take charge.

It sometimes seems as if those scheduling the president’s time are hard at work keeping him away from the West Wing as much as possible. Or else President Bush, himself, works hard to get out of hard work in Washington. Take a look at November, 2005. Bush visited Argentina and slumped through a series of meetings, saying little, accomplishing nothing. He and Laura flew to Japan for bored looking meetings he blamed on jet lag, and then went on to Formosa where he criticized China. He flew to China, was joined by Condi, praised the leadership for “saying” the words “human rights,” a real breakthrough, I guess, and stopped off in Mongolia.

He is the first American president to visit that nation, a “reward” for their token support of the Iraq war. Remember how pleased people were to credit Nixon with opening China relations when he became the first American president to visit there? “Nixon went to China!” they said proudly. Years from now we can say proudly about Bush, “He went to Mongolia!”

The Bushes flew home to take a six-day holiday at their ranch over the four-day Thanksgiving week end. From there, Bush flew to Tucson for a speech before the seemingly obligatory military audience, and then went on to Phoenix in Airforce One for a fund raiser to help a senator.

One assumes, by the way, that the Republican National Committee reimburses the nation for those expenses when Bush is on partisan trips rather than national business. And Bush, no doubt, forfeits a day’s pay for each workday he is conducting Republican campaign fundraising rather than working as the president of all Americans. I mean, he pledged to bring honesty and integrity to the job.

Anyway, the next morning he flew from Phoenix to El Paso, and the following day went on to Denver where he spoke at a fund raiser for Representative Musgrove, a Republican of Colorado. Then he was off to the Naval Academy for another speech to the military, outlining his plan for Iraq victory. It said so on the huge stage backdrop. The words of his speech were less specific. But forgive him. Bush must have been pounding out drafts of his ideas on a lap top while flying hither and yon during the month. Who can be clear when suffering from "jet lag"?

The result is, Bush spent far more days in November away from Washington than he spent in the White House. Who arranged all that? Why?

It all makes sense if you think about the possible scenarios involving the Republican powers behind the figurehead president. Suppose you were among those who planned to buy the presidency and control the office, nation, and world, and you were looking for a puppet to dangle in the nation's front window every now and then to help you do all that. You want a person to do as your group says about taxes, the environment, perks, laws, Social Security, Medicare, and wars. Would you promote a thoughtful, intellectual person for president, or a George W. Bush?

Are you listening, John McCain? Even by pandering to the Bush League, who did you dirt in 2000, you have little chance of getting the nomination in 2008 if those now in control of the GOP remain there.
-------

Here I come, ready or not!

2005-11-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

Most of you remember playing Hide and Seek during summer evenings when you were a kid. Or are you from the latest generation of new adults who seldom went outdoors to run and play? Did you too often choose, instead, to sit in front of television screens watching violent programs or playing violent games with your thumbs? That sounds like too many of the current crop of kids, as well. But, my curmudgeon bias aside, I’ll bet you discriminating readers remember Hide and Seek.

O.K., now you are “It.” We will all run and hide while you stand at this tree, the base, with your eyes closed, and count to fifty. Then you come find us and tag us before we can sneak back to the base and be “free.” “Free,” that is, of being “It” for the next round in the game. The first hider tagged will be “It” for the next round. Remember all that?

When we played the game, after the person who was “It” tagged a kid hiding or running to the base from his or her hiding place, interest in seeking all the other hiders often waned. So the “It” kid usually ended the round without seeking everyone who was hiding.

Hide and Seek is an old game, its rules passed down by oral tradition from child to child, with little variation over the centuries. The “little variation” is with the words the person who is “It” calls when he or she is tired of seeking and wants to end the round. If no player who is hiding has been tagged, the kid who is “It,” is “It” again. Still, when “It” is ready for the next round, he or she can let all the hiding players “get in free.” How?

That depends. I have heard different calls. Chicago kids used to say, “Oley, Oley, Oceans free!” I suppose if any play the game in Chicago today, they still do. “Oley, Oley, Oceans free,” and the hiding kids come in to touch base without getting “caught.”

I have asked three different friends who grew up in Chicago what that means. None knows. “We just said it because that’s what we learned from the older kids when we first played the game.”

My wife, who did not grow up in Chicago, reports her neighborhood kids yelled, “Oley, Oley, Olsen, all in free.” One could construct meaning from that call, perhaps believing that “Oley Olsen” was the name of one of the originators of the game, or the first referee to decide who got in free.

I grew up in Iowa, but I am sure there were variations around the state. There were variations within my city! What our neighborhood kids said also made little sense. “Ollie, Ollie oxen free.” What does that mean? Were the kids hiding out named “Ollie Ox”? We never asked.

A friend who grew up in a southern state reports a call close to the original. He used to say, “Ollie, Ollie outsen free.” He said he never knew what “outsen” meant.

The original call, from who knows how long ago, has meaning easily understood. Those hiding are the “outs.” Touching the base without being tagged means you are “in.” When whoever was “It” became tired of seeking, that player gave the call to get “in” free and yelled, “All the, all the ‘outs’ ‘in’ free!”

Try it aloud. “All the, all the ‘outs’ ‘in’ free!” Again. Louder. Say it as kids might. “Oley, Oley Oceans free ,” “Oley, Oley, Olsen, all in free,” “Ollie, Ollie outsen free,” or, “Ollie, Ollie, oxen free!” See? It’s a simple little example of how languages can change from one another over time. In this case, the changes are the results of children “teaching” a variation of the original.

Imagine all the language changes over centuries among wandering tribes and then among nations before there were text books to decree what was standard.

Now you tell me: What did you call to end the round, and where did you play Hide and Seek?

~ ~

I'm also like, "Ugh!"

2005-11-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

A reporter wouldn’t, and probably couldn’t, make up the lines attributed to Reese Witherspoon which were quoted in a newspaper movie column recently. So I will assume it is what the actress said. Witherspoon plays June Carter Cash in the new movie WALK THE LINE. She was commenting in an interview about feeling inadequate as a country singer and not really wanting people from the world of Nashville to hear her musical performance.

Witherspoon said, “Like I saw Vince Gill the other day and he’s like, ‘I can’t wait to see the movie.’ And I’m like, ‘Ugh.’ Because I’m just scared, and Dolly Parton, she’s like, ‘I really want to.’”

The story went on, but you get the idea. Do you also get the idea that, like Reese, I, too, am like “Ugh”?

I know, I know, languages all change. Still, I’m like, you know, a curmudgeon, and so I’m like, what is wrong that talented actors are like, “I can’t speak well because I’m like, where is the script?”

One thing her brand of natural utterance does show, however, is that when she plays the part of a woman who speaks in coherent, mostly standard English, Witherspoon is a good actress, because that kind of articulate woman is not Reese.
~ ~

Why did so many Democrats and a majority of Americans think Saddam was a threat with WMD?

2005-11-15T22:37:00.000-08:00

I wish the general public had a better memory. Maybe it is the frantic pace of American life and the fantastic array of events and activities shoving their way into all minds, making brains so crowded that a single memory is hard to retrieve. Like a computer due for an upgrade, perhaps our disks are nearly full.

In the run up to the Iraq war, the public was bombarded daily by various members of Bush League politicians telling us over and over that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was a threat to the region and an imminent threat to our own security.

He has weapons of mass destruction. He has weapons of mass destruction. He is a threat. We don’t want the “smoking gun” to be a mushroom cloud. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Besides, he has flaunted UN declarations, murdered Iraqis (years before, but still...), and, perhaps most important, he tried to have George Herbert Walker Bush killed. Did you hear that he has weapons of mass destruction and poses an imminent threat?

At the same time, most other nations were skeptical. Yes, they really were. Not only that, the United Nations had a team of inspectors headed by Hans Blix on the ground in Iraq. They had faced Iraqi bluster and threats, but according to regular reports to the UN and the world, Blix said the team was able to go wherever they wished. They had made hundreds of unannounced visits to suspected sites of WMD. Nothing. They had made surprise return visits to sites. They had made surprise visits to palaces, rumored to house secret labs. Mr. Blix continued to report that there was, as yet, no evidence that Saddam was engaged in the production or stock piling of WMD.

Still the Bush League repeated “Weapons of Mass Destruction” so often that late night comedians began satirizing the call. Colin Powell went before the UN and spoke at length about the reported secret intelligence proving WMD. He held a small vial, supposedly of anthrax, similar to the anthrax the Bush League said mobile labs in Iraq were making as part of their WMD program. Imminent threat, you know. Mushroom cloud on the horizon. Smoking gun. Purchasing materials from Niger. WMD! WMD! WMD! Imminent threat. Defies UN resolutions.

Congress eventually passed a resolution authorizing the Bush League to use military force against Saddam as a last resort, if all else failed in the negotiations. Hans Blix kept reporting that his team was moving freely about Iraq and finding no evidence of WMD. Few seem to remember that.

Did anyone in the Bush League suggest that it might be both easier and less costly to continue with the inspection team in a country that did not have its infrastructure destroyed in shock and awe bombing? Easier and less costly than to invade a war torn country of angry survivors, insurgents, terrorist recruits, and then search the rubble? If so, that idea was dismissed, and Bush began his war in 2003.

It is now near the end of 2005, and our memories are numb. The Bush League is trooping around the nation and world chanting that many others also thought Saddam had WMD and was an imminent threat. That argument sounds very much as if Bush is whining. He seems to be saying, “Don’t place all the blame on me because we found no WMD, and there were no ties between Saddam and Ossama, and Iraq posed no imminent threat! Congress and everyone else also thought Saddam had WMD,” Bush sometimes says. “They had the same intel as I did,” he repeats, “and they thought Iraq was a threat, too.” He seems to mean, “So, get off my back.”

But those are lies. First, everyone else did not have the same intelligence reports as the Bush League. Powell referred to the intelligence as “secret intel.” It was classified stuff! “Everyone else” does not have intelligence gathering sources feeding them information. Even members of Congress, for the most part, rely on the intelligence reports fed to them by the administration.

Second, “everyone else,” or even “most people” did not believe there was an imminent threat from Iraq. At least they did not believe so at first. That is why the Bush League chanted their WMD mantra for so long in the run up to war. To convince the people, the people who did not have their own intelligence gathering sources!

Bush now pouts that, after all, Democrats also voted for the resolution to use force, downplaying that it was to be after “all else failed.” He says other countries, many people, and all but nine senators thought Saddam was a threat. He accuses “others” of revisionism now, concerning the perceived threat by Saddam.

