Oh good! I just checked the weather channel and the fog is really outside and not in my head as I feared. I tried to take a pic of the mist on the hillside but it doesn't do it justice. You'll have to imagine fog monsters crawling around in tendrils over the trees. The redtail hawks have decided to wait until later to go into the office, and are just sitting on convenient limbs being soggy. My head seems foggy and soggy and it is only the first night of the Democratic National Convention.

It will be over in 100 days, good or devastating.

I guess I'm probably the only person here that watched much of the DNC convention last night. Just so all of you will know, it was actually a lot better than the news coverage would have you believe. The woman on CNN was Don Rumsfeld's spokesperson before she became fair and balanced. You'll note the slur and innuendo in her commentary. Ann Coulter is covering for USA Today and had to be censored. Why any news organization would give her a forum is beyond me. They did have the decency to censor her remark that this was a convention of the "Spawn of Satan". I think they should have left it in so folks could see for themselves what she really is. Nothing makes me sadder about the state of my country than to see what passes for our news media now. Even so, it was fun to watch most of the commentators get caught up and say nice things about Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore.

James Earl Carter... looked right into America and told the plain truth about where we have been taken for the last three years. I wish I could make George W. Bush face him in his Sunday school class. You shouldn't lie to America! You shouldn't misslead us into a war to settle your own personal greivances and enrich your friends. You shouldn't play politics with the safety of our country. And folks, it is just plain evil to poison the world for profit. Go Jimmy! They loved him. Even the commentators, everyone I saw, were nice.

Al Gore... Everytime I see Al Gore I wish he had bigger balls. It was ultimately Gore's failure to realize the depth of the emptiness of the Neo-conservative conscience that let him step aside for the Bushistas. He gave a great speech. The crowd initially reacted by waving their Kerry-Edwards posters but before he was done they had put those down and were standing and cheering Al Gore, the man who was elected President but did not serve.

Bill Clinton owns any room he walks into. Hillary gave the speech that introduced him. She does a good job, but it was a token appearance in prelude to the man everyone really wants to hear. Everyone kept waiting for Hillary to kiss Bill but she never did. A good hug, yes, but she never gave in to our voyeurism.

I plan to find a transcript of Clinton's speech. he had to rush it a bit to get it all in and he only went one minute over his alloted time...a miracle for him. I remember sitting there thinking that this should be required reading for all voters. There was no political exaggeration but a clean dissection of the differences between John Kerry and what he will do as president and George Bush and what he has already done. It was clear, methodical, lively, and sincere...All reasons why Bill Clinton speaks at the beginning of the convention, as far from Kerry's time slot as possible. Now here's the thing: every person I have heard who has an ounce of objectivity has said that John Kerry is a decent, honest, and genuine person, completely contrary to the ad hominem attacks generated by Republican operatives. But!...No one claims Kerry is a great speaker. Having to follow John Edwards is bad enough but to have to follow Bill Clinton? No way.

Kerry is working his way around the country and will make his grand entrance toward the end of the convention. Let us hope that he is practicing his speech until he can just talk to us and laugh while he does it. If he reads his jokes, he will have a hard time. If he let's us somehow know that he's a friend of ours, he will dance into the Whitehouse.

*****
Here is a good view of the DNC from a formerly neutral observer: 

God knows it's not perfect - not even close. I'm sure there was no shortage of vile hacks and corporate fat cats in the audience. And when it comes to actual policies, it's pretty clear the Democratic Party has about as much progressive backbone as a bowl of corn meal mush.
But compared to the sea of sour-looking honkies and fundamentalist zealots that have filled the seats (if not the stage) of every GOP convention I've ever watched, there's no question in my mind which side I'm on in this fight. It may not be my party, but those are my people, my America. I wish I could be there with them.

http://billmon.org/archives/001607.html

So here's the question: Can independant and swing voters remain in denial for the next 100 days or will they examine what the two candidates say and think about it? If there is any real examination Kerry wins!

Peace and Courage!

Steve

 

Chuck will in the morning.

At least he will this morning, anyway. Before dawn this loud mouthed bird went off. It flew around the house and set up outside each open window and shouted in through the screens. Over and over and over. We called them whippoorwills growing up but that's a different bird. Whippoorwills go north for the summer and pass through here only during the nicest weather in the early spring. Chuck wills hang out all summer trying to get us to stay awake all night and sleep all day by harrassing us with the loudest most incessant "song" of the night in the animal kingdom. Even the owls and coyotes have the decency to shut up after a bit. I once lived in a very old farm house in South Carolina that was perched on a hill in the middle of several pastures. It had somehow become a sort of singles bar for chuck wills. I did love to hear them at first, but after a while it got to where I really really needed some sleep. I stared out the windows of that old house several times as a male went through his strut and grind mating song to impress a girl. I have not seen the mating noise mentioned in the bird books but I have it ground in to my memory. It sounds like a combination of the noises on a futuristic video pin ball game except for having no bells. The "boings" and "buzzes" are all there. Weird to hear for the first time, particularly in the middle of the night. I would give another night's sleep to experience it again but not every night's sleep like I had to do the last time. I was getting a bit nutty from deprevation before the mating was accomplished and the birds had to shut up and raise their kids which is about now in the scheme of things.

Why this morning's chuck will's widow got noisy, I don't know, but he pulled me from a serious dream sequence, none the less. I actually wanted to hear the bird better when it first started and had to overcome the shut mechanism in my eyes to force myself more awake. I remember my dreams much more clearly at such times but this one has the quality of a phone conversation that is breaking up with some clear moments and some static. My head was working on something and the dream was only metaphor. Women were talking. I don't know what they were saying but they weren't exactly happy. I've lived a lot of my life around unhappy women so it was nothing new. A long time ago I decided that the only time my Grandmother was happy was when she was miserable. My mom was a bit like that too. I think it is a Scotch-Irish thing.

I've noticed this again in the Irish somewhat recently. They are having a rather happy time giving the President of the United States hell right now. Even though both the president and the Irish were mad, only the Irish were happy. He is over there staying in Castles and trying to convince the Europeans that he is not a moron. It's not working.

The Bush team agreed to a television interview and demanded that all the questions that were going to be asked be provided at least three days in advance. They were, and the President's team had three days to get him primed up with the answers. It now turns out that the biggest balls in journalism are hanging on a woman named Carol Coleman. She had the temerity to demand that George Bush actually answer a question he had had three days to work on. He got mad and testy and never did answer the questions. Then the Bush team cancelled a planned interview with Laura Bush. Too bad the interview didn't come out until after Michael Moore's film opened.

That's it!!! That's what my dream was about! Unhappy women asking questions and not getting answers. In an early sequence in Moore's documentary we are on the House of Representatives floor when Al Gore has the ironic duty to certify his own stolen election. There are several Florida Congresswomen who are contesting the Florida vote. They have evidence, since verified by every single investigator that looked into it, that the voters in their districts were cheated out of their votes. They were making an absolutely constitutionally legal challenge to the election results that installed George W. Bush in the Presidency, except for one thing...In order to have legal validity, the challenge had to have the signature of a Senator of the United States. Just one! Not one single Senator would come forward and sign his name. There is one Senator I question more than any other at this point and that is Bob Graham, D-Fla. Former candidate for President. By all accounts, Bob Graham is an honorable man, particularly for a Senator. What the hell were you thinking, Bob?

I like the animals better than I like people some times. When a bird wakes me up in the night, it is nothing personal. A bird gotta do what a bird gotta do. People have no excuses. When a bird clips on to the stem of a plant sticking out of the ground and tells the whole world that he's a chuck will's widow, over and over and over again, it is just because a feeling came over him that said he had to. Sorry, gotta sing! Too bad it's 4:30 am. I forgive the bird. When a Senator, ok, 100 Senators, fail to do the right thing called for by the Constitution, I get mad and I remember it. John Kerry, you messed up too! Now you have to make it right.

Another thought hits me...If you or I had won something and found out that it was wrong, what would we do? There is no question that Al Gore won the most votes in Florida. Even with Kathryn Harris violating the Constitutional rights to vote of roughly 40,000 Floridians who should have had their vote counted, Gore won the recount when they counted the whole state. Bush lost, fair and square. Do you think that the man who "Promised to restore Integrity and Morality to the Whitehouse" should resign? Would that be the moral thing to do? Where is Integrity in staying on?

I sticking with the Bird on this one! Never did get back to sleep.

Here are some sites where you can click on a link and listen to the call of the chuck-will and the whip-poor-will to hear the difference in their songs.

Chuck will's Widow:

http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4160id.html

Whippoorwill:

http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4170id.html

Peace,

Steve



The guy just keeps on changing positions on things:

Flip flops and waffles:

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
George W. Bush
Sept. 13, 2001

"I don't know where [Osama bin Laden] is and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
George W. Bush
March 13, 2003

Friday, June 25, 2004

Rained all day, stormed and messed up our plans to get outside so we decide to hit the movie. You know..."The" movie.

Wow! I took the family to see Farhenheit 9-11 last night. Waiting to get in, I looked at the faces of the people coming out, trying, as I usually do, to figure out what effect the movie had on them. I'm not sure what I expected but probably something like a "rah rah go team" mood. That's not what showed on the faces of the most diverse group of folks I have ever seen at one place in Tennessee. Some were talking and laughing loudly and some were drying tears. Some were just crying.