Unfortunately, collective memory fails, for the most part. So far, at least, no one has said to the president, “Why do you think all those people you cite came to believe that Saddam was a threat?”

What would his answer be? It is hard to predict, but the truth is that Americans who thought Saddam had WMD and was an imminent threat believed it because, in those days, they believed their President!

What about you who are reading this? Did you think Saddam had WMD? Why did you think so? Because you believed the Bush League, of course!

So what Bush does not understand that he is saying, when he argues that a lot of others should also be blamed for believing Iraq needed invading, is that those others should be blamed for believing the President of the United States when he told them over and over and over that Saddam was a threat!

According to recent polls, the majority won’t make the same mistake again, at least with this president. It is a hopeful sign. Still, better memories couldn’t hurt, either.

~ ~

NBC features grammar and usage problems, but consider this...

2005-11-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

NBC Nightly News recently featured a segment complaining about the decline of grammar. If they wanted to be technical, the reporters should have pointed out it is not English grammar that is changing so much as it is American usage. People, in general, often refer to any nonstandard usage as an error in grammar, however, and if a word means what the majority of users of that word agree that it means, then I suspect they mean that our “grammar” is changing.

Technically, however, grammar is the system of rules that describes how a language does operate. The changes that have NBC and so many people pulling their hair and complaining that what they hear and read are errors in grammar are actually errors in diction (word choice), spelling, and punctuation.

A child comes into the house after school, puffing, and says, “I runned all the way home.” Depending on the age of the child, we smile or cringe. A kindergartner probably gets a smile. If the student is a high school senior, listeners may condemn the school for failing to teach “correct grammar.” To repeat, technically, the “error” is one of usage, not of grammar.

The rules of grammar explain that in a construction such as the home runner’s, the subject comes first, a past tense form of the verb second, and a phrase telling where he or she “runned” comes last in the sentence. The child has the sentence structured correctly. The problem is an incorrect form of the past tense. “Runned” is a nonstandard usage, but who will argue that it is not past tense?

The irregular verb “run, ran, (has, have, had ) run” was not used, perhaps, because the speaker doesn’t yet understand irregular verb forms, or because his or her parents have taught “runned” by example, or maybe the speaker has automatically made the language more regular than it was when an irregular verb form long ago worked itself into the language as the standard.

There are probably few people who could not make a list of personal pet peeves or “errors” they read or hear that upset them. What is interesting to consider is that no two lists would be identical. One person’s error is apt to be another’s usage.

Our language has changed considerably since Beowulf first angered his mother by mispronouncing “Hrothgar,” leaving off the sound of the “H.” Usage in Chaucer’s day differed considerably from what most agree as standard English today. I would bet that each change from the language of “The Canterbury Tales” was considered at first to be an error. Fifteenth Century language purists no doubt thought people who deviated from the standards of old Geoffrey were corrupting the English language.

Almost no one uses the language as Shakespeare did in the Seventeenth Century, either. Again, the usage changes were probably condemned as errors when each was first used. Usage has changed considerably, but the rules of grammar have changed little in centuries.

We don’t even use the language as Thomas Jefferson did. The Author of the Declaration of Independence capitalized every Noun in all his Writing, for Example. Today’s purists might red mark those “errors.” Many of Jefferson’s expressions and word choices would sound quaint in this century.

Some “errors” of today are so common that most people do not recognize them as nonstandard usage. They may someday be listed as standard. In the holiday season rushing toward us, we will soon hear, and perhaps sing, “I’ll be home for Christmas.” The rules of grammar say that the verb “be” in all its forms is “intransitive” and, therefore, takes no object. What follows the verb “be” is, grammatically, a “predicate nominative,” a word in the sentence predicate that renames the sentence subject in the nominative case, not the objective case of an object, because “be” takes no object. Do you understand that? Or, in nonstandard English, “Got that?”

Well, you had it. In every grade from fifth on. And it appeared on test after test as one item of many. It is an item most students always have missed. But there are enough other items on the test that pupils of all ages can miss the predicate nominative question each year and still pass.

Still don’t get it? O.K. Technically, according to the rules of grammar which so many critics think they believe should be mastered, “I’ll be home for Christmas” means that for Christmas, I shall be a home. “I’ll be home” is the same grammatical construction as, “I’ll be president.”

“Home” and “president” are nominative case words within the predicate renaming the nominative case subject, since they come after the intransitive verb “be.” To be grammatically correct, according to our intended meaning, then, we should sing and say, “I’ll be AT home for Christmas.” Of course, few people believe the sentence actually means what the grammatical construction claims. Since the word “at” is not needed for comprehension, most never will include the preposition.

Nor will we eliminate the contraction “I’ll” and replace it with the past standard “I shall” or “I will.” Contractions were condemned as corruptions not many years ago, when one considers the long history of language. The meaning of “I’ll be president” is simply too far-fetched to discuss, though it is grammatically correct.

You come into the house, and a significant other says, “You had a phone call a few minutes ago. I don’t know who it was.” Your response? “What did they want.” It probably sounds more like, “Whudday want?” But you mean, “What did he want,” or, “What did he or she want?”

The rules say that “they” is plural and should not be used to refer to one person, a single caller. But nearly all do use “they” that way. If the first grammar/usage books had not been written in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, but were being written today, then our nonstandard usage asking about the one caller as “they” would be recorded as standard.

Many of us remember something about using “I” with that old bugaboo “be” in statements such as “It is I,” and as part of a compound subject, “He and I shall leave today,” not “It is me,” and, “Me and him are gunna go.” But we often fail to understand why the “I” usage has been called standard. Many, therefore, transfer the usage from that intransitive verb “be” sentence and say things like “Between you and I,” instead of the standard, “Between you and me.” I have seen “Between you and I,” listed in one recent dictionary as, “alternate usage.” That means it may be on the road as a change to a new language usage standard.

The NBC broadcast included an amusing and technically correct, but funny sounding, “Woe is I,” rather than our common usage, “Woe is me.” After “is,” a form of the verb “be,” use nominative “I” not objective “me.” Remember?

French language rules are different. “C’est Moi” is correct and translates literally, “It is me.” Does that mean the French people are more objective about usage? Non.

I also hear constructions such as, “She gave the tickets to Mary and I.” That seems a clear violation of the rule stating one should use objective case (me) as the object of a preposition (to) and not transfer the “Mary and I are going” nominative construction to be the objects of a preposition.

My English teacher and Jefferson, Shakespeare, and Chaucer might list that as a pet peeve. Beowulf probably would merely grunt, “Huh?” Some sounds haven’t changed.

~ ~

A Republican President Appointed a Catholic Democrat to the Supreme Court

2005-11-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

I rediscovered a copy of LIFE magazine for the week of October 8, 1956, in a box of items on a garage shelf the other day. The magazine provides additional evidence of how different our world is from a half century ago.

Many of the advertisements are black and white. The inside cover and eleven of the first twelve pages are devoted entirely to advertising. That is followed by a two page article, and then fourteen more pages of nothing but advertising, before the main news section. There are almost no ads smaller than a half-page anywhere in the magazine. Most are a full page, and many are double page spreads. There are brassiere ads, but the models are drawings, not photographs. Bell and Howell advertises the world’s first totally automatic, electric eye movie camera. Argus has a page to show their newest color slide camera. Magnavox brags that their 24 inch tv is the biggest picture in television. Motorola claims two color pages for a new feature, a wireless t.v. remote for a television that “really tunes itself.” Chesterfield advertises in a two-page, black and white ad: “Enjoy the smoothest cigarette you ever smoked.” Various tire ads feature the latest in tread designs, with rayon cord construction, and B.F. Goodrich announces new, tubeless tires.

A lengthy scientific report tells of limitless power on the horizon from the seas through fusion, not fission. One prophecy back then states that a method for liberating fusion energy in a controlled manner will be developed within twenty years.

The magazine from 49 years ago mentions but one Black American. Syracuse University senior halfback Jim Brown is shown climbing a rope in a training drill with four other players, all White. The story of Syracuse’s rise to power tells of Brown gaining 154 yards against Maryland in the first football game of the season. Five smaller pictures also showcase the team. Brown appears in three of them, as well. So do thirty other players a reader can identify as White. No other Black is pictured. The article states that Jim Brown “hopes to go into pro football.”

Eisenhower and Nixon were running for a second term in October of 1956. Nixon says there will be a four-day work week within ten years. There is a color photo of Ike and Mamie Eisenhower in a beautiful yard, and a four-page article divided into half-page columns and spread across 15 pages, completed by advertising, praising Ike’s “New-Model Cabinet.” I found no mention of Democrat candidates in the issue of LIFE magazine, published one month before the election.

A small, black and white photo of Republican President Eisenhower shows him seated with his Supreme Court nominee. The caption states, “A Surprising Choice For the Court.” The cut line reads: “It came as a surprise last week when President Eisenhower picked William J. Brennan Jr., associate Justice of the New Jersey supreme court, to succeed Sherman Minton on the U.S. Supreme Court. A Democrat and a Catholic, the 50-year-old judge has shied away from politics. He was picked, the White House said, because he was ‘highly qualified’ for the post.”

See? A different world.

Get the message, Mr. President?

2005-10-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else think that the recent Harriet Miers brouhaha brings aditional insight into how things are actually run in this administration? Cheney and Rove have been distracted by the investigation into their apparent involvement in getting even with Joe Wilson, who told the truth about WMD and the Bush League lies leading to the Iraq war. They may not have been fully in the loop about the Miers nomination, thinking that the woman was leading a search for a candidate. Perhaps she discovered herself, as Cheney did when he was heading the committee to find a vice presidential candidate for Bush. Or maybe not.

Maybe Bush and Harriet are just so close that he decided to reward her zeal and opinions of him by nominating her for the vacancy without checking with his distracted advisor, and the man he calls Vice, or his fanatic fringe “base.” At any rate, he did it. He nominated his very good friend and personal lawyer, Harriet, surprising everyone.

And who worked hardest, before any hearings even started, to bring down the unfortunate nomination of Harriet Miers, who seems distinguished most by her lack of distinction? Bush’s ultra right wingnut “base.” And they did it.

That seems to say, “Sit down and shut up, George; you know you are not really in charge here!”

Some have suspected it all along. This has just been one more little drama to provide evidence that W is a puppet. And when he slipped his strings and became a real boy for a few days, he got into all sorts of trouble with his merry band of Giapettos, the behind the scenes owners of the administration.

You can bet the next nominee will have the blessing of the ultraconservatives before the name is announced. Who knows? We may have been better off with an unqualified Harriet than the person that group will choose.

~~ ~~

Enough is enough if you are tired enough

2005-10-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

With all the greed, corruption, lies, crime, and decadence paraded before our collective awareness, we are apt to forget that mankind does sometimes makes progress, if only a little. Still, evolutionary progress is better than none. And in the absence of intelligent designs to hurry that progress, we probably should pause now and then to give credit to evolutionary improvements through the efforts of good people wanting a better civilization, or at least a fair shake.

Slavery was abolished in this country by a proclamation during the Civil War. As everyone knows, however, blacks were not given the status of whites, either legally or socially, at the war’s end in 1865. One may easily argue that there are still cases of racial discrimination in this country. Few could argue, however, that there have been improvements. And many of those changes occurred after what happened fifty years ago, in 1955, ninety years after the end of the Civil War.

Rosa Parks recently died at age 92. People fifty and younger cannot fully understand where America was in 1955, when Rosa Parks, a black woman then 42 years old, refused to give her seat on a bus to a white man who demanded it. It is simply difficult to believe that there were laws in this country only fifty years ago that said she should stand if a white wanted to sit. We have changed for the better in now thinking that law so unbelievable and wrong.

Rosa was turned in by the bus driver, arrested, and jailed. And our nation began to improve just a little faster in response to that immoral indignity. The leadership of Martin Luther King, and the forward march of the civil rights movement, in general, can trace their quickening to Rosa’s act, which she said years later was not so much a matter of courage as that she was simply tired. Her defiance of the law had not been arranged ahead of time by any group or organization. She had not planned it herself. She was simply tired. And tired of so unlawful a law. So she refused to get up. It seems to me that makes her even more heroic.

~~ ~~

Bush: "I'm a leader who gets things done."

2005-10-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

I was at a longtime friend’s home on Superbowl Sunday a few years ago when the Packers won. As the broadcast showed the celebrations on the field and in the Green Bay locker room, we were told that the president was making a congratulatory call to the winning coach. Viewers soon listened in as President Clinton chatted briefly.

My friend growled that Clinton should be working for the country, not making phone calls to athletic coaches. I remember asking if it was so bad for a president to take a break on a Sunday to watch the Superbowl. My friend said it was, that there had to be something more important for any president to do than make phone calls to coaches, even on Superbowl Sunday.

I didn’t pursue the discussion, as we have a tacit agreement not to argue politics. But I suspect the friend’s complaint was prompted by his dislike of that president. I have observed that Bill Clinton can do absolutely nothing acceptable, so far as my friend is concerned.

I mention all this because I’d like to put aside our non-aggression pact and ask the same friend how he feels about some of the current president’s activities. I cite Bush’s spending nearly half of his time in office on vacation before the tragedy of 9/11. And almost as much time since. But I don’t know how much of the nation’s work Bush can do when he is not in Washington; so, questioning vacation time may be a murky area from my view point so far away from both D.C. and Crawford.

But there are other reports of Bush activities, discussed here in no particular order, that also make me wonder if my friend’s statement about Clinton having better things to do than making a Superbowl Sunday phone call might be an appropriate kind of question to raise about this president. For example, Bush spent almost two months at one stretch during the last campaign away form the Oval Office. And since his reelection, he has spent about that much time, again at one stretch, stumping the hinterlands to chat with invited audiences about his privatization plan for Social Security which would “compound every day.” Who is running the West Wing during those times? And the nation?

I suppose one might question the time spent away from the country’s problems simply to throw out the first pitch of the baseball season if one wanted to be as critical of Bush as my friend was of Clinton.

There was the newspaper report a few months ago about a small plane that invaded White House air space in midday of midweek, causing the Secret Service to evacuate both the staff and Laura Bush. The president was off cycling with a friend in Maryland somewhere and was not even told of the threat or evacuation of his wife until after the situation had played out and the president had finished his ride.

There was a vacation Bush hastily interrupted to sign “emergency” legislation concerning Teri Shiavo. And, perhaps most notably, the five week vacation in August when he had no time for Cindy Sheehan, but flew to Tucson to chat with an invited group of senior citizens about medicare reform on the day Katrina hit the coast.

Perhaps because of criticism of his slow response to the hurricane, Bush has visited New Orleans eight times...so far... and he also flew to Colorado "to monitor" clean up/rescue efforts along the coast. I can't help wondering why he couldn't monitor that from the Oval Office, or at least from the White House "situation room."

And he interrupted the August vacation to fly in Airforce One to Illinois for a photo opportunity bill signing one day and to New Mexico for another signing ceremony on another. Those trips were just shortly before Bush told the country that we should all conserve gasoline. May I ask if those bills could have been signed in the Oval Office, saving a few thousand gallons of fuel?

How about that fake video visit with troops in Iraq? You know, the one where the stumbling president demonstrated that it was he, not the troops, who needed rehearsing. What benefit for America was accomplished by that staged chat?

A small-item report last week mentioned that the president had quit a little early on Friday, leaving for Crawford about 3:00 p.m. Curmudgeon that I am, I really want to ask my friend if perhaps there isn’t something important these days that the president might be dealing with in the Oval Office on a Friday afternoon.

Another small item appeared today, causing me to expound on this whole subject. Under a series of little stories in my paper, grouped as “Also in the News” is a report under a tiny headline, “Bono chats with Bush about world poverty.” It says that the president met with U2 front man Bono and talked about the world’s poor. The paper further reported that the British rock star and Bush then had lunch together in a private dining room, after which the president showed Bono around the Oval Office.

If I wanted to be almost as critical of this administration as my friend was of the last one, I could suggest that all the trips and activities I have mentioned seem to be evidence that those who make the president’s schedule and pull Bush’s strings work hard to find little things for him to do to keep him away from his desk and out of their hair.

~ ~

"Words reveal the way we think because we think in words" DUH!

2005-10-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

A lack of judicial experience from Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has reporters digging for some sort of evidence of the way she thinks. Miers wrote a column in THE TEXAS BAR JOURNAL when she was president of the Texas Bar Association in the early 1990s. She called it, "Presidents Opinion." Columnist David Brooks cites a few sentences written by Miers to illustrate the quality of her thinking. For one example: "We must end collective acceptance of innapropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism." And another: "We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective."

Of course it is not wholly fair to take a sentence or two from years ago out of context and use it to criticize the writer's judicial qualifications. But even the two examples I quote from Brooks' more extensive column can give anyone with a sense of clarity a view of Miers' mind at work, whatever her qualifications might be for the Court. So read her sentences again.

Any evidence there of mental depth? Of a keen mind at work, a mind appointed to argue incisively and write with clarity as a Supreme Court justice?

Try one more. Miers is further quoted as having written, "There is always a necessity to tend to a myriad of responsibilities on a number of cases as well as matters not directly related to the practice of law." Anyone for a hearty "Well, duh"?

Language ability is a picture window to the mind. So when Bush, in arguing for the privatization of Social Security accounts says, "And they tell me the private funds will compound daily," thinking people get more than a glimpse into his mind at work. So with Miers' writing. We look into the way she thinks. Or doesn't.

Somehow I am reminded of a comic book hero of mine from years ago. The simple minded innocent Li"l Abner used to say, "Good is better than evil because it is nicer!" That seems to me to be about the same level of thinking exibited by too many members of the Bush League, including the president and his personal friend and attorney, Harriet Miers.
-----
I chuckled at a bumper sticker being advertised: "Jesus was a liberal. Now what is your point?" Even bumper stickers are sometimes deeper than words from our leaders!

~ ~

Why wouldn't Miers say Bush was most brilliant?

2005-10-04T14:26:00.001-07:00

Did you see the column by Los Angeles Times Syndicate writer Cal Thomas about the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court? It appeared October 4. Thomas expressed guarded concern that Miers might "drift to the left," as other judges thought to be conservative have done in our nation's past. There is not enough of a paper trail to determine adequately, suggests the writer.

Anything is possible, I suppose. But what jumped from the columnist's page to jolt my mind-eye coordination was the following: "One person who knew her, former White House speechwriter David Frum, writes of Miers on the National Review Online, 'In the White House that hero-worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.' ..."

So Thomas said that Frum said that Miers said that Bush is “the most brilliant man she had ever met." I suppose one could easily check out Frum's statement. I shall, however, take Thomas at his word, that Frum did write that. I doubt Miers, at this point, would deny having said it; so, I shall take Frum's word as well. And that brings me to Miers' statement itself.

A Supreme Court nominee, age sixty, says she has never met a man more brilliant than George W. Bush!

Well.

That may rank up there with the statement by the first Bush declaring, "Clarence Thomas is the most qualified man in America to serve on the Supreme Court."

Of course the president can't win with potential critics. This nominee has stirred Latinos to say they are being ignored. Cal Thomas, and other ultra right wingers, have doubts about Miers' conservative authenticity. And people on all sides are scratching their heads at this point wondering about Miers' experience and qualifications. Criticism will only intensify.

There is no requirement that a Supreme Court justice be elevated from a lower court judgeship. There is not even a requirement that a justice be a lawyer. So Bush may or may not be nominating Miers from a position of weakness, as some pundits have suggested, in order to avoid a fight over a nominee's lower court record, since she has none. But the president is technically within his rights to nominate an inexperienced, very close personal friend, "distinguished by the intensity of her zeal," someone who says he is, "the most brilliant man she had ever met."

Admit it; kissing up sometimes works. Hell, I might nominate Miers as well, if I were an arrogant president, and she claimed to feel that way about me! Oh, come on! Loosen up and admit it. If you were an arrogant president, you might, too. We need not always be curmudgeons.

~ ~

My kid's school rates an "A," your kid's a "B," and their kids' schools are failing!

2005-09-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

For thirty-seven years, the folks at Phi Delta Kappa magazine and the Gallup Poll people have collaborated on a comprehensive survey of public attitudes toward American schools. Few people outside of the education community are aware of that.

Strangely, the regular media has almost totally ignored the years of polling results. It has been suggested the reason is a disparity between the general public’s perception of schools and the perceptions by the media and other critics of those same schools. True or not, it cannot be denied that thirty-seven years of poll results are relatively unknown by the general public.