We had ordered our tickets on line and had one extra for the 5:10 pm show, thinking that one might be the easiest to get in on opening day. Standing in line we realized we were lucky. Everyone was talking with everyone else. The guy in front of us was in line to get tickets for the next day's show since they were sold out for all shows on Friday. When my wife told him she had gotten tickets over the Internet, he put this Duh look on his face and stepped out of line. A young woman was in front of us holding cash in her hand and I asked if she had her ticket. She said no but she really, really wanted to see this movie but was afraid she wouldn't get to. I sold her our extra ticket but she had to go through with us like a family member since we had a block of tickets printed out that wouldn't separate. We looked just like a nice family as the guy took our tickets except that Thomas's older sister was black.

I looked at a Middle Eastern looking group of women going in. They were smiling and friendly with traditional printed cloth covering their heads. Not one single man had on a suit or a red tie. There were lots of blue shirts in the crowd. That was the secret badge of the Moveon.org members.

The only seats we could get together were down front, dead center, three rows back. The previews were way too loud and I had curious, not entirely comfortable, emotions as I sat with my 15 year old son, through a trailer for a movie about a guy making ends meet by impregnating lesbians. Rated PG 13, the movie was, but the preview was "approved for all audiences". Good grief!

I expected much of the movie. I pay attention to what happens in my world. I knew all about the Saudi Bin Laden connections to the Bush family. I was not prepared for the emotional impact of connecting the dots with nothing more than news footage. I now think back at the Fox news talking heads trying to counter the effectiveness of Michael Moore's film by questioning his "facts". They're going to have a hard time with that because much of what he does is just show news file tape of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and the others contradicting themselves. What do you do when you call your own self a liar? How do you spin that?

There were things I didn't want to see. I cried several times and I hate very few things more than crying in movies. But every tear was ripped apart by laughter. I laughed hard and loud, time after time, except when I was crying. Moore let me off the hook at the end. The last emotional gut wrench was mitigated by the last guffaw. It was a clip of a speech George W. Bush gave in Tennessee. He did it to himself with no help from Michael Moore.

Then it was over. Two hours flew by. I am usually ahead of a film. I am rarely surprised and get impatient for them to be over. When one does surprise me after sending my insides reeling on a roller coaster ride, I am grateful. For Moore to have surprised me with things I already knew is nothing short of amazing. The juxtaposition of facts and events leads us to the inescapable conclusion. Unlike a Presidential campaign ad there is no fiction or wishful thinking presented in 9-11 to make the case. It is a documentary put together with not much more than news clips, network file footage, and interviews. This is the most entertained you will have ever been while being forced to think.

But be warned...It took nearly an hour and two glasses of wine for my insides to settle down enough for supper. I do not recommend that you go see Farhenheit 9-11... I order you to go... and take a Republican! Offer to pay their way.

As we all walked out of the movie, I tried to wipe my eyes casually and then look around. Everyone I looked at was either laughing or crying or trying not to. I saw the women with the covered heads and they were openly weeping. I understand.

America...What have we done?

Can we fix it? We have to!

Peace,

Steve

Frog days hang in the gorge.

Looking out as I sit here sipping the morning's allotment of juice from the evil bean, I can actually see the air. Lumpy and whitish, it moves up the creek, crawls over the far ridge and then changes its mind...confused and addled from the burden of too much water. Funny how the world works...In Colorado they are beginning to think the local drought will make the dust bowl years look like relief, while here at my home it rains most afternoons, enough to murk up the snorkeling but not enough to make whitewater to play in. I consider myself lucky to be here at this spot but I have to think about the West and wonder if I will live long enough to see the Cumberland Plateau become just as parched.

Anyone who has hiked in New Mexico or Arizona and has also spent much time in Eastern Tennessee will note the geographical resemblance of the two places. One has trees and one has cacti, but the mesas and arroyos of the West are nearly identical to the plateaus and gorges of the East when you get down to the dirt and rock. The crinoid fossil I saw emerging from the rock overlooking the Green River gorge in Colorado looks very much like the crinoid fossil I have laid into my hearth behind the wood stove. It came from Great Falls on the Caney Fork River in Tennessee. Both lived in shallow seas which have long since disappeared. The Twin Arches in Big South Fork could easily be in Moab. You just have to walk much closer to see them because of the trees. It is all about climate, which is all about water and heat. It is another form of the energy problem. During frog days on the plateau, we have our own form of the energy problem. The heat and humidity cause a shortage of energy when we need to be doing things. Lots of things get started and lots of things never get finished.

The climate in both the East and the West has changed. As a matter of geological record it pretty much is always changing all over the world. Humans are very short lived compared to the time frame of historical climate change. If we can't see it, well then it must not be happening. It's the "boiled frog" effect. I've seen this with crabs but I've never had any reason to boil a frog to test it. I have boiled a fair number of blue crabs and they will sit right there in the pot, never moving or trying to save themselves from taking that personal journey from crustacean to food, but only if you start with cold water. It's the slow change that gets them. I made the mistake of tossing one into hot water one time, and all hell broke loose around the camp. A pissed off crab is a frightening thing to confront.

Now we humans are getting to see what it's like. The last three months were the warmest on record in North America. Virtually every scientist in the world, who is not funded one way or another by an energy company, is concerned. Frankly, a whole bunch of the scientists that are funded by the energy companies are concerned. For that matter, even the President of Shell Oil Company is concerned and I'm pretty danged sure he is funded by an energy company. Even the American Military is concerned. The Pentagon has issued a position paper saying this is a huge problem and sent it to the President of the United States who is NOT concerned. He is more worried about being reelected than much of any thing else. He's trying to stay out of jail.

I think he is crazy. All his best buddies are going to be in jail so he could hang with all of them and just kick back for a few years. Ken Lay, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, Rush Limbaugh...They could have their own basketball team at recess so why is Bush fighting it? After some consideration I think he needs a new motto to help boost his ratings. He's pretty unpopular right now. I think his new motto for reelection ought to be:

"Follow Me to the Apocalypse"

That should work with his most fervent voter base, don't you think?

Insiders at the Whitehouse are starting to say George W. Bush is crazy, too. When a Washington news organization published the startling revelations from Whitehouse aids saying The President was nuts like Nixon, nobody refuted it with any factual corrections. The conservative pundits merely attacked the news provider personal sexual history, as is customary. The allegations still stand that the Prez is losing it.

The Vice Prez seems to be losing it too. When ever he gives a speech he says something like, "Hey, I never said Saddam was involved in 9-11, but you know he was because I say so, even though every other knowledgeable person on the planet says I'm lying." To which the Fox News pundits will say, "See, we told you so!" And to which every body else will say,

"Huh?"

See! They're crazy. That is the only rational explanation. One thing you can notice is that when Conservatives have a problem, they accuse everybody else of the same thing. That's why you see Rush, who just fried his third marriage by virtue of drugs and infidelity, ranting about Bill's sex life. Now they have this mental instability issue they have to deal with so what do they do? They accuse every body else of being crazy! Here is a list of the people that conservatives have recently and publicly accused of being crazy:


Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, Ann Richards, Jesse Jackson, Paul Wellstone, George Soros, Gray Davis, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Al Franken, Kevin Phillips, Bill Maher, Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, Susan McDougal, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Max Cleland, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton

And Al Gore! Al was branded crazy for bringing up the little problem of climate change way back when. I don't think I have heard one single conservative puppet, I mean pundit, say Al was right but he was and is... No boiled Frog, that Al.

So while the air gets heavier and heavier I will just try to keep my cool and watch the show. In the mean time I have a reading assignment for you... here is an excerpt from David Podvin:

"Conservatives are tantalizingly close to eradicating the American way of life as we know it, and they have no intention of allowing their cherished plans to be spoiled by someone who is so crazy that he insists upon telling the truth."

This is a well reasoned article that is a fun read, also. Get to it, frogs!

http://makethemaccountable.com/podvin/more/040617_CrazyLikeAStatesman.htm

Peace,

Steve

I think the last time I slept all the way through the night was in 1956. I usually drop into the "dead zone" for four or five hours and then cat nap until I get up. My wife is a saint for several reasons but this has to be a big one. When I wake up, I usually listen to the world. There's a lot going on at night.

Here in the gorge we are in that time between the frogs and the katydids. If we have any kind of rain the tree frogs go off. Not in any steady background noise way but erratically loud then nothing. Why is it the "nothing" that wakes us up? This all changes in a few weeks. Katydids will rock the gorge...all night long. They don't have the nothing periods while it's dark. All they have is daytime. If you can't sleep with the katydid throbulator rocking these hills, you had better stay in town. I look at them crawling around the screens and wonder how a big green cricket can make such a racket. It's all about cricket love, though, and somehow they manage to do what has to be done, sometime in the night. It will take them about a month once they get started, and this time of year, when I wake up, I try to hear the first rachet from the first bug that reaches sexual maturity. Does he live long enough to score? Is it the male that sings? Ah, the questions, I mean the really big questions, that hover over life wating for answer.

Here's the big question that hit me last night or this morning while I was listening for bug song:

Will conservatives realize that conservatism doesn't work before the Bushistas destroy America?