I’ll even bet you discerning readers of this are almost totally unaware of either the poll’s lengthy history or its results. A few items from this year, therefore, may be of interest.

One of the most interesting questions to me has long been the one about how the responders grade the nation’s schools, their community schools, and the individual school the responder’s child attends. I do not have the exact statistics for thirty seven years, but according to this year’s report, they have remained largely unchanged.

This year, 24% of the general public gave an A or a B to the nation’s schools. That’s all. But 48% of the general public awarded an A or B to their community schools. Narrowing the responses from the general public to parents of school aged children, on the other hand, gives different perceptions. The percentage of parents who gave top grades to the schools in their community rose to 57%. The approval climbed to 69% for parents rating as A or B the individual school their oldest child attends within their community.

So it seems that the more one knows about the schools being rated, the higher the rating. And the more one thinks one knows about those “other” schools across town, down the road, or in another state, the lower the rating. Fascinating?

Another interesting response: Fifty-seven percent of respondents oppose permitting parents and students to choose attending private schools at public expense, as compared to 38% who favor it. I wonder what the percentage is of Americans paying for their kids to attend private schools.

The pollsters again found little real understanding of the federal “No Child Left Behind Act.” The public often opposed aspects of the act embedded in questions, while the act, itself, received higher approval than its provisions. The pollsters concluded, “The NCLB strategies are frequently out of step with approaches favored by the public.” (p.43.)

Almost two-thirds of the people polled this year (62%) say they would endorse teaching as a career for a child of theirs. That seems both healthy and positive. I could let the curmudgeon part of me wonder if the 38% who do not support that career choice are educators. But I won’t. Or maybe they are the same 38% who favor public funding of private schools. Makes sense?

To read the entire sixteen page poll and results, check out the Phi Delta Kappan Magazine for September, 2005, at your local library. You probably can also find a summary by visiting the Phi Delta Kappan home page. (http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kappan.htm). Then, answer the critics who do not know your local schools when they begin to criticize them. Cheers!

We started a war against people who had not attacked us to reverse the pattern of inaction when attacked?

2005-09-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

The following two paragraphs are quoted from the Los Angeles Times of Sept. 23, 2005, and were reported by Warren Vieth.

"President Bush said Thursday that mistakes made by three of his predecessors, including the Reagan administration's restraint after the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, had emboldened terrorists and helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Bush said he was determined not to repeat the pattern by pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq before the insurgency there is contained and Iraqi forces are able to provide adequate security."

Read it again.

The first statement about terrorists becoming emboldened by the inaction of Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and Clinton may have some truth to it, though it might be hard for this Bush to prove.

President Bush's second statement, however, is so boggling that it is hard to know where to begin the analysis. He says the U.S. forces must now stay in Iraq until the insurgency is contained in order not to "repeat the pattern" of inaction against terrorists by the three former administrations.

Given the facts of the Bush Iraq war, the statement simply does not compute. How is staying in Iraq, where few if any terrorists were before our invasion, fit with Reagan's inaction after the bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon?

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Saddam had no ties to the 9/11 terrorists. Iraq posed no threat to the United States at the time of our invasion.

We invaded anyway.

Since then, Bush's Iraq war has served as a highly effective recruitment argument by Al Quaeda. That organization has attracted terrorists, and recruits who want to become terrorists, from around the world to Iraq. Those radical muslims see our very presence as desecration of their holy land.

So the Bush League has created a magnet for terrorists who are killing our military personnel, Iraqi securirty forcces, and Iraqi civilians by the hundreds. And he now seems to be calling that blunder a decisive blow that contrasts favorably with his predecessor's "pattern of inaction."

I think that is what the statements say. Maybe not. Review: The situation in Iraq has developed because of the Bush League's invasion, based on lies, but never mind that for now. Yet Bush says we must stay in Iraq until the situation that he created is controlled. And get this: He says if we don't stay with the war which we started, it would be the same as his three predesessors not responding to earlier attacks on us. Does that seem like the same thing to you?

Let's publish Katrina contributions from business and political leaders

2005-09-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

Almost immediately after Katrina devastated the gulf coast, an item in the newspaper reported that Walmart had donated a million dollars to both the Red Cross and to the Salvation Army for hurricane relief. The company later donated an additional twenty million dollars to the Katrina Relief Fund. There are undoubtedly people across the country, critical of the retail giant’s free enterprise policies and practices, who softened their opinion, if only a little, when they heard of the gifts.

Right wing politicians have often criticized members of the “Hollywood Elite” for being critical of their conservative point of view. Republicans have charged that they “blame America first,” for example. One Internet smear of Hollywood political views that was widely circulated during the last election campaign painted movie stars as dim bulbs with little education compared to the giants of the political world who possess college degrees, and, therefore, know better about everything. Perhaps you saw that. At least once.

Of course, the Hollywood people have publicists and agents to report positive news about their clients. So it was not surprising to see published reports of generosity from various millionaire celebrities following Katrina’s strike. Still, one had to feel a tinge of warmth, at least temporarily, for the many stars who have made huge donations to the relief funds. I suspect there may even be Republican critics of Hollywood who were impressed by the immediate response and generous monetary gifts from so many athletes and members of the “Hollywood elite.”

A partial list includes athletes Phil Mickelson, $250,000; Lance Armstrong, $500,000; and Curt Shilling, who is housing a family of nine for a year. Movie star George Clooney gave one million dollars to United Way for their relief efforts; Celine Dion contributed a million dollars; Steven Spielberg, 1.5 million. Hillary Duff gave $250,000. Pat Sajak sent $100,000 to the Red Cross, and Jay & Diddy gave a million dollars.

Sean Penn is said to have rescued forty people stranded on roof tops and in submerged houses. As one magazine reported, he had his own photographer recording it all, but then, “how many people did you save?” Harry Connick, Jr., went to New Orleans and offered comfort. So did Kirstie Allie. Numerous other stars and celebrities also got there before federal aid had arrived.

There have been concerts with performers donating time and talent to raise money for the stricken areas. There will be more.

A number of corporations besides Walmart have given money and materials. The list includes GE, 16 million. Starbucks contributed five million; Office Depot, 18 million; Anheuser -Busch, one million; and Eli Lilly contributed a million dollars plus a million dollars worth of insulin.

Organizations have sprung up to help with the clean up. Project Backpack was started by sisters, 14 and 11 years old. They collect supplies for the thousands of displaced school children starting classes far from home. UPS is shipping the supplies free of charge.

Other nations are even offering aid to America! USA TODAY reported on many of them. A few examples: Afghanistan is sending $100,000. Australia is contributing $7.6 million. France sent forty tents, water treatment supplies and MREs. India gave $5 million. the Arab-American Oil Company (ARAMCO) of Saudi Arabia contributed $5 million. And the United Arab Emirates are giving $100 million, cash.

There is a much longer list of contributors, of course, but one can see from these few examples that the response has been widespread from athletes, movie and tv stars, companies, and other governments.

And that brings me, at last, to the point of this rant. There are two groups of citizens missing from every list of contributors I have seen, so far. They are groups who could use an infusion of public support, feelings of public good will, and a little praise for what they also must be doing to help the survivors of Katrina. I want to see lists of politicians and of business leaders who have made personal contributions.

Hollywood stars have their publicists. Perhaps CEOs and politicians need theirs. Most politicians want to take credit for anything good that occurs. Why, then, are they not letting the news out about their individual contributions to Katrina relief? If they give anonymously from a stance of altruism, I want them to rethink their positions.

“Altruism” is defined as “Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.” I recall a professor some years ago arguing that true altruism does not exist, or if it does, the acts are unknown. His contention was that true selflessness meant that one committed an altruistic act for absolutely no personal benefit. And that, he claimed, should include no feelings of pride or personal warmth from having done the act. Absolute selflessness. Of course, that also means that no others would know of the deed. Have politicians ever before been altruistic, then?

Given that definition and argument, one could suggest that all the known contributors of time, money, and goods for Katrina relief also are not truly altruistic. So be it. Their contributions are needed, welcomed, and are helping. So what if Walmart’s image might have been boosted slightly among a few critics? So what if Sean Penn had a photographer along? So what if the celebrity contributions are reported for the rest of us to praise? They are praiseworthy.

President Bush asked his father and Bill Clinton to reprise their duo post-Sunami act of money raising. We know they have raised millions... of other people’s money! I think it would not only be appropriate, but would also help generate good will and even more public giving if it were published how much each of those multi-millionaire ex-Presidents have also contributed. And President George W. Bush. Why not let us know how much he and Laura are giving from their own bank accounts?

How much have the many millionaire senators and representatives given? Wouldn’t knowing help their constituents feel pride in their elected officials and prompt at least some of them also to give?

Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Jimmy Carter, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Condoleeza Rice, Mary Matlin, her husband the “ragin’ cajun,” James Carville, as well as John Kerry, and Al Gore -- have undoubtedly contributed to the relief efforts. Some of their gifts may even have been reported, though I missed seeing the report. They deserve better recognition for their gifts.

Knowing Martha Stewart’s contribution to Katrina relief would generate more dollars from her legions of supporters as well as put an added glow to her image. How about Ken Ley? Wouldn’t you feel a tiny bit better about that former Enron CEO if you knew how much he has given? How much has Bill Gates contributed from his personal bank account?

How much has Exon-Mobil contributed from their record corporate profits? Microsoft? Google? Why should athletes and movie and television stars be the only ones publicly recognized?

Altruism may be morally ideal, but I tend to agree with my professor: Altruism is only an ideal. Various critics and the entire country, therefore, might feel better about those on my short list, and also the hundreds more CEOs, political insiders, elected representatives, and leaders of our society if their personal donations to hurricane relief were made public.

Unique pressures message needs repeating and repeating..

2005-09-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

I know of no other job with the kinds of pressures that face typical classroom teachers. Teachers are in charge of, and responsible for, the activities of twenty to thirty-five young people in one room, all at the same time, nearly all day long.

A school superintendent may make tough decisions affecting education in noticeable ways. The superintendent also leads more than twenty to thirty people. Not since he or she escaped the classroom, however, has a superintendent been in charge of twenty or more young people in one room, all at the same time, for nearly the entire day.

A school principal, like the superintendent, also deals with many people by phone and in person during a day. But never twenty to thirty-five pupils all in the same room for nearly the entire day, every day, for one hundred eighty days, every year.