Of course Liberalism in pure form doesn't work all that well either but it is far more benign and nobody has to die for it. Liberals don't have to lie consciously to promote their mission like Conservatives do. Think about it...There is no single bit of evidence more profound than the Bush / Cheney insistance that Saddam was connected with 9-11. There is something really sick about that one. On one hand we have a bipartisan commission that unanimously says, "It ain't so!" Then what happens? Cheney goes on TV and says Saddam was promoting the terrorism that brought down the towers. Then they get support from another defining icon of conservatism, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin who backs them up with something that Bush's own security chief says is bogus! If Conservatives stopped lying the whole movement would collapse.

Want to see what happens when a society goes Conservative? Look at Israel. Since the Conservative party gained total control of the country by whipping up the fears of the electorate, the economy has been destroyed. The GNP of Israel is now less than one third of what it was before and absolutely no one feels safer. It is as obvious as the indightment papers for Arial Sharon that Conservatives cannot run an economy because they do not know how to make money...they only know how to steal it!

Take the two at the top right now. Bush stole his by following the advice of Ken Lay. It involved off the books deals to con the stockholders of Harken Energy. He stole nearly a million dollars this way from his alma mater's endowment fund. Cheney will probably be indighted in Europe for bribery while he was CEO of Halliburton. He still insists that he has nothing to do with Halliburton now that he is Vice President. No small lie, that! He holds stock options for several hundred thousand shares of Halliburton stock and holds mutual funds that are primarily invested in Halliburton. Couple that with Halliburton's shameful handling of the Iraq war troup support and mishandling of roughly $600,000,000.00. If Bush loses the election there will be indightments. Gotta stay in power so keep lying, boys.

So what started me thinking about this?

Bill Clinton...He has a memoir.

So what do conservative pundits do? They start panting about Monica. Bill lied about having sex with her. He's a liar. When Bill goes on 60 minutes what does he want to talk about as the failures of his Presidency? Health Care and Social Security reform. What do the Conservatives want to talk about? Sex! Near as I can tell, it was pretty rushed and not really actual sex as I think of it anyway. I'm not defending it but I'm not judging it either. You would think that Conservatives didn't have sex from the way they rant on TV and radio. Oh wait...The number one Conservative spokesman is getting a divorce right now because of sex...and drugs...and he lied about it. And you know what? Not one bit of anything that has to do with sex has anything to do with the future of America!

Lying about sex is nothing!

Lying about an imminent threat from Iraq, and Afghanistan, and no bid contracts, and stealing elections, and driving America deep into debt, and ruining the air we have to breathe, and lying about the arsenic in the water we have to drink, and lying about why Osama hates us, and why we should sacrifice our children in a war we can't win, and lying about committing treason...Lying like that is something! Something despicable.

Conservatism falls apart if we make them tell the truth.

There's one other off the wall contradiction that hit me during the night. Why is it exactly that Dick Cheney wants to cut taxes? Without tax money...He has nothing to steal! Halliburton goes broke and loses his ass.

Well the Katydids had better get going soon so I can calm down. All this thinking about sex has me all flustered anyway. Katy did but I didn't...and I'm not lying!

Peace,

Steve

Something different today, although I often reference Bill Moyers as a conscience of America. It is evident from his writing that he is a strong believer in the "Fairness Code." This is a little but of a different take on it though, and I cannot completely rationalize the contradictions of the historical actions of even a man so great as Thomas Jefferson. By this I mean: How do you come to grips with having six of your own children kept as slaves? (I wonder if my momma knew about this concept?) There were powerful social forces at work that we can only intellectualize at this time point in Jefferson's future. Great change has come...and unfortunately gone.

Moyers reflects on the return of inequality. Here's an excerpt that may provoke you to read the entire piece:

"Household economics is not the only area where inequality is growing in America. Equality doesn't mean equal incomes, but a fair and decent society where money is not the sole arbiter of status or comfort. In a fair and just society, the commonwealth will be valued even as individual wealth is encouraged.

Let me make something clear here. I wasn't born yesterday. I'm old enough to know that the tension between haves and have-nots are built into human psychology, it is a constant in human history, and it has been a factor in every society. But I also know America was going to be different. I know that because I read Mr. Jefferson's writings, Mr. Lincoln's speeches and other documents in the growing American creed. I presumptuously disagreed with Thomas Jefferson about human equality being self-evident. Where I lived, neither talent, nor opportunity, nor outcomes were equal. Life is rarely fair and never equal. So what could he possibly have meant by that ringing but ambiguous declaration: "All men are created equal"? Two things, possibly. One, although none of us are good, all of us are sacred (Glenn Tinder), that's the basis for thinking we are by nature kin.

Second, he may have come to see the meaning of those words through the experience of the slave who was his mistress. As is now widely acknowledged, the hands that wrote "all men are created equal" also stroked the breasts and caressed the thighs of a black woman named Sally Hennings. She bore him six children whom he never acknowledged as his own, but who were the only slaves freed by his will when he died -- the one request we think Sally Hennings made of her master. Thomas Jefferson could not have been insensitive to the flesh-and-blood woman in his arms. He had to know she was his equal in her desire for life, her longing for liberty, her passion for happiness."

What is the ultimate price of inequality? Historically an investor class of the wealthy has always destroyed itself. Why? because everyone else eventually can't stand it anymore:

"Let's face the reality: If ripping off the public trust; if distributing tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the poor; if driving the country into deficits deliberately to starve social benefits; if requiring states to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor; if squeezing the wages of workers until the labor force resembles a nation of serfs -- if this isn't class war, what is?

It's un-American. It's unpatriotic. And it's wrong."

And now he gives us a call to action. Readers of my ravings may recognize a brother in arms:

"What we need is a mass movement of people like you. Get mad, yes -- there's plenty to be mad about. Then get organized and get busy. This is the fight of our lives!"

Read it all...Please!

http://www.alternet.org/story/18954/

Talking with a Republican friend yesterday afternoon. He said the insider Repub jokes about the Clinton portrait unveiling were hilarious. I asked for an example and he said,

"The Clintons had to walk through the metal detectors...on the way out of the Whitehouse."

This, of course, is a continuation of the false myth created by Karl Rove. You remember the stolen W's from keyboards and all sorts of other vandalism that was supposed to have taken place. None of it was true. It was a Rovian lie, planted with the most mean spirited of motives. When I confronted my friend with the "fact" of that "Lie" he owned up to it with a "Yeah, I know." He is that rarest of human beings...an honest Republican, and I admire him for it. His must be a difficult way of life.

(Before you get huffy, let me also say that I think honest Democrat officials are pretty rare, too.)

But anyway, my friend came back at me with "They all lie" so that was supposed to mean the Rovian antics were ok, I guess, even though they were unjustly intended to hurt a man's reputation along with that of his wife. So my response was "No they don't! ...


"Name one lie that Clinton told that was not about his sex life?"

He looked me in the eye and his face went into a painful smile of the child confronted with the fact that the dog did not eat his homework..."I can't come up with anything" he said.

This man was a fairly high up Republican operative and he could not come up with anything. He is exactly the kind of man that is going to help us get rid of Bush. When he goes into the voting booth and closes the curtain, he will have to vote against the man who took over the Republican party and is trying to assist the book of Revelations. My friend will have to be honest with himself and put the best interests of his children first.

While I am thinking about it, "Thy shalt not commit adultery" came up in the Clintonian context. If you want something really strange to study in your bible this weekend, search out the biblical definition of "adultery" and the recommended punishments. I have been observing the Southern Baptist Convention get more biblical and I think that they should carry out all the recommended punishments on themselves as an example to all of the rest of us. In addition to the stonings for adultery I would particularly like to see them "punish" all of their devout membership that have broken this little commandment:

"Thy shalt not bear false witness against thy fellow man."

Throw in a few "punishments" for stealing and coveting and the Southern Baptist problem neatly goes away, don't you think? We may have to look over the list of infractions closely to get them all and some may squeak through on technicalities. I don't think we will see many stonings for the "Seething of calves in their mother's milk" for instance. (Had you forgotten that was a commandment? While it is not there on Judge Roy's rock, it is plainly sitting right there in Exodus. I guess God needs a little editing now and then.)

Think about it...I figure they're all gonna be guilty of one or two commandment transgressions and the bible very clearly calls for stoning. Once they are all wiped out there would be several benefits to the community. Right off the bat I can envision how taking back all that non-taxable land they have tied up in those ostentatious churches and freeing it up for gainful reuse would neatly revitalize all our local communities in short order. I like this idea so much I think I will call it "The Emerson Project."

Hey! Just kidding folks! Honest! Gotta go now...there's a veal recipe I want to try.

Peace,

Steve

Long Creek, S.C. June 6, 2004

"It's gonna rain," said David.

"Clever observation," I thought silently. It is June in the Southeastern United States, the Humidity is at least a couple of hundred, and the sky has been lumpy overcast rain clouds for days. Now some cluck comes from up in the tree top over us and David predicts rain with more conviction that anyone who has ever been on the local evening news.

I'm thinking about David's remarks yesterday morning as I sit here and listen to it rain on the metal roof above me. Oddly enough, David and I were looking at putting a metal roof on an old house that came into my possession years ago when I decided to help a marvelous elderly lady who had helped me once. Everyone called her Miss High. She was 90 when I bought her house, for too much probably, so she could move into an assisted living facility. The church ladies had decided she needed to do this because she was 90. When they came to move her out, the church ladies couldn't lift or tote anything themselves so Miss High did all the heavy lifting and carried her own furniture out to the van herself. She was only ninety, after all. I watched this and wondered exactly who it was that should be getting help. I also wondered how long she would live after she got stuck in a "home"?