Corporate presidents, CEO’s, and editors are in charge of more people. So are many managers. They make important decisions. Business pressures are great. Executives and managers, however, also do not have twenty to thirty-five kids in one room at the same time, nearly all day long, looking to them for each minute’s activity and daily learning. Clerks and sales people have pressures, but they deal with one or two people at a time, never more than twenty in one room all day, every day.

Professional athletes receive millions each season for playing games, and no one seems to mind that they don’t work more than six months a year. Society is only beginning to say that they are overpaid. Since they entertain millions, most fans still think they are worth the money. Yet their games last an hour or two, and though thousands of fans may be on site, the players are not held responsible for the continuous activities of even twenty of them together in one room for an entire day.

Doctors make life and death decisions. So do U.S. Presidents and whoever is in charge of U.S. Presidents. Important decisions affecting people are made by all kinds of individuals "in charge." Factory workers, farmers, programmers, reporters, and lawyers -- every job has pressures I know nothing about.

I am in no way arguing comparative levels of importance or deserved respect or salaries. Maybe David Letterman deserves millions for his few hours per week on the air. Perhaps Meg Ryan deserves ten million dollars for each six-week period or so she puts into a movie. Britney Spears, arguably, deserves her take from a one-night concert. It’s not a good time to mention CEO salaries, but some of them, too, may be deserved.

None of those jobs, however, includes being in continual charge of the continuous activities and educational progress of twenty to thirty-five children all in the same room at the same time for nearly the entire day. I am arguing neither the intensity nor the importance of other pressures or jobs. Once more, I am merely suggesting the uniqueness of the pressures facing classroom teachers.

You parents have been supervising your kids for the summer just ending. You were responsible for the activities of your one, two, five, or nine children. Some of you went to work and let them be free runners for eleven weeks or so. Others organized your children’s activities: summer school, summer camp, day camp, "sitters," etc. Many of you, no doubt, had your children under direct supervision for much of each day.

None of you parents, however, had twenty to thirty-five children under continuous supervision in one room at the same time five days a week, every week, this past summer. Nor do you expect to have your children tested for adequate progress over your own summer instruction. There will be no mandatory tests to determine your kids' learning in areas such as sexual knowledge, the effects of drugs and alcohol, ethics, honesty, manners and politeness, religion, love, and family values. Those are areas of learning that many people believe are parents’ major responsibilities for teaching. But no one will suggest they be tested, nor that results of tests should determine whether or not they be allowed to continue their next grade level in school. And certainly they will not be tested to determine whether or not their family summertime educational progress in those family oriented educational areas was adequate or needs to be taken over by the state.

So you parents are now ready to send your kids back to school, no matter how you have prepared them for the new term. You are eager to get them back into rooms with twenty to thirty-five others to be supervised and taught for nearly the entire day by one person at a time. The pressures of supervising your own beloved children for a short summer have you thankful for the fall term.

Then, as this school year begins, bow low in honor of teachers. They willingly return to the pressures of working with your happy and your sad children, with your unwilling, your eager, your capable, your lazy, your hostile, and your cooperative children, your rude, polite, noisy, quiet, bright, creative, dull, emotional, assertive, and your passive children -- all in one room, all at the same time, for nearly all day of each day of every school year.

My point is simple: There are no pressures quite like that.

© Dana Wall 2005

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You say "potato," I say "potahto..."

2005-08-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

The tradegy of hurricane Katrina cannot be debated. How awful for everyone. I am not sure there is anything light to say about the facts or the people so devastated by the storm.

But I did smile with appreciation at the variety of pronunciations I heard from various people interviewed. Northerners generally pronounce the name of the devastated Louisiana city as "New Or-LEANS." Or "New OR-lins." Broadcasters used one of those two pronunciations. But I heard natives of the place say on camera, "New Or-lee-ons." I also heard other residents say "New O-Lee-uns." And one old gentleman said, "New Oley-ahn."

Americans take possession of their language, and why not? People generally pronounce words as they heard them said when they learned to talk, in spite of what either a dictionary, teachers, or other people might "teach." So, we have Des Plaines, Illinois, pronounced by those who live there as "Des-Planes." Residents of Des Moines, Iowa, all say the name of their city as "D'-Moin." Pierre, South Dakota, is pronounced by Dakotans as "Peer." "Prescott," Arizona, rhymes with "biscuit." Many Southerners call New York City, "New Yoke." Residents of the Big Apple might say, "N'Yawk." Most Northerners are apt to put an "R" in the word "Washington." "Warsh-ington," they say. Then they are apt to be critical of someone from Texas who says "nuculer" instead of the standard "nuclear." One suspects the criticism stems from factors other than speech patterns, but that is another essay.

I don't have the answer, but I sometimes wonder why Americans cannot learn to pronounce place names as they are said by those who live in those places. We could say "Paree" as those in Paris do. Are we too arrogant to learn the native pronunciation and so insist on Americanizing the word? The winter olympics were once held in Albertville, France. The American broadcasters all prounounced the place as "Albert-vil." They interviewed dozens of Europeans each day who all said "Ahl-bare-veal." We could learn to say that. It was as if the broadcasters did not hear the people they were interviewing.

Place name pronunciations are often the result of centuries of language use and eroding change. But spelling seldom changes. For example, pronounce the name of a beautiful little town near Loch Lomond between Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland: "Milngavie" is the name.

A friend told me, when I was planning a trip to Glasgow, to stop and see his sister and her husband in Milngavie, pronounced his way. I looked for the town on the map, but could find nothing that looked phonetically like his pronunciation. I asked him to point it out. He did. "Milngavie." Only he called it "Mull-GUY."

I lived in Sioux City, Iowa, officially, when I spent that year in Edinburgh. My colleagues there laughed at the Milngavie map fiasco, and one fellow wrote a limerick about it. I had been trying to get them to pronunce the name of my home town as "Soo City." They wanted to call it "Sy-Ox," as one of the Bush twins did somewhere on camera during their dad's recent campaign.

The best I was able to do was convert most of them to say "Sue," with a little twist to it. Almost "See-oo." None wanted to add the word "City" as part of the name. And they helped me to say Edinburgh almost as they did. "Eddin-burrra."

I laughed and said, "We don't say "Pitts-burrra." A Scottish friend countered, "S-I-O-U-X, Sue"? I explained that it was the French spelling of an Indian word pronounced in English by an American. He was satisfied. But still he laughed at my inability to see "Mul-GUY" in "Milngavie." So the limerick:

There was a young man from Sioux
Who was asked one day if he knioux
That the pubs in Milngavie
On Sundays are dravie.
He replied, "Yes, indeed, Sir, I dioux."

All right, then, I am changing my mind. With all the amusing interactions and mini-celebrations possible from various accents and pronunciations, why not keep on saying the words as we choose? We can applaud the variety of accents as we do all the other aspects of our varied cultures.

And we can also send good wishes with all the help possible to the people in the path of Katrina, whether they are from New Orleans, New Orlins, New O Lee Ons, The Big Easy, or any other place in the storm's vicious path. Our hearts go out to our fellow 'MareKins.

Poll shows extremes hold majority in both parties

2005-08-26T17:51:00.000-07:00

There is a new poll out that claims 82% of Republicans approve of the job President Bush is doing. That means only 18% either disapprove or do not know how to feel.

The same report claims that 13% of Democrats approve of the President. So, 87% either disapprove or don’t know.

Those figures are astounding. Can Republicans and Democrats be getting the same information?

I would be interested to see a comprehensive study of members of both parties regarding their access to information. Which party members, in general, are better informed? Which members read the widest variety of newspapers and magazines? Which regularly listen to the widest variety of news broadcasts, speeches, pundits, and consider the most ideas and opinions from their opposition party?

And, conversely, which party’s members are more sure they are right and are, therefore, actually less well informed?

If it could be shown that Republicans listen mostly to Republican information and Democrats to information mostly from Democrats, then that would confirm again the great, nearly even, split in the country. It might also show what a waste of time and money campaigning is, because only those who already believe it listen to information from their party.

If that is the case, it might also explain why so much campaign rhetoric does not concern the issues, but rather consists of lies, exaggerations, and innuendo about the opposition.

But if a study concluded that members of both parties are about equally informed from the same wide variety of sources and listen in nearly equal amounts to the other "side," then the poll figures just released are even more surprising. In that case, those extreme figures would seem to show that Democrats and Republicans are not simply a little different in the ways they think about the same events, information, facts, politics, society, and the world. The figures would then seem to show that Democrats and Republicans are different species.

Thou Shalt Not Heed...

2005-08-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

I won't argue the Constitutional questions involved in the controversy about placing the Ten Commandments on court house lawns, in schools, and other public buildings. It doesn't seem that knowledge of the Commandments positively affects all those advocating their presence, though. Let's test that by placing a large copy of the Commandments near the pulpit of the 700 Club. Then let's add a poster of the Golden Rule.

See Dick and Jane Both Read

2005-08-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

I think about education at times throughout the year, but especially as each school year begins. One issue that regularly surfaces concerns the failure of kids who do not learn to read at expected levels.

The teaching of reading is an emotional issue. It is argued by educators, parents, politicians, and by workbook and software company representatives wanting to sell their goods for remedial instruction. Even a glance at those materials will show the skewing of pictures, text, and suggested activities toward boys. Textbook companies know that more boys than girls are assigned to remedial reading classes in this country. Few others discussing the problem of lagging success in learning to read point that out, however.

Yet that may be at the core of the problem. What is it about teaching materials, expectations, classroom management, and instruction that has schools in the United States shunting far more boys than girls into primary grade remedial reading programs? Why do boys also make up more than ninety percent of remedial reading pupils in many American middle schools? But not in all English speaking countries. What do we "do" differently that keeps our boys from learning to read?

Female elementary teachers have told me that boys have problems learning to read because "boys are more immature than girls." That seems to be what they believe. And if they do, then it must also be how they treat boys. Yet, if the problem were a gender-specific genetic deficiency, boys in all English speaking countries would have more problems learning to read than girls do. Research studies, however, show that not to be the case.

So, I suspect the cause is far more cultural than it is biological. Society seems to have accepted a cultural cause for the different problem of girls once being less successful, generally, in high school math and science than boys. With cultural awareness and changes in schools in recent decades, that gap has largely closed. But I haven’t heard of much movement to change expectations, methods, opportunities, whatever it takes in regular classrooms, to meet boys’ reading needs. We just put boys in remedial reading classes. Perhaps after giving them Ritalin.