Lois was her first name. She taught at the Long Creek Acadamy, which was founded around the end of World War II by a Baptist preacher to help educate children who needed to learn what he thought they needed to learn and not much else. When she and another teacher at the acadamy wanted to live in their own house and move out of the dormatory, they built this house for them. It wouldn't pass any code ever created but it used to keep the rain out. The men who built the house were being taught carpentry at the Academy so they could earn a living now that they were back from the war. Some of them did not have all their legs. By the time all of them were officially educated in their new trade, some of them did not have all their fingers either. I don't think Miss High's house was built by men who had made the honor roll in the house building class at the school. Particularly, I think they had slept through the foundation building part. If you could see the house you would understand. Lois lived to be 93 and passed away living out her days amongst a "bunch of snowball heads" as she used to call them. She didn't like old people...didn't consider herself one of them.

Long Creek was in the path of a total solar eclipse one day, and I walked down to her house and told her about it just as it started. We got her out a lawn chair and I made her a pin hole projector out of a piece of cardboard so she could watch the eclipse. I'd never seen her happier. She liked new ideas. I remember watching her as I walked away, sitting in her chair moving the cardboard, with the pinhole we punched in it, up and down to focus the crescent of the sun. She was sitting there when it got very dark as the shadow of the moon passed over us. One of those crystaline moments in my life is the sight of hundreds of crescent sun projections shing up from the ground under the huge oak trees in the yard right before it got darkest. The patches of light where the sun could get through the leaves of the tree had been focussed on the ground as the tree itself became hundreds of pinhole projectors. There were light crescents every where I stepped. Wow, I thought, I'm walking on the sun. Hundreds of suns, actually.

"A Rain Crow," said David. It had made a sound like a turkey "gulp" only raspier and softer. "When the Rain Crow calls it is gonna' rain soon." It was up in the projector oak tree high over our heads. I got my small binoculars out of the car and tried to find it. I had heard the name Rain Crow before but I didn't make the connection right away. It was a yellow billed cuckoo. I have watched them many times from inside my house. They stay high in the trees and eat mostly catapillars. Tent worms are high on the delicacy list if you are a yellow billed cuckoo. You also have no evolved defenses against flying into large panes of glass, either, if you are a yellow billed cuckoo. I, once, picked up the dead one that had just been claimed by my new house and wondered what to do. It was a beautiful bird...majestic and regal looking only a few minutes before. They sit up proud on tree limbs, holding their head up and chest out. They are big for birds that live in trees, about 12 inches from tip to tail...a pleasant buff brown on the back with a white chest that looks more like the ermine fur of a King's robe than feathers. I felt responsible for killing this creature and wondered what to do, short of boarding up the windows. I wound up cutting down the few small cherrie trees around the house that had tent catapillars in them. Now I rarely see a rain crow but I hear them all the time in the dense woods around the house. I have not held a dead one in my hand since I got rid of the attractive source of food next to the house and that is worth the loss of viewing this magnificent bird.

David was right, it's raining. Or I guess the rain crow was right. I'm glad I showed Miss High the eclipse. Tomorrow morning the planet Venus will pass in front of the sun. This was a tremendously important astronomical event the last few times it happened. It let astronomers determine several measurements that we take for granted today and caused all kinds of problems between astronomers and preachers. The preachers of the day were all stuck on what they called "Truth" and didn't have much use for what scientists call "fact". This is a proud tradition that is carried on today. You want to know what I think? Of course you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway...I think that humankind will wipe out the Rain Crow and Humankind well before the rain crow evolves defenses against large panes of glass. I think Miss High would have liked to see the sillouette of Venus pass before the sun. I will get up tomorrow morning and try to see it myself but I don't think I will be successful. According to the Rain Crow, it's gonna' be raining.

Peace,

Steve



Here's a place to find out more about the Rain Crow.

http://www.backyardnature.net/n/03/030720.htm

I liked this picture and the site is interesting. There are several good shots taken around Cumberland Falls.




http://www.darkdarling.com/watersindex.html

The Coyotes woke me up. I don't know why they howl or why the dogs join in, but when they go off, the whole gorge sound like sirens are everywhere. It is not like the wolf howl of old cowboy movies. It's more high pitched, almost a squeak that won't stop...and there are lots of them. They seem to be in groups. Three or four up behind the house, some across the creek, some below us, and some that are really close to the house. I wonder why do the dogs leave them alone if they are that close? There is some kind of truce between them. Or maybe they are afraid of each other. The coyotes and our dometicated yard dogs make a lot of noise at each other but that's it. Even the big rotwiellers over at the neighbors don't mess with the coyotes as far as I know. The coyotes come through the yard and the dogs seem to go where ever they want to in the woods and there don't seem to be any conflicts.

Also, I wonder what the main coyote diet consists of? I hear tall tales of them killing and eating calves but I don't think they actually kill them. I think they take the stillborn ones and that gives rise to the belief. No one has ever seeen them attack a calf around here and there is plenty of opportunity. We've had a good crop this year in the valley. Hamburger is everywhere you look. And as this mornings concert demonstrates, there are lots of coyotes around, so something doesn't work in that accusation. We're down on so some of the birds though. One hard working neighbor has tidied up his 200 acres, cleared the trees, cut the brush, planted hay grass, made everything neat and trimmed, and then says to me, "Something has done got all my quail!" I wonder why it never occurs to folk that there is some connection between wiping out all the places a quail has to hide from a coyote and the sudden reduction of the quail population?

But we are now out of quail here in the valley and no calves have been "killed" now that they have made it through the birthing trauma and I wonder what these things are eating? Deer? I don't think so. We see the momma's and know when the babies are born around here. The deer live amongst us like yard pets. We lose more of them to cars than hunters. The deer die off in spurts with blue tongue disease of something like that but mostly they wander around fine all year. A cold blooded animal might be able to eat voraciously once or twice a year but not a coyote. They're high energy beasts and gotta have fuel all the time. Nope, they're not eating deer, calves, or quail so what is it?

I think the answer is "everything"... Bugs, mice, weeds, and watermelon. Sounds like an old country music hit song, doesn't it? When we screw up the habitat for one animal it provides opportunity for another. If there are no quail out there in the pasture there are certainly plenty of grasshoppers and ground hogs now. I even have a ground hog, or wood chuck if you prefer, living under the cement carport at my office. They are like "Land Beavers" and have taken up residence eveywhere humans mow. I see them in nearly every community DOR (dead on the road) right alongside the possums. They look so fuzzy and cute but that has to be a ruse. They're slow! There ain't no way a nice fat, yard and garden fed, ground hog is going to outrun a coyote. You look at a ground hog's front teeth and you figure he dosn't need those things for chewing off clover blossoms. After a bit of thought over my morning bean juice, I have decided that the old tales about coyotes chewing off their legs to escape steel traps is bull pizzookie just like those tales of them killing calves. You look at the teeth on the business end of a ground hog and you have to figure there is another reason for any coyotes out there running around (running?) on three legs.

(Note to self: Keep a little further away from the Gound hog from now on!)
Well, that was fun. Now I have to moralize or this wouldn't be the Sunday Sermon, would it? Actually there is a pretty big moral in everything I just wrote having to do with unintended consequences and people being pretty much idiots when it comes to recognizing the long term result of their actions. But that isn't the sermon. I am going to have a guest sermonizer today who is much better than me at making the human race out to be morons. Kurt Vonnegut has been making us laugh and cry at ourselves for a long long time. He is an easy read and very entertaining. Let me know what you think.

Here is the teaser:
Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."

Please read the rest of what he says. He is a wise man.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey

Peace,

Steve

The one eyed man is king

Well, I woke up this morning and wondered if we had pulled out of Iraq yet. Then I found out that Rummy has solved the problem caused by all those pictures of American debauchery and torture of Iraqi prisoners...he banned cameras! There, you see how simple that was? No pictures, no problem!

I heard a former interrogator on a conservative show say that he was always taught that you didn't torture people because you just got bad intelligence. They'll say whatever you want them to in order to get you to stop. You know what that means, don't you? Those folks weren't being tortured to find out anything useful. The Guards were just plain mean and perverted!

Would you be interested in the actual number of arrests we have made in Iraq? I was kind of shocked....43,000! Of which, the Red Cross says 90% were mistakes. I guess we tortured them just to make sure they wouldn't confess to anything we didn't know about. Never can be too sure, you know.

Rumsfeld trained under Richard Nixon and knows that Nixon's only mistake was in not burning the tapes that proved he violated the Constitution. Rummy is not going to make the same mistakes...I don't mean he won't violate the Constitution, He'll just be a lot better at getting rid of the evidence.

That's why Rummy will have all the digital cameras confiscated. We'll see.

Now all he has left to do is get the Iraqis to love us and install a nice democracy of lackeys who will sell their oil only to Rummy's associates. I hope this happens soon so we can get back to fighting the war on Terror. I'm worried about something happening. it would be too convenient for Bush and Rummy if we had a major "event" just before the election.

It is interesting what you find if you hike around these Tennessee hills on a Sunday afternoon. I am sure that over the next few days, one of the things I will find is that a few blood sucking insects have tried to move in to the high rent districts on my body. I've caught several on the prowl already. It is one of the fees we pay to crawl around in the woods this time of year. I have been told that the name "tick" is from the sound fingernails make when disposing of the vile little beasts. Could be but who knows? I've found that other things I was earnestly told turned out to be false. It is good to learn this lesson in life as early as possible.

I met two couples camping together out beside the creek in one of our more remote campsites. They seemed very nice and kept a neat camp. They had two viscious watch dogs with them that I am sure would have ripped my ankles apart if they could have reached that high on my leg...looked like coyote food to me. It happens around here. I wonder why folks take a dog into the woods that will not provide but will require protection. Since these folks appeared to have spent a long time on this planet, I figure they are old enough to make their own mistakes. I was kind of proud to see somebody's grand or great grand parents out in the middle of nowhere having a good time. They were smiling and talking with one another in calm, quiet, reassured voices. There was a natural respect for others and the place where they were that I could sense.

When younger folk come out here, they usually bring guns, illegal substances, and what passes for music these days. It is not the music I dislike, actually, it is the 1100 watt noise system they seem to need to play it. That is how powerful one young man claimed his system was when I asked him to turn it off, recently. The base thumped inside my head even when I was still nearly 200 yards away. I used to play loud music too. I have only moderate hearing loss. What are these kids going to be like in 30 years having been exposed to a car sound system that is twice as powerful as my entire rock band was? At any rate the burning question is why does one leave the incessant roar of a noisy town and go to a pristine natural area in order to destroy the hearing of anyone within a quarter mile radius? If you are quiet and listen, there is music already here. I am sort of a blunt instrument where nature is concerned. I need to see a bird and have it sit there while I look it up in my field guide before I can determine what it is. My friend Pat was here Saturday and, as we walked around, Pat would name off the birds as they called invisibly from the leaf canopy. With the toads and tree frogs adding to the symphony, it was music enough for me.

I came upon another group of campers several miles away from the grandparents. Two men and a women were quietly sitting by the creek. I introduced myself and it turned out that one of the men and I knew of each other. We had actually been wanting to meet and this was the perfect situation. He was born and raised in Whites Creek gorge and his family owns most of the other side of the creek. The water is still up a bit so he was camped on my side which is fine with me. His thirteen year old son came up with a couple of fish he'd caught and we joked about how he was going to have to do better than that if we were going to have fish for supper. The kid grinned and said this was plenty enough for him, but it looked like the rest of us would have to open a can. Everybody laughed and relaxed. I noticed that the woman, who had been sitting in one man's lap when I walked up, now changed laps. All three of the adults took that moment to look at me and smile. I smiled too, told them to have a nice evening and I continued on my hike.

I was hiking while my youngest son was turkey hunting. Time was up so I called him on the radio. I had taken a looping path that would leave my new friends undisturbed and figured I'd better tell him which way I would be coming from. He was ready to go and hiked down the hill to meet me at a gravel road. He was nearly at the road when he said to me, "Dad, someone has a garden in here." "Really?" I said, "Anything growing?" "Lot's of little rows of plants," was the reply. I went to where he was and gave him a lesson in life. "Son, when you come up on something like this in a hidden spot, you tell the woods, "Oops...Sorry...Excuse me!" ...And you leave immediately. I did have to admire the effort that had been put into the "garden" by someone who was obviously not merely into personal consumption. Now I admire a hard worker and am a big proponent of free enterprise. Of the things wrong with the world, I don't think Ganja is a major item, and I actually surmise that more permanent harm will come from that 1100 watt sound system than occasional pot use. The problem here is that, unlike the campers, whoever had planted this garden on my land...was not being a good guest. I wish him no particular harm but he will have official visitors soon.

We chatted with a local officer on our drive home about the garden. He took down exact directions, asked a few other obvious questions and then looked at me with a big questioning look. There was somthing about this that he really wanted to know. In a serious tone of voice he asked, "Is the turkey hunting any good up there?" I suspect that in these last two days of turkey season those woods are going to get inspected fairly well.

I don't know what else to say except, "Oh wow, man, Peace!"

Steve

I became politically aware because I had to. I coulda been killed. In 1968 I registered for the draft. That meant that I could be chosen to give up my life for reasons determined in secret by the folks who had control of the United States Government at the time. I lost friends to that secret cabal. Turns out it was mostly a bad decision by one guy, Robert McNamarra, that got the whole country all torn apart. Some of my friends were blown to bits in Southeast Asia and some of them were merely shot and killed. I have been wanting to go see the Viet Nam war memorial to look for their names. Some of my friends are like my neighbor up on the mountain. His sister in law describes him as one of those poor boys who never came all the way back from Viet Nam. He has all his fingers and toes but something else never was right about him and won't be...ever.

We will see the same thing when all this war that is happening now is over. The world will not be a better place for our war in Iraq. It will not be the fighting that will change the world, it will be when we stop the killing that change will come. Why not do it right now? As it is right now, we will have friends who will never come back completely. We can make the choice right now or we can wait until we hit the thousand mark in dead children of America. Or we can do like Richard Nixon did...He ran for his second term saying he needed to be kept in office so that he could end the war. He got reelected and he did in fact end the war...after another 50,000 American children got killed. The we got "Peace with Honor". Yeah, right!

Country Joe and the Fish wrote the song that replaced the National Anthem during the Viet Nam War. It is the "I Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag." Its most famous line is, "...and it's one, two, three, What am I fighting for?" Here is a line from another Country Joe song:

"And those who took so long to learn the subtle ways of death / Lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions on their breath / And we send prayers and praises."

Country Joe is still playing music and writing songs. Here is a line from his recent effort. it sounds familiar:

"And pound their feet into the sand of shores they've never seen / Delegates from the western land to join the death machine / And we send cards and letters."

So now here we are, driving our country incredibly deep in debt with the money essentially going to a company with huge financial ties to the Vice President who is one of the four or five men who are the architechs of the war in the first place. The organization they belong to is called the Project for a New American Century. Things have gone very very wrong for them and their war. That means that things have gone very very wrong for us and our children.

Ask yourself this question: "What is the best possible outcome that can be reasonably expected from the Iraq War?" It is not good. I have a proposal to make. Instead of reinstating the draft, instead of creating ahorrible division within our own country, and instead of killing and wounding physically and emotionally thousands more of our children, instead of killing more Iraqis... Let's just leave! Here's how we can do it. Let's load up and come home. We spend a fraction of the money on alternative enrgy sources and energy conservation and we redirect our economy to creating healthy industries and the price of oil drops through the floor! There is then no money to support the Saudis, the Syrians, the cartel in Venezuela, and the house of Bush and Cheney go bancrupt too, but hey, there have to be casualties in any war, right? Why not them instead of our children?

Peace,

Steve

This might just sum up the problem:

"We don't have a choice. God is the only one who can decide,"

That was from a woman on the sidelines at the Women's march in Washington this weekend. An open minded reader will identify the woman as one who is willing to impose her particular version of God on all of the others marching down the street. Why aren't they entitled to their own God instead of hers? Isn't that the ultimate freedom supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution?

My own view of the abortion issue is very simple: It is none of my business! A long time ago I decided that men should stay out of this debate. In fact, I think women of child bearing age are the only ones who should have a say, period. The rest of us can offer our thoughts if asked but otherwise, what do we think we are doing telling someone else they have to bear a child?

Isn't that a form of slavery?

It all comes down to someone wanting power over someone else. Anti-choice people take the ridiculous position that it is murder but that cannot be defended if you think about it. Here is the argument:

Life begins at conception.

or:

Life begins at birth.

or, as the Catholic Church would claim:

Life begins with consumation

(or possibly even the intent to consumate, I am unclear on this one).

What we have is an unanswerable question that simply depends on "belief" for a determination. I don't "believe" we should force our own "belief", which in this case is nothing more than an "opinion", on another person.

I have noticed something, else, and I'm not the only one who has. It seems to me that the people who are so willing to force their will on a pregnant woman under the auspices of saving a "child" are the same ones who were willing to kill an untold number of children on the off chance that Saddam Hussein would be killed at the same time.

Remember back before the war actually started, when George Bush sent a cruise missile to deal death on a house in Bagdad? That was a decision to kill everyone in that house regardless of who they were. How on earth can you justify that decision? Between 20 and 30 of the nearly fifty people killed were women and children. Saddam wasn't there. I call that an act of murder! I call that a war crime. President Bush authorized more than one attack of this sort. More than a few children died.

That is a small number of children when you compare it to the thousands of civilians we have killed during this war. I guess they are free now, huh? That's why we killed them isn't it? To bring them Freedom? Jim Jones had something along the same idea when he freed all his followers with cyanide Kool-ade. Makes just about the same amount of sense to me.

This war was entered with far less thought than the average woman gives to an abortion. That is apparent due the amazing incompetence of it all. The Bush people seem to stagger from blunder to blunder as they make us safer from Terror. (Does anybody still believe this lie?)

At the end of the day, there is only one tenable postition: Every woman must make this very difficult decision for herself. Not the Pope, Not the President, Not the Supreme Court, Not me and not you! And guess what? That is the opinion of the majority of all Americans! I think the Majority should get their way in the next Presidential election.

Yesterday in Washington, DC about a million women asked us to leave them alone. Works for me!