I have wondered, half facetiously, what might be the long-term results of examining the meaning of maturity among grade school pupils. Suppose, for example, we redefined the mature primary youngster (grades K-3). Let’s agree a mature pupil is one who is constantly alert, can hardly remain still or seated for a moment, fidgets, and wants to move quickly from topic to topic, activity to activity, idea to idea, as the mature mind races to learn all it can. Further, the mature youngster is exercising thought processes rapidly and may ask many questions, some that seem unrelated to the task at hand. The mature pupil exhibits a tremendous curiosity and interest in everything that is happening with everyone else in the classroom, wanting to move about and interact with others. The mature youngster has a comment for everything and may interrupt the teacher and other pupils to contribute.

The redefined immature primary youngster, then, would be one who is dully content to sit quietly, perhaps with hands folded on the desktop, while the teacher talks. The immature child will often wait to be asked to parrot specific answers, perhaps memorized to please the teacher. The immature grade school child is willing to spend extended amounts of time on a single, often repetitive task or activity, seemingly oblivious of the array of events flowing through the room among the more mature pupils.

Would we not stereotypically conclude that primary boys were more "mature" and girls "immature" with those new "definitions"? Then, to continue only semi-facetiously, suppose we believed in those classifications instead of the reverse. What ramifications would the new beliefs have on textbooks, curriculum designs, classroom activities, teacher training, methodologies, plus teacher and society attitudes and expectations toward each sex? What effects might that reversal of beliefs have on the subsequent success of each group? Perhaps considering such a change from a semi-facetious philosophical point of view could direct the discussion to areas of reading instruction needing improvement.

Years ago militant women’s groups led the fight to change science and math class expectations, materials, and methods for girls. Those advocates for change were right. Do we now need advocates to question the current, typical reading expectations and instruction for boys?

It's a commercial world

2005-08-22T22:31:00.000-07:00

Lately I have noticed that television commercials not only take up more of each hour than ever, but they also are getting sillier. There are some that had me thinking they were satires of real commercials the first time I saw them. But no. They are some ad agency's idea of real commercials.

For one example, there is a table scene with a family gathered around a meal. A bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a liter of Pepsi! And the simpering man of the house says something about how great it is to "have a regular meal together." It is not supposed to be funny, folks!

Then there is an ad for yet one more medication we are all supposed to ask our doctors about, for it may be just what we need. I missed the name and what it is supposed to cure. But the list of possible side effects seemed long enough to be satire, for sure. Turns out it also is serious. At the beginning and again at the end, an announcer glosses over the information that there is only slight chance of sexual side effects. And those effects are not listed. Instead we get a long litany of other possible problems, including stroke, liver failure, high blood pressure, depression, and thoughts of suicide.

It has me curious, perhaps by intent. Enough with the depression, liver failure, and thoughts of suicide! I want to know more about the sexual side effects, whatever the slight chances are for their occurrence. Of course, they may actually be something people would welcome. Like the commercial for that performance enhancing drug that tells you if an erection lasts for more than four hours, you should tell your doctor. I'll bet there are guys who would brag to everyone, not just to their doctors!

Whether Source or Phantom, Something Illegal Transpired

2005-08-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

A friend has spelled out a possible third case scenario in the continuing incarceration story of Judy Miller for refusing a Grand Jury order to reveal her source regarding the revelation of a CIA operative's name.

In the article below, I suggested that Miller is either choosing to remain in jail to protect a journalistic principal of confidentiality, or she is choosing to protect the source, itself. A slight distinction, but still, a distinction.

Using the same induction/deduction procedures of Sherlock Holmes, who could seldom have proved his cases had the criminals not confessed when confronted with his reasoning, I suggested that since we already know that Rove and Libby talked to reporters,then if either of them is the Miller source,they must have told her more than they told others, more that would get them into trouble.

And if neither Rove nor Libby is Miller's source, I reasoned, then there is someone else who is. And that someone, obviously, is willing to stay anonymous and allow Miller to languish in jail rather than release her from her promise of confidentiality. It follows, then, that if that is the case, the person hiding his or her involvement while Miller stays in jail is afraid that the truth will bring charges of illegal revelations or even criminal intent. Whoever is hoping Miller will remain in jail and not reveal her source must know what was revealed was wrong. Or why not come forward? Simple logic. I mean, if you were the source and had done nothing illegal in talking to Miller, would you allow her to spend all this time in jail in order to stay anonymous? Of course you would not.

My friend has a third possibility. "What if," he writes,"there was no Miller source? What if she made up her story, based on what others had already written and Beltway gossip plus her own 'knowledge' of possibilities? What if her 'source' doesn't exist? Wouldn't Judy Miller rather stay in jail until the Grand Jury adjourns in October than confess that she made up her news story and source?"

Anything is possible, perhaps especially within Beltway journalism and politics. Still, I'm betting that Miller has integrity. I am going with the notion that someone yet unknown is hiding uncomfortably while hoping Miller continues to protect him or her from charges of illegalities that would be revealed if he/she were identified. I'll say it again: if nothing illegal transpired, why not come forward?

Is the real story being covered?

2005-08-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to consider other possibilities than the one so often stated by the proud media about their fellow reporter Judy Miller staying in jail "as a matter of principal." She chooses to remain there, it is said regularly and often by media people, because she is championing a journalist’s right to keep sources confidential. She, therefore, will not reveal who told her that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA operative.

Perhaps that scenario is true. Maybe the reporter is a person of principal who is willing to endure all this to protect her profession’s rights of confidentiality. I even hope so.

But what if she is not so much protecting her professional right to keep sources confidential as she is protecting her source? I know; the distinction is slight. But there is a distinction. In one case she is choosing to remain in jail rather than compromise a journalistic principal.

In the other case, she is in jail rather than choosing to answer a Grand Jury and get someone in real trouble for committing a possible crime in outing a CIA operative. If that were the situation, one might argue that Miller is, in effect, an accessory to whatever crime may have been committed.

Whatever the case, there is a confidential source somewhere willing to let Judy Miller sit in jail for weeks, allowing her to say she is protecting a journalistic principal. Whoever that source is, there must be much to hide. I mean, we already know that Rove and Libby were involved in talking to reporters about the case.

So if her source is Rove, then he must have told her more than he told others, and perhaps the how, and why of his disclosure. Or is it Libby, who, perhaps, helped Miller more than the others he talked to with the scenario to seek revenge against Plame and her former ambassador husband? Did they tell Miller other things that would certainly brand their conversations as "criminal" if she were to reveal all?

Or is there another source we do not know about, someone who is willing to let Miller take the fall until the Grand Jury adjourns in October rather than release her from her confidentiality promise now? Is there someone who counts the days of Miller’s incarceration, hoping that their agreement, whatever it was, will not fail? Someone who prays that Miller will continue to protect him or her from the trouble he or she would be in if his or her name and the information he or she shared with Miller were made public? Whatever the truth is, that unnamed source must be feeling the pressure and the guilt from remaining "confidential" and letting Judy Miller stay in jail.

Does any of this get at the curious reason John Bolton recently paid a visit to Miller in jail? What was his purpose? Was he a messenger, or a kindly visitor checking on the well being of a friend?

Doesn’t every day that Miller’s source does not come forward strengthen the suspicion that there must be a lot more at stake than the principal of journalist confidentiality?

Take Me Out of the Ball Game!

2005-08-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

Whenever schools open and interest in baseball picks up in the fall, I remember my junior high school gym class playing daze.

We played baseball on the asphalt schoolyard whenever it wasn’t raining. Or rather we played on half of it. The girls’ gym class played on the other half. There was a painted white line that separated the fields, and if a ball rolled across into the girls’ area, the player chasing it stopped at the line and requested that a girl return it. Left fielders got to do that. The rest of us just watched the girl throw the ball back to our game. I was good at watching when I was in seventh grade.

We had large gym classes. I always played center field, and so did at least three others. There were two or three in both right and left field, a couple of short stops, and at least two covering each base. Sometimes there were two catchers, one behind the other.

I batted "oh for three"… years. No instructor ever told me how I might have held the bat differently, positioned myself differently, or swung at the ball differently. I’m pretty sure a smile twitched at the gym teacher’s face when it was my turn to bat, at least when I was a four foot eleven inch seventh grader. He stood behind the catcher and was the umpire. Once when I came to bat, he called to the outfield, "Move in everyone. Easy out."

During my first season, I never did touch the ball. I just stood with the other center fielders, chatting about cars that went by, day dreaming about life without gym class, or watching the girls’ game.

Whenever our huge side put their huge side out, I joined the small mob walking in to bat. We lined up at the fence and waited. Sometimes I didn’t get a turn at bat for two or three weeks. After our side’s three outs, I walked back to the wall in far center field and watched some more.

One day I was on the "shirt’s" team and was leaning against the center field wall. I don’t know how long I stood there watching the girl’s. When reality crept back, I became slowly aware with the mounting panic that only a seventh grader can fully appreciate, that all the other center fielders had no shirts on. Neither did the right or left fielders. My "shirts" team members were lined up at the fence taking turns at bat. I had missed the third out and the change of sides.

As casually as I could, I removed my T-shirt and stuck it into the waistband of my black gym shorts the way everyone else on my immediately adopted "skins" team had done. I was soon shivering from the chilly weather, or maybe trembling with fear that someone might notice. But no one did. Time ran out, and we were ordered into the cold showers before anyone knew I hadn’t gone in to bat.

Oh, I did get on base once in a while. Never as a seventh grader, but once as an eighth grader when I was hit by a pitched ball. By ninth grade I was more astute. I had observed that junior high pitchers were not much better than I was a batter. I stood at the plate maybe six times during that season and never swung at the ball. To swing was to strike, and I knew it. I also knew by then that there was a better than fifty-fifty chance of walking if I did not swing. I got a base-on-balls three or four times that year. Once I was actually batted across the plate to score a run.

But even that didn’t warm me enough to need the shower.

Say It Again, Sam

2005-08-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

A friend wore a T-shirt to a meeting I recently attended that read: "Department of Redundancy Department." It reminded me that redundancy is another characteristic of "Mare Kin," the language we speak instead of English. Though all speakers are apt to be redundant, some are masters of the form. Perhaps no group surpasses television weather persons, however.

"Currently now the present temperature at this hour stands at 93 degrees." And, "There were scattered showers all around up near the Flagstaff area." I also heard one say, "There is a storm watch for the immediate vicinity area."