I heard this song on the radio on the way to work Wednesday morning. I was merrily singing along having a fine time until I got to the last two verses. Danged if I didn't get all misty eyed!

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff, oh
Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.
Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Together they would travel on boat with billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff's gigantic tail
Noble kings and princes would bow whene'er they came
Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name, oh

CHORUS

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giants's rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.
Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave
So, Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave, oh

CHORUS

By Peter Yarrow and Leonard Tipton On Peter, Paul & Mary's
MOVING, IN CONCERT, and 10 YEARS.
Copyright 1963 Pepamar Music.

I grabbed the beater guitar I keep at my office and worked through the song a couple of times and I still got misty before Puff could slip into his cave. I don't know why. Perhaps it is because my own dragons have lost their painted wings. Perhaps it is because my children are now young men and I don't get to play with them in the dirt with stuffed animals. It is soccer balls, mountain bikes, and kayaks, instead, and though that works too, it is not the same.

It's not a song about pot, by the way. (I can hear some of you snickering) Here's what the guys that wrote it had to say about that urban legend:

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/puff.htm

I get fairly irritated when I hear someone talk about environmental extremists. Earth day is tomorrow and I happened to hear the term used by a local conservative radio jock. I was at a gathering in Atlanta on the very first Earth Day. We listened to speeches and music and swore we wouldn't let the world continue to die like it looked like our parents had. We have done some good., but not enough.

Water quality is better today, although it has gone well south in areas downstream of CAFO's. Those are factory farms that dump huge quantities of animal waste into our streams. People get sick and die downstream of them, but hey, that's "BIDNESS". Remember Pfisteria? The evil organism that showed up in North Carolina coastal waters that was infecting people as well as fish? Some of those infected will never recover. The water is still unhealthy years later even though the CAFO's are now so heavily regulated that they have run to Alabama, taking the problems with them. They are jumping from state to state trying to stay ahead of the locals who don't know any better and welcome them in to their counties as "Economic Development".

Here in Tennessee we have managed to let corporations steal the very air we breathe. It is unhealthy to go up into the Smoky Mountains and breathe. Now let me ask you who is the extremist, the environmental activist or the corporate CEO that chooses to let his business poison the air we all must share rather than commit to paying the price to keep it clean? We make the metaphorical pact with the devil to take pieces of our health away in the name of economic development without taking the time to face reality. There are only so many pieces that can be taken before we die. Worse than that, we let our leader make choices that will destroy some one else's health. The coal fired generating plant in Kingston makes lots of electric power and the emmisions go up a 1000 foot smoke stack and float away to somewhere else. Where? The first stop is the Smoky Mountain National Park.

Great courage is required by a leader to face his constituency and tell them he will make a choice to keep them healthy instead of allowing a few people to get richer. Courage is not something we see in politicians. Yeah, lots of them are my friends and they know I think they are pussies! That is a kind word for coward. That's just the honest ones. An oxymoron? Honest politician? I actually think there are honest elected officials. I know a few. We have to help them be strong and can help them make that choice. It takes work and eternal vigilance. There is always someone who can rationalize your health against his bank account. I have lost too many battles because I was not willing to keep the fight going all the time.

Dennis Hayes organized the first Earth Day in 1970. He has kept the fight going for a long time. I urge you to read what he has to say. It is your children he is trying to protect.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001909054_earthday22.html

The Magic Dragon has lost his cave. That's where we put the Nukular waste now.

Peace,

Steve

PS: I still have my ponytail. My hair cut was put off until next Tuesday. Pictures then.

You folks got relief from my blog this morning. I was traveling to my job actually. This evening I am relaxing at our old cabin in South Carolina. Way back in 1976 I moved to this area for one thing, mainly. Quiet. Yeah, quiet as in the absence of noise. No interstates or trains or gun shots in the night. Well there are actually no interstates but I can hear a few cars now and again out on the paved road. Trains? Nope.

There was going to be a railroad in these mountains but the going is tough up here. They never finished the tunnels for what would have been the Black Diamond railroad. For a while they made cheese in Stumphouse tunnel but never did a train rumble through it. I use to tell my younger brother and sister scary stories at the end of it in the dark. When I say dark, I mean dark like you have never seen. Well of course you haven't seen it(even the folks who have seen it, and some of you have, haven't "seen it"), but I want you to understand dark as in a quarter of a mile back into a mountain in a tunnel dug into solid rock by Irish immigrants with star drills and green oak stobs, dark. First they would pound a drill hole into the granite with a star drill. That wasn't actually a drill but is a steel rod with a star shaped end that you hit with a two pound hammer. Each time you hit it, the end of the drill chips a little bit of rock loose, you turn the drill slightly and hit it again. After hitting it enough times there is a hole in the rock. I have used a star drill. Tain't work I liked. In Stumphouse tunnel they knocked holes in granite and then drove oak stobs into them. The stobs were dried in kilns and had shrunk up as much as the wood could. after driving it into the rock a worker would pour water on the end of the stob. eventually the water would soak into the wood and cause it to expand. The pressure from the expanding wood put pressure on the rock internally and with the help of the workers pounding hammers on a line connecting several holes the rock would eventually crack off. it would be hauled away and the next hole would be started with the star drills and hammered. Apparently Irishmen were cheaper than black powder.

Anyway it is relatively quiet here. Except for the planes. They fly high on the way to Atlanta and tend to quit after midnight so I can deal with it. Gunshots were a problem when I went to Georgia Tech in Atlanta in 1968. Back then, nobody much, maybe a few, got shot but that isn't true nowadays. We in America got all upset when 19 Arabs killed a little less than 3000 People on 9-11 but we can move right along with our lives as over ten times that number get shot each year in our country. As for where I am now, the shots in the night come from coon hunters. I have tried to reason with coon hunters late at night or early in the morning, as in one or two am, but it doesn't work. They don't seem to understand why they can't shoot a racoon out of a tree in your yard at 2 in the morning. They're hunters, the dogs ran the coon up a tree and they have to shoot it. Sorry about it being in your yard but that's where the coon went. Not their fault! Coons got to be shot! Dogs are barking, hundred thousand candle power flashlights are waving up in the trees and two little beady eyes are reflecting back at us all. The coon hunters have dogs and guns and seem to be just a bit drunk. I am in a disturbed sleep quiet rage. After a bit they fear me. I am not a rational human being. They have treed a coon and I will not let them fire their weapons because there will be noise. They can't comprehend that is the noise that I will not tolerate. It's just a shotgun...They are just going to shoot the coon and leave after it hits the ground. If they can do it with out making noise,I say, fine... I must be crazy. Finally I say, 'Guys, you're on my land. You didn't ask me. Go away and some other time we'll talk about coon hunting." This seems to give them a way out of having to deal with me and we all smile, see ya, and they go away. I will never let them shoot racoons out of my trees in the middle of the night, ever, even though I hate the damned things. it makes too much noise. I hate the coon that is clinging to the tree maybe forty feet above me but he will live through this night. In my heart of hearts, I hope he dies tomorrow night, as long as he makes no noise in the process.

It is very quiet now. Coon hunters fear the insane. it is still winter here and the frogs are quiet, too. They fear nothing... it is too cold for them. Not me, I like it now. For a moment, I can hear the stars twinkle.

Peace!

Steve


Check what's happening in the tanks:


http://www.conservationfisheries.org/Newsletters/newsletter_22_april_2004.htm

With all the garbage that is going on in our country, I have to take a breath and write of things beautiful. This morning is the kind that you paint in your mind. The storm came through last night and was mild as spring storms go, with an inch of rain spread over the entire night and no thunderstorms strong enough to freak out the dog or wake me up. The sky is post rain clear with low flying clouds crawling up and down the gorge. Yep they do go both ways here, which probably violates some kind of law on the other side of the creek...that is Rhea County, TN over there. The boys can hit Rhea County with their potato gun when I let them make noise. The Rhea County Commisioners made a lot of noise themselves, recently, when they passed a law saying gay people can't live in their county. After making the National news they met again and rescinded the law the next night, saying they were confused. I'll buy that explanation.

In addition to County Commisioners, we have an odd kind of disturbed person in East Tennessee, one that stands out amongst a whole bevy of disturbed persons. Arsonists! They strike mainly in two seasons of the year, early Spring just before leaf out and Fall, just as the leaves begin to cover the ground. We typicaly have dry spells then that suits their puposes. Just yesterday, Firefighters were dealing with 20 fires in our area. Three were folks burning brush that got out of control, two were campfires, and the other 15 were arson. Some body likes to set the woods on fire. It happens just before turkey season...I don't get the connection but I am told there is one. We hold our breath until the leaves fill out the trees or we get a Spring rain. This morning we breathe free and easy. I tried to photograph it for you but my talents fell short of adequacy. You will have to paint your own morning in your own mind. Take a mountainside with most of the trees still bare except for the White Pines, Virginia pines, and Hemlocks scattered in clumps over the hillside. Then you add the Tulip Poplars, which aren't really poplars but they do have a pastel yellow green leafing in early stages, and top that off with soft maples with their red blooms mimicking a delicate fall color. A couple of wild apples are in bloom taking up the slack left by the Sarvice Berries that were the first to show their pink touched white flowers. They are natives in the apple family and are my favorites of the Spring. Our warm weather is bracketed by the Sarvice berry in the Spring and the Witch Hazel in the Fall. Somehow I believe that the Spring color is superior to Fall. One is merely spectacular while the other is spiritual

As I sat here yesterday morning the power went off and I heard thunder to the south. I went out on the deck thinking that this would be a rare morning storm this early in the season. Turns out that a fighter jet had crashed a few miles from here, in Rhea County. The pilot was ok but commited stupidity and flew into a power line. I would have preferred a thunderstorm.