We regularly hear reporters refer to temperatures forecast for "7:00 A.M. in the morning."

Other broadcasters are also redundant at times. One said on television, "It would be different if the couple co-habits together." Different from if they co-habit apart, I suppose.

Another reporter told viewers "There is a big ol’, huge, semi-trailer truck jack-knifed on I-17 North of Phoenix." Who has seen a semi-trailer truck that was neither big nor huge? Even one that wasn’t "ol’(d)."

One of my favorites was an interview a few years ago with an expert showing a new type of laser gun. He told the reporter and T.V. audience, "If the beam falls on the suspect, he usually gives up or surrenders, for he knows he could be shot or hurt." Given the choice of giving up or surrendering, which would you do to avoid being shot or hurt?

A government official reported that "They [his opponents] are using "phony, dishonest, and false figures." He added in the next sentence that the figures were, "not real and not accurate." I need to think about that.

Today I heard an officer telling a newsman about an accident victim who had "severe damage to the head area."

We could all say about a man, "He is bald." But we are more apt to say, "He is a bald headed guy." I have yet to hear, "He has no hair on his head area."

Redundancy isn’t a new phenomenon with language. Perhaps we just need to perfect the form to make 'Mare Kin redundancy more nearly literary.

Shakespeare, for example, was a master of poetic redundancy. Consider just one example -- this list of statements from Macbeth spoken to his lady after he had killed his king: "Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘sleep no more! Macbeth doth murder sleep’" And then Macbeth lists seven descriptions of the murdered sleep. – "the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast" – Lady Macbeth interrupts his poetic overacting with, "What do you mean?" After seven redundant descriptions!

Redundancies that occur almost spontaneously in our spoken language may be more crowded with irritating examples than are the plays of Shakespeare. You decide. Listen to your own speech and that of others, for you, too, may belong to the department of redundancy department.

Design of Bush's Intelligence

2005-08-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

One way human intellect is displayed is through language. That seems obvious, I know. Two good examples of language showcasing intellect appeared in the morning paper.

Condoleeza Rice is quoted about the death of Peter Jennings: "Peter Jennings represented all that was best in journalism and public service. A man of integrity, his reporting was a guide to all of us who aspire to better the world around us. I learned from him and was inspired by him." One can question what she means by "all that was best," or how his reporting guided her in her aspirations. But the response does display a high intellect at work when asked to comment on Jennings’ death.

Compare that to the remarks made by President George W. Bush. His words might serve as an entry in the next edition of the Little Golden Book Encyclopedia for Kindergarten. He is quoted as saying, "Peter Jennings had a long and distinguished career as a news journalist. He covered many important events, events that helped define the world as we know it today."

I shake my head wondering if there is a "non-news" category of journalist. I also speculate about what the Bush definition is of the world as he knows it today. But that aside, the President’s comments are certainly another glimpse into the design of the man’s intelligence.

Reading his shallow level of communication, I am taunted to define the Bush legacy for an edition of the same kindergarten encyclopedia to be printed after his term ends: "George W. Bush was a President of the United States of America. He held the office during a time of many important events, events that helped define the world as we know it today."

August 6, 1945: Sixty years and millions of "what-ifs" ago

2005-08-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

We have heard many people argue President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II. Nearly all of those viewing the decision from hindsight are unable to see that far back to the world that was, for they were either not alive or were too young to remember. Hindsight, contrary to popular statements, is not necessarily twenty-twenty, whatever history one reads.

We know the figures of the thousands who died on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other Pacific islands taken from the Japanese. We have heard projections of the millions who may have died in an invasion of the Japanese homeland, being planned even as the A-bombs dropped.

We have read speculation that Japan was nearly defeated, anyway, and would soon have surrendered if the bombs had not been dropped. Remembering how the Japanese fought nearly to the last man on the islands, and the kamikaze pilots, and the fanatical defense of their cause, country, and emperor, as well as the continuing propaganda from Tokyo, one may doubt that scenario, though, once again, no one knows.

Civilian men, women, children, and Japanese soldiers on Okinawa leapt from cliffs to their deaths on the rocks below rather than surrender. There were Japanese soldiers in the jungles of the Philippines, for another example, hiding out and refusing to surrender for decades after the war! It is hard to imagine the Japanese were "about ready to surrender, anyway," before the atomic bombs dropped.

One of the biggest arguments against having dropped the bomb centers on the radiation and fallout that caused so much poisoning and suffering and death following the blasts. Again, consider the world that was. Those who dropped the bomb, even those who developed the ghastly machine, did not know the extent of that effect. How could they have known? It had never exploded over people before. So we can argue and speculate sixty years later, and we can grieve anew for the dead. But we need to remember that Truman did not know the total effect of those explosions. No one did.

As long as this is the season for speculation, here is yet another idea to consider. It is one that I have not heard debated before, although it probably has been discussed somewhere over the years. How do we know that the atomic bombs over Japan not only ended the war and saved millions of lives by making an invasion unnecessary, but also saved millions more, perhaps even all human life on the planet, in the years that have followed?

Here is the "argument." By dropping the bombs, we ended a terrible war, though inflicting horrible casualties and damage. All of that showed the world what atomic bombs can do. If we had not done that, had only demonstrated the force of the bomb's power over some uninhabited atoll, for example, would the political leaders in the post war world have fully realized the destructive nature of the bomb?

Isn't it possible that Russia or China, for example, would have decided to use the bomb against us, or against us and the South Koreans, or against the Afghans, or against Formosa? And remember that General MacArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons against the Chinese in Korea. Had cooler heads not learned earlier about the devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the potential for worldwide nuclear holocaust, might MacArthur have been given permission? Once more, the answer is, "We'll never know."

The U.S. military was exploding atomic bombs in the desert and marching troops in under the cloud to test their ability and the effects of radiation on soldiers for years after Hiroshima. It somehow seems logical, knowing the military "need" to learn how all its weapons perform in warfare,that if the world had not become educated by the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those weapons would have been used by some country at some time against other cities and people somewhere.

So, without the knowledge gained from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I ask again, might there have been a world-wide nuclear war by now? The answer, one more time, is that we will never know. Just as we do not know how other tactics might have worked to end the fighting with Japan in 1945.

Right after the Chernoble atomic power plant in the USSR spewed radioactive steam around the globe decades after Hiroshima, the Soviet leadership began to soften their stance and move toward additional missile treaties. Those years following Chernoble also saw the fall of the Iron Curtain and the USSR. Perhaps there was more cause-effect from the near melt-down at Chernoble than we now know.

At the least, the power plant disaster showed the Russian leaders and the world once again that we are all down wind. Gorbachev had to think about that. Our leaders certainly did.

Then perhaps the horrible devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the ugly and painful deaths of so many people in those cities, was a "cause" that "affected" the world's leaders in ways that have prevented even worse atomic wars since then. As I keep saying, we'll never know.

But those arguing that the bombs should not have been dropped back in a world they never knew, and one no longer in existence, do not know that, either.

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Impartial Judges?

2005-08-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

"Impartial: not partial."

"Partial: favoring one person or side over another or others"

from: "The American Heritage Dictionary," Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

We read and hear these days about the need for Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, to show Congress and the country that he is impartial at interpreting the law. No litmus test needed; just prove impartiality.

Judges are always partial. Look no further than the five to four appointment of an unelected President in 2000 to see how partiality split right along political loyalties. Perhaps no recent case is more obvious an example. But all decisions of all judges in all cases demonstrate the "favoring of one side or person over another or others."

Judges are products of their childhood training, their schooling, their beliefs and thought processes, as are we all. What they have been taught to believe, how they were taught it, and how they have been trained to reason about their beliefs concerning the law will determine how they decide for or against one person or side in any case. Think about it. If judges were impartial in interpreting the law, would we need nine on the Supreme Court? Wouldn’t one "impartial" judge be enough? We need nine in order to have a majority view possible, with as small a majority as five partial to one side and four to the other.

It is not surprising, then, that the party in power hopes for a judge that will be partial to their beliefs and even their agenda. Of course the President was given the name of a man to nominate who is believed to be partial to the Republicans. And of course the Democrats will challenge his partiality.

John Roberts will be confirmed, according to all the best guesses. It will not mean that he will have shown himself to be impartial. His written opinions, memos, statements, and beliefs that might give a clearer picture of his judicial biases will be shielded from the hearings by those who believe him to be partial to their own thinking. He will be challenged by those who believe him to be partial to "the other side or sides," as well. As I said, Judge Roberts will be confirmed anyway.

And a conservative Republican, Roman Catholic will sit on the Court for the rest of his life, or until he retires, ruling on all manner of issues according to his early learning, his education, his beliefs, and his thinking processes concerning the law. None of those factors are exactly like any other judge's. Therefore, neither he nor any of the other judges will ever hand down a decision based on impartiality. Their decisions will be a product of the way they see the issues,their learning, their beliefs, and their ways of thinking.

Partialities, all the way.

No wonder the two sides will argue the appointment.

Toilet Training for Adults

2005-07-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

There is a commercial on television for some brand of toilet tissue that has one of the actors mention the female bug-a-boo about males leaving the toilet seat up. I remember both Ann Landers and Dear Abby often gave attention to that complaint in more militant feminist years of the recent past.

One of the advice twins wrote once that any man who was a gentleman would position the seat, "as it should be," in the lowered position for the convenience of his female partner.

I was tempted to write and suggest that, conversely, then, any woman who was a lady would raise the seat when finished to provide for the convenience of her male partner. Equality of toilet training seemed one sided. But the issue has diminished in frequency of complaint, until the new commercial.

My experience tells me that nearly all toilets in private homes have both a seat and a lid. Female complaints are never that the seat and lid are both left open. They complain only that the seat is left up. Women say that leaves the sewer open, makes a visual statement that chauvinist men can stand to pee, makes it necessary for the women to put the seat down before sitting, and/or startles those who don’t check it first when they sit on cold porcelain.

Almost all women whose home bathrooms I have observed leave the seat down but the lid up when they finish. That is, like the men who leave both the seat and lid up, women also leave the toilet positioned as it was when they finished using the facility, also with the sewer open. The sexes seem equal in that. Go check it out.

Perhaps a civilized solution to the "problem" could be found if both sexes were toilet trained to close the "sewer" by lowering both the seat and the lid. Or what is the lid "for"?