Peace,

Steve

I know the second verse of Dixie. By cosmic chance in the space time continuum, I was born in Dublin, Georgia. I will always have sand between my toes and cornbread in my memories. I have picked cotton on my Grampa's farm. Didn't like it much. They have machines to do that now and Grampa's farm got bought for nothing from my Gramma after he died way too young from lung cancer. He was 56 and a heavy smoker. Gramma wasn't. She died in her nineties but her lights dimmed ten years earlier from Alzheimer's. A big timber company wound up with the farm. It got clearcut and grows pine trees now.

When I was nine or ten, Grampa was driving my brother and I around the "back" of the farm... He called the part of his farm that he hunted on, the "Back" because it was swampy and lay along the Oconee River in Laurens County. It was back behind the part where he grew corn and beans and cotton. His farm was about 500 acres and in those days farmers left as much of their land as they could alone. This way they could hunt things. On the farm part of the farm, he also had cows, but what I remember most that he grew was watermelon. That day he was driving two of his grandkids around and showing off his farm to us, you know, the "back" part.

I think this made for a fine day for Grampa. At that point in his life he was not yet fifty and had six surviving children who in turn had yielded him nine grandchildren. Grampa was doing allright in the "eat, survive, reproduce" sense.

Thinking back to Grampa's big belly, I think he was especially good at the eating part, even though he only had about a third of his teeth left by then. Breakfast at Grampa's house usually involved extremely well ripened cantaloupe and streak o' lean. I have tried to over come many prejudices in my life, but the most unyielding one is my hatred of cantaloupe. It is a personal failing I have decided to live with. I cannot get over the smell which sends me hurtling back to my Grandparents dining table where I would sit eye level to my plate, and stare at the beautifully presented slice of musk melon ripened to near stinking mush. The assault on my childhood heightened olfactory sense was intensified by the adult's command, "You have to eat your vegetable before you can have anything else." I never, ever, ate one of the damned things! Grampa never gave in and neither did I. He would eventually get tired of trying to convince me that I wouldn't grow very tall if I didn't eat my cantaloupe and go on about his day. I think if he had been taller that 5'5" it would have helped his case. Gramma would give me an egg after he left.

So there was Grampa driving us down the sand road on the back of the farm and, as we round a curve, an animal is standing in the road. My brother saw it first but we all got a good look at it. I remember thinking at first that it must be somebody's hound dog, but it didn't look quite right. It had a huge tail from a dog perspective. In the late morning sun it looked dark colored. Grampa immediately stopped the car, got out, and took his shotgun out of the trunk. The animal loped down the road for a hundred yards or so and cut left into the woods. It didn't seem like it was in too much of a hurry. The beast just didn't like being in the same place we were and decided to leave. Setting the shotgun at the ready beside him, Grampa started the car down the road to where the animal had turned into the woods. I think Grampa did a lot of driving around with the shotgun alongside his right leg because he seemed real comfortable with it. "Stay in the car," Grampa told us as he took the gun and got out. We sat there about two seconds before we jumped out and ran right up behind him. He smiled at us even though we had disobeyed a direct order. I remember wondering why, since he was a fairly stern man, but I understand now, as I look for evidence of independence and bravery in my own two kids.

"Boy's, that's a Panther," he said. "Don't see 'em much but they're here." He said it softly and as a matter of fact. It was no big deal to him. Just a perceived threat to his farm animals that he was going to shoot if he got the chance. I don't think they are "here" anymore. There are maybe fifty or less somewhere in south Florida. Back in 1958 there was at least one in Georgia and I saw it. I'm glad. I treasure that memory. I will not be able to share it with my own children, I don't think. We stared at the tracks. The car had covered some of them up but we could see where it had kicked up the sand when it turned and jumped into the woods. As hard as we looked into the woods, we saw nothing. From what I know now of Puma behavior, it was more than likely standing somewhere a little ways off watching us. Even big predators are nearly invisible in their element. Humans stand out like a stinking cantaloupe in a flower bouquet.

I thought about the panther because someone who hunts near us told me that his brother had seen one. It is always someone's brother or neighbor or cousin that is claimed to have seen a cougar. I'm skeptical but I am also hopeful. I would love to think that an endangered species could make a comeback like that.

It is an odd thing to me that anyone could be opposed to the Endangered Species Act, since it is supposed to keep species from disappearing from the Earth for all time. I think it is generally misunderstood. The Eastern Cougar should be thought of as our canary in the mine just as should every other species inhabiting the planet. Certain species are early indicators of the Earth's ability to support life. When the canary keeled over, the miners knew something had to be done. The mine owners did not necessarily agree and lots of miners have died over the years. Are you making any connections here?

Predators, for the most part, are not getting picked off by farmers with shotguns. They are getting killed by pollution and having no place to live. First it is the big predators, then the little ones. Then it will be us.

Even though we make a big public display about the sanctity of human life, killing people is actually no big deal in our society. We aren't very consistent about it though. A straight forward honest murderer who gets mad and shoots someone will probably go to jail. Certain states will kill him back, or at least will kill someone for the crime whether they actually did it or not. It is OK for Corporations, though, to kill a certain number of people if these corporations can make a profit on the deal. Humans aren't much of a predator except to themselves, it seems. Want to know how much a human life means much to the accounting department of a large corporation? It is the amount of money in the cost benefit ratio. Your life is worth somewhere between $3.2 million and $6.2 million dollars in cost benefit money to the Environmental Protection Agency. It used to be the higher figure but the Bush Administration has proposed the lower figure. Your life has lost $3 million dollars in value over the last few years.

This concept of cost benefit analysis for human lives was one of the main planks in Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. This contract was based on the basic conservative theory that voters are morons. Every time I watch a Speech by President Bush and he says he attacked Iraq to fight terrorism, I have to think that this particular piece of Conservative theory may be correct. Bush is the cattleman wanting his cows to be happy as they plod up the ramp to the abattoir.

If our society can justify taking a human life for a certain amount of profit, I have to be fairly pessimistic about having my kids by my side and seeing a Cougar.

Peace,

Steve

Most of you got Brian's comment on Social Security. One thing he said stood out to me:

"I feel that we should definitely defend SS, but I must say that I do begrudge paying it since the reports on its solvency make me think that I will never see any return on the investment." Brian

Actually this makes me think about the failure of our media in that the idea that Social Security is insolvent falls right in line with Iraq having nukular weapons and being an imminent threat to the US. Social Security is doing fine. Even though Bush robs it blind every day to cover his war and tax refunds for very wealthy people, taken by itself, there will need to be only minor adjustments for things to run smoothly for the next nearly fifty years! Saint Paul Krugman makes this exceedingly clear as he rips Alan Greenspan for lying about it.
I don't think folks realize what is actually being proposed....Bush is not proposing to give you back your SS payments! He is proposing to confiscate them! To use them to reduce the deficit he created by giving tax cuts to rich folks.... Duh!!!

Nice guys, Those Bushies! How many of you remember Rod Serling?.......

Imagine, if you will, a large and powerful man stand before you holding weapons that can reduce your entire body to mush in seconds. He points into a metal box indicating that you should enter. Your hands and feet are bound together so that it is difficult for you to comply with his demands...but you do so as best you can. How did this happen to you?

Welcome to the Twilight Zone!

While on a legal visit to a foreign country, You are taken prisoner and told that you have been identified as having met with the worst terrorist on the planet and will be taken to a remote foreign country to be tortured and interrogated. When You plead your innocence and ask for your consulate, you are forced into a shipping container with 300 other prisoners. It is closed up and there are no air holes to allow the men inside to breathe. Someone takes pity on the suffocating men and shoots holes onto the container, ostensibly so they can breathe, but several are killed by the bullets as a result. Of the 300 men inside the metal box, only 20 survive. You are one of the "lucky" ones who lived.

You are held in a tiny cell in solitary confinement for three months. You are never allowed to contact anyone who can prove you are innocent. No one from your country is told you are there. You are held in shackles that will not allow you to stand up straight and "interrogated" over 200 times with such brutality that you eventually confess to being somewhere you know that you weren't. You are so mentally and physically broken that when someone finally comes and removes your chains and tell you to walk out of your cell, you are too frightened to move and have to be dragged out!

Why are you being released? The spy agencies of your own country have discovered that one of their citizens is being held prisoner in violation of the Geneva Conventions and all international law and after investigation they confront your captors with irrefutable evidence that you were not even in the country at the time they claim you committed the heinous act of "Having a conversation with a terrorist." You are innocent of everything! You have been imprisoned, beaten, tortured, brutally chained, and psychologically abused to the point that, after you return to your own country, you cannot sleep in your own bed at your own house even after you have been found to be completely innocent. The last and possibly greatest indignity to be perpetrated upon you is that your captors demand that you sign a document absolving them of wrong doing and agreeing to say nothing about your experience. You refuse, even though it may mean that you will go back to your cell.

It was only after intense pressure is brought by the diplomatic agencies of your home country, that you were released. They were going to hold you even though you had been proven to be innocent but eventually became afraid of the international scandal that was bound to occur.

Thank you for visiting American soil! We hope you enjoyed your stay at Guantanamo. Have a safe trip back to England.

This is the picture that is emerging and will add to the world view of America.

This next story is not going to die. It continues to present the picture of a man who has no business leading America:

‘‘We've released the president's complete military records, with the exception of his medical records, and they speak for themselves.”

Well no, they haven't. Even considering Bush's records were cleansed by folks who worked for Bush when he was Governor of Texas, there is information they are refusing to admit to. Check this! They are stonewalling:

The bureau's chief historian said he couldn't discuss questions about Bush's military service on orders from the Pentagon.


‘‘If it has to do with George W. Bush, the Texas Air National Guard or the Vietnam War, I can't talk with you,” said Charles Gross, chief historian for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C.


Rose Bird, Freedom of Information Act officer for the bureau, said her office stopped taking records requests on Bush's military service in mid-February and is directing all inquiries to the Pentagon. She would not provide a reason.


Air Force and Texas Air National Guard officials did not respond to written questions about the issue.


James Hogan, a records coordinator at the Pentagon, said senior Defense Department officials had directed the National Guard Bureau not to respond to questions about Bush's military records.

Records show Bush had a ‘‘secret” security clearance for Cold War fighter-interceptor missions and was certified ‘‘combat-ready” to engage Soviet bombers.


In April 1972, at the same time the military began drug and alcohol testing for the first time, Bush stopped flying the F-102, and according to White House documents, did not take a required physical in May. He was formally suspended in September 1972 for failing to take the test. What followed was a period in which Bush sporadically attended Guard drills, according to White House documents, and spent the summer in Alabama.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking-news-story.asp?submitDate=200431401040

It's all fun! At least it is fun when it isn't tragic....And this is the guy who is so mistreating our military that they are refusing to reenlist. Bush is in the process of destroying the Volunteer Army and will have to reinstate the draft. Is that what you folks want?

Anybody see Rumsfeld get nailed on Face the Nation yesterday? They nailed him on his lie about the "Imminent threat" He says they never said that and they nailed him with several direct quotes. Good to see the media growing testicles!



Peace!

Steve

When Camels Roamed Virginia


Hey let's move on to some other interesting things. So before we wiped out the large Native American populations with germ warfare, they had a pretty good trade system going. We find Obsidian spear points and Mexican opals in North Georgia and other trade items widely distributed from their geological origins. Archeologists thought that a large grouping of jasper or flint found in Virginia was from such trade. Turns out is was a flint mine dating back quite a ways. Rarely do we get a snapshot of an ancient period preserved in such isolation and clarity.

Because it was used for a relatively short period of time and charcoal from campfires used by the ancient miners, scientists were able to pinpoint its age with some accuracy. Some of the charcoal was from spruce trees, indicating it dated back to the late Ice Age.

Samples were sent to a lab in Florida and it was established that the mine was in use 11,000 to 11,500 years ago by Paleo Indians, DeJarnete said.
“This was a very different world, one when Mammoths, Mastadons, camels and bison were here in Virginia,” noted Dr. Albert Goodyear.

www.madison-news.com/2004/March/11/mine.shtml


I realize that the article will contradict some creationist timing but I say look at the information and let the facts fall where they may. I was looking up a carnivorous plant I found and ran accross this very clear staement by the Botanical Society of America on Evolution. I had never thought of the KJB biblical account of the Ark in terms of population distributions before. See what you think:

http://www.botany.org/newsite/announcements/evolution.php


So here's the flesh eating plant I was looking up. These little flora are widely distributed in most of the states in the US but not everywhere in those states. I remember them first from the dried up boggy areas of open sandy pastures in Georgia. I have found a very few in upstate South Carolina. They are usually about the size of a quarter. Be very carefull when you are out looking for them lest they grab your leg and eat you alive!


http://www.botany.org/newsite/publications/carnivorousPlants/drosera.pdf

The photography and diversity of carnivorous plants is amazing to me. Try this for more stunning pix.

http://botany.org/newsite/publications/carnivorousPlants/carnivorousPlants.php

Here's the funniest thing I found to share with you today. You have to go there to get the joke!
http://www.republicansforkerry.org/

Ethan told me this one at the coffee shop yesterday:
Did you hear what Stevie Wonder said after receiving a new cheese grater for a present?

"My gosh, this is the most violent novel I've ever read!"

Remember to tolerate everything except intolerance!

Peace,

Steve

What a beautiful morning! The Goldfinches are just starting to change color from their winter camo to summer garish. We have two immature eagles chasing each other around. Oddly enough, the female seems to be the aggressor. (I knew it!) The book says it is time to start the spring plantings but we're still working on firewood for next winter. We are still cutting up storm downed hardwoods and I guess there is no way to use it all. Some of the trees are just too far back to get, but we'll stay warm enough as it is. Our house is not exactly solar all the way but it is designed to accept passive solar heating. On sunny days we have to remember not to throw more wood on the fire after about 9 am. The house will overheat if we do. I have to laugh at myself sometimes when I think about looking up and admiring my solar house from the warmth of my electric hot tub. I am not pure!
The SUV piece from the Union of Concerned Scientists drew a large response. Now I'll confess. We own five vehicles not counting the tractor. We live in a very rural setting. Well to be more honest we live a mile or so back in the woods. there is a rural setting back up the gravel road a bit. We have a 4 wheel drive pick up that does yard duty, a minivan that stays parked except for soccer transport and vacations, and three cars that do daily service. I wish there were some way around all these vehicles but there isn't at this point in America. We have chosen to go small as we can, use higher mileage cars and feel guilty. My personal car seems to average around 33 mpg and is still fun to drive. The thing is, I guess I can afford to drive whatever I want to but I don't. I have friends that I know are stretching it financially to drive Excursions and other beasts like that. Why do we do things like that? Here's the other kicker: The big ones are less safe, not only being more dangerous to everyone else on the road but to the people inside! Why would you knowingly choose to put your kids inside a more dangerous vehicle? I realize that the concept of global warming and environmental destruction is an abstract for most people but your children's safety should not be. Here's some feed back:
Steve-
I still think John Anderson (I think that's the right name.) had it right. A big part of his platform was to increase gas tax by 50 cent per gallon. Regardless of what W says, we cannot sustain current consumption levels, the current "American way". Either regulation or economics, in the form of taxes, need to come into play here. The true cost of gas is way higher than the current price at the pump.
Joe

Pat sends this one. It's a Kerry speech about the Republican atack on science. Nothing surprising here. Bush does the same thing to anything or anyone he doesn't like. Don't find WMD's? Get rid of Scott Ritter and David Kay. Don't like someone saying there are no "NUK-U-Ler" weapons in Iraq? Ruin his wife's CIA career. Don't like the General saying the Iraqi peace is gonna get a lot of American kids killed? Fire the General. Don't like the science? Rip up the text book and fire the scientists. Replace them with fundamentalists:
Written before the Union of Concerned Scientists report!

Click here: :: John Kerry for President - Remarks by Senator John Kerry Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center ::

And this one, which documents the distortion of science at the hands of George Bush:

1. There is a well-established pattern of suppression
and distortion of scientifi c fi ndings by
high-ranking Bush administration political
appointees across numerous federal agencies.

These actions have consequences for human
health, public safety, and community well-being.
Incidents involve air pollutants, heat-trapping
emissions, reproductive health, drug resistant
bacteria, endangered species, forest health, and
military intelligence.

2. There is strong documentation of a wideranging
effort to manipulate the government’s
scientific advisory system to prevent the appearance
of advice that might run counter to the
administration’s political agenda.

http://www.ucsusa.org/documents/RSI_final_exsum.pdf

Remember...Global warming doesn't exist, isn't happening, nope of course not...well maybe it is but it will be good for you. The Pentagon doesn't think so, neither does nearly every scientist on the planet, except for those working for the big oil companies and the Christian Coalition...and you know what? The ones working for big oil are getting scared too!

It is time for a top down change. Scientific research can not be compromised. We have to know the truth in order to be prepared to deal with what is coming for our children.

Brad sends this one:

This is a poll being conducted by American Family .So far, of the 17,000 people who have participated, 90 % favor John Kerry over GWB or Ralphy .
People who subscribe to American Family are typically pretty conservative . Interesting huh ? I am not certain if I should be surprised or not .

I'm not sure what this means, being a seriously non-scientific poll but I'll take good news where I find it!


Now! Just in case there are any of you who can sleep at night, try this one. I am no fan of Howard Stearn, by the way, and I cringe at what I hear in songs on broadcast radio. Howard Stearn isn't the point, however. Read down if you can and you'll find a good scary overview of the folks who want to take over your children's minds.

According to Newsweek, "As he prepared to run, in 1999, Bush assembled leading pastors at the governor's mansion for a "laying-on of hands," and told them he'd been "called" to seek higher office." And as Bob Woodward wrote in Bush at War: "The President was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God's Master Plan," wherein Bush promised, in the President's own words, "to export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great country and rid the world of evil."

Now why doesn't everybody love America? Just because our President has promised Christians he will "export death and violence?" Christians want this? This is the Christian thing to do? Read on:

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/03/far04007.html

OK, lighten up, eh? At least we're getting some good jokes out of all this.

Courage folks,

Steve