Not only would that allow those colorful terry cloth toilet lid covers to show, but it would also prevent family dogs from drinking out of the toilet and then dripping water off their floppy ears all around the house.

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Rove, Rove, Rove your boat, gently up the creek...

2005-07-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

We still do not know the truth about the "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame. President Bush said some time ago that anyone in his administration who had "leaked" her name would be fired. Or words to that effect.

Now there is mounting evidence that his chief of staff, Karl Rove, was involved. It may have been "payback" for Plame's husband telling the truth about Saddam not buying enriched uranium from Africa, as Bush had contended in his State of the Union Address as another step in the run-up to war. We do not know yet, but we know that Bush has changed his story. He now says anyone "convicted of a crime" involving the "leak" will no longer work in his administration.

I am not sure what to call that. But if it had been Senator Kerry who changed his story like that, the entire Bush League would be chanting "flip-flop" to every reporter inside the beltway.

There has, therefore, been much speculation about whether or not Bush will fire Rove, or anybody. Karl may get past the turmoil, depending on the meanings of "leak," "name," and "crime," I suppose. But there is also cynical speculation that Bush will not fire Rove because the President doesn't have the authority to do that.

All right, so that may be an exaggeration. Or not. Still, you have to remember that Charlie McCarthy couldn't fire Edgar Bergen, either.

A Question For the Next Press Conference

2005-07-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

There is an impertinent question I would ask if I were a reporter at one of President Bush’s rare press conferences. It would simply be an attempt to get him to consider another point of view. Here it is for use by Britt Hume, or any other White House Press Corps reporter.

"Mr. President, we know of your commitment to fighting terrorists and to spreading democracy in the Middle East. We also know how proud you are of our troops and the sacrifices they are making to help accomplish your mission in Iraq. We are also aware that military recruitment numbers have been going down in recent months.

"Given your commitments and those figures, Sir, have you thought of the positive effects on both the general support for the war and military recruitment if you were to convince either one or both of your daughters to join the army and request duty in Iraq?"

I am sure many others have thought of the same question in different words. I am also sure it will not be asked in any way. But maybe it should be.

We as a nation seem more willing to accept military sacrifices and deaths when it is other people’s kids who are fighting. Would our government be so willing to start a war if the Constitution mandated, "The first to become warriors in any war that is initiated by the United States will be the sons, daughters, and grandchildren between the ages of eighteen and forty-five of all elected and appointed Federal officials"?

What I am saying is simple: would we have invaded Iraq if the Bush twins and Cheney’s daughters and all the sons and daughters of all the members of the Cabinet and our elected congress had been required to go?

If the answer is, "No, the United States would not then have started the Iraqi war," perhaps we need to ask just how committed our leaders really are and how necessary starting the war really was.

The language we speak instead of English...

2005-07-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

I was born in Iowa and lived there for years. A five-year-old daughter of a new acquaintance from Canada once listened intently to the conversation going on around her. She shyly approached my chair and said softly, "Would you please say something in ‘Iowish’?"

Her parents, my wife, and I laughed, and someone told Jennifer that "Iowans speak English, just like Canadians." That made us laugh again, and we said, "Well, not just like Canadians, eh?"

It is true. Nor do Iowans necessarily sound like New Yorkers, Texans, or Minnesotans. In fact, there are some words that sound different in Western Iowa from their Eastern Iowa sounds.

Yet the variety of spoken sounds for the same words in this country have many similarities, and they are all identifiably different from the sounds of British speech. Americans may write English, for the most part. But we all speak American, which we are more apt to pronounce according to our own region: "’Murkin," Amer’kin," "A-mare-kin," or, my preference, "Mare Kin."

Many pronunciations are only regional. Others are typical across the country. As we celebrate the variations of recipes, fashions, customs, ethnicity, beliefs, architecture, and so many other aspects of American life, we may also celebrate the variations in regional speech. They simply add zest to the Mare Kin language. The following brief list is meant to entertain, not to ridicule. Readers, I am sure, will be able to add their own examples.

PARTIAL DICTIONARY OF MARE KIN:

AIR: "error," as in trial and AIR.

AIR: "are" in the South. "AIR ya comin’?"

ARE: "our" in the North. "C’mon ta ARE house."

ARE: sixty minutes in the South. Also what some Southerners breathe.

AWNT: your mother’s sister in Boston.

AUNT (say "ont") your mother’s other sister in Minneapolis.

ANT: your dad’s sister in Des Moines.

AINT: your deddy’s other sister in Mayberry.

DAM: what beavers build in the North.

DAYUM: what beavers build in the South.

DADDY: a child’s father in Illinois, Ohio, among other places.

DEDDY: a dad in Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, for example.

Die-Dee: your pappy in East Tennessee.

DIE-DEE: a diaper among older Iowans who remember cloth diapers.

DOCK: what Northerners tie boats to.

DOCK: when the lights go out in "Hot-fud," Connecticut, and in parts of the South.

FIR: perhaps the best example of universal Mare Kin. Within a sentence, it means "for" in nearly every American locale. Fir example: "Whud ja pay FIR that?" or, "Wait FIR me." (At the end of sentences, it is usually pronounced as "fore." "Whud ja do that for?")

FUST: a Southern first.

GULL: "girl" in Southern USA.

HAHD: "difficul’t" or "not soft" in the East and down East. "It’s nevah HAHD fir Ted to be re-elected in Massachusetts."

HARD: "not soft" in much of the North.

HARD: "hired" man in most of the South. "Hoired" man in Charleston.

JUICE: "electricity" in Appalachia.

‘LECTRICITY: "electricity" in typical Mare Kin.

MUNDEE: Day after Sundee. We also say "Toosdee, Wensdee, Thursdee," and "Fridee" when we use the words in sentences. Add "Sattidee," or "Sat’dee," or even "Satterdee," to complete the week.

NEW YOKE: what Southerners call New York.

N’ YAWK: what people who live there call New York.

RAT: Southern "right." "Come inna house RAT now!"

RETARD: A southerner who has taken Social Security. "He is RETARD now after forty years of teachin’ school.

TAHD: "fatigued" down East.

TIE YERD: "fatigued" in most northern states.

TARRED: "fatigued" in the South.

TOMATO: Mare Kin vegetable.

TOMAHTO: Boston vegetable.

‘MATER: Appalachian vegetable. (Same pattern for "potato, potahto," and "tater."

WARSHINGTON: first President of the U.S. in the Midlands and in the state of "Warshington" out on the "Wess coast."

WASHINGTON: first President of the United States in Michigan, among other places.

WASH’TIN: first President in Georgia, for example.

WRETCHED: Southern name for "Dick." "WRETCHED Nixon resigned his office as President of the United States."

That gives you the idea. Once you tune yer rears, yule hear Mare Kin pronunciations instead of English throughout the United States. Watch this space for more.

(Material adapted from MAREKIN: THE LANGUAGE WE SPEAK INSTEAD OF ENGLISH, by Dana Wall, Morris Publishing, 179 pp., paper.)

When is a "leak" a "plant"?

2005-07-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

Talk show guests on Sunday are rehashing and spinning the revelation to reporters of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. Who leaked the information? Why?

Did it come from Karl Rove to get even for the truth Plame's husband had published concerning President Bush's false story of Saddam's buying enriched Uranium from Africa? Was it an inadvertant revelation by Rove, who admits having said, "Ambassador Wilson's wife.." not realizing that Wilson had but one wife and her identity would be easily found out? Rove seems smarter than that. But he argues now that he did not reveal her name! It depends on the meaning of "name,"perhaps.

It is typical Washington D.C. strutting and ducking by people involved. If the evidence plays out as it seems today, one wonders how long before someone calls the despicable outing a "plant" rather than a "leak."

And so far no one has answered the question adequately about why Robert Novak, who first printed the story, is not being questioned and, perhaps, jailed.

He contends he has broken no laws. Could that mean he doesn't realize how badly he has been used by whoever fed him the information for his story? Or that he knows, but accepts his Bush League role. He also has said that he printed the story because, "The public has a right to know."

That may be legally true. But it is hard to see why if we, the public, have a right to know the identity of CIA operatives, we don't also have the right to know who is compromising their effectiveness on the job and, perhaps, endangering their lives by "leaking" those identities to the public.

"The first casualty of war is the truth"

2005-07-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

"A-Ten-HUT!" all you military personnel out there doing what you are told and seeing what is really going on! Listen carefully. Some of you may eventually get jobs in the public sector. A few may move into elected office. And one or two of you may become prominent political leaders, running for governor or senate in the future. At least one of you may even become a Presidential candidate in the general election of 2036.

I do not plan to be around; so, let me advise you now from a position of pure cynicism, but based on observations of history.

Here it is: Do not go on record with what you know about military abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan or Iraq. Keep quiet about the abuses at the Cuban military installation, as well. Destroy photos you may have. Do not write e-mail reports to loved ones or friends about what you have seen and know. Certainly, do not post any of that on line.

The military cover up of the friendly fire death of hero Pat Tillman? Shut up about it.

Lack of equipment supplied by our government? Hush. Unspent money appropriated for the war and funneled to companies "rebuilding" Iraq? It was needed there.

Extended enlistments, unprotected patrols, suicide missions? Don't talk of them.

Personnel drinking too much, taking drugs? Shhh. The number of female military personnel who become pregnant while on duty overseas? Please! No one needs to know.

Soldiers raping Iraqi women? Don't comment on their actions, the trials that have been held, nor the convictions of those already found guilty. Just shut up about the truth!

Our troops killing Iraqi civilians, including a wounded man at a church site? Let the courts handle it without your comment! The number of Iraqi dead, estimated as high as 200,000 and counting? Never mind. They weren’t Americans.

"Why," you may well ask, "do I give such deceitful advice?"

I'll tell you why with one name: "John Kerry."

He testified years ago about the truth in Viet Nam. But when he ran for President about 35 years later, the nation had forgotten the truth and wanted to believe only in the holy sanctity of both our troops and their mission as Christian people who would never do wrong. That 35-year-old testimony of the truth, paraded before the voters by the opposition instead of discussing the issues of the campaign, made voters angry with Kerry, for they did not want to remember the truth.

So lies were believed instead, and Kerry lost.

One of you in the military today may be running for President in 2036. By then the country again may not want to remember the truth about the mistreatment, illegal acts, and wrong-doings of what they consider a "do-no-wrong America" in its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Go on record with what you know today, and lose the election 35 years from now.

You heard it here first.

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