Another painting by one of our best resident artists in Southeast Iowa, T. Watson Bogaard

This is Twyla’s 2nd painting to be auctioned in support of the Wilton Community Center/Library Building Fund.

The 2009 Library Auction is Saturday, June 6.

The Building Fund Committee organizes a terrific “all you can eat” dessert spread for the evening; elegant and delicious! A ticket entitles you to go to the auction, have some dessert, and bid on silent auction items as well as a live auction.

The gallery that represents Twyla is www.thegalleriesdowntown.com.

Please continue to support the final segments of the Wilton Library building fund raising efforts.

more later on time and place…

Yesterday, Pam Ramer visited the Muscatine County Republican Women to talk about the Honor Tours for WWII Veterans, raising money to send local WWII Veterans to see the WWII Memorial in Washington D. C.

This group should not be confused with the Honor Flight program that operates around the US.  The Honor Tours were developed and sponsored financially at at local level but will take as many VETS of WWII as possible or as many as they can afford to take.  WWII Vets are dying at a rate of  more than 1,000 a day.

The next Honor tour starts May 13 at 8:30am.  There is a ceremony at the American Legion, where the bus starts.  The trip to the airport starts up Houser to Mulberry, then winds west again to through downtown, up East Fifth Street to Park Avenue and out HWY 61 to the Moline Airport.  Please consider taking some time off to salute these Veterans on their way to D. C.

Tom Browkaw labeled this group “the Greatest Generation” and because of their sacrifice, and the perils of those times – it would be hard not to agree with that assesment.  During WWII there was a huge effort enlisting 16 million men and women who served in the military, and almost 1/2 million died defending freedom around the world.  We have an amazing volunteer military today with 2.4 million combined regular and national guard.  One can’t help but wonder how the media would have protrayed events during WWII if media had the same access and sensibilities (or lack thereof).  I suppose there was no such thing friendly fire…

http://www.ww2honortour.com/contactus.html

Pam told stories about how AirTran, Wendy’s and Marriot have been helpful keeping costs down to $1,000 per vet, and how the 4 day tour is unique from other tours.

Almost everyone has a WWII Vet story, mine is here.

Again, don’t confuse solicitation for funds from the 1,2 day “Honor Flights” versus the 4 day “Honor Tour” sponsored specifically for Muscatine WWII Vets.

They are trying to raise funds to a third group this fall.  Please watch for their fundraisers and Mark May 13th on your calendar to watch them start their special journey.

my sister, niece and friend were in Hawaii – since most of my friends don’t have facebook accounts, I’m stealing some pics from my niece’s facebook page.  Yeah, yeah, I’ll start blogging more in a bit but right now…

From the album: “Now…bring me that horizon..” by Kristie Lee Miller

From the album: “I don’t think I’m in Iowa anymore…” by Kristie Lee Miller

Duty, Honor, Country

First to fight for the right, And to build the nation’s might,
And THE ARMY GOES ROLLING ALONG,Then it’s Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army’s on its way.Count off the cadence loud and strong.
For where’er we go, you will always know,
That THE ARMY GOES ROLLING ALONG…

W enjoying himself at the Army-Navy game.

More later about two Tipton, Iowa connections @ West Point.

Now.  Since November 2007 this new process (described in the article below) has made harvesting of any type of stem cells, unnecessary.   Why is Stem Cell Research still a political football?

Here is a article by DR. Charles Krauthammer, written in 2007.

THINK PEOPLE!!!   -pf

Stem Cell Vindication

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 30, 2007; A23

“If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.”
– James A. Thomson

A decade ago, Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells. Last week, he (and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka) announced one of the great scientific breakthroughs since the discovery of DNA: an embryo-free way to produce genetically matched stem cells.

Even a scientist who cares not a whit about the morality of embryo destruction will adopt this technique because it is so simple and powerful. The embryonic stem cell debate is over.

Which allows a bit of reflection on the storm that has raged ever since the August 2001 announcement of President Bush’s stem cell policy. The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president — so vilified for a moral stance — been so thoroughly vindicated.

Why? Precisely because he took a moral stance. Precisely because, to borrow Thomson’s phrase, Bush was made “a little bit uncomfortable” by the implications of embryonic experimentation. Precisely because he therefore decided that some moral line had to be drawn.

In doing so, he invited unrelenting demagoguery by an unholy trinity of Democratic politicians, research scientists and patient advocates who insisted that anyone who would put any restriction on the destruction of human embryos could be acting only for reasons of cynical politics rooted in dogmatic religiosity — a “moral ayatollah,” as Sen. Tom Harkin so scornfully put it.

Bush got it right. Not because he necessarily drew the line in the right place. I have long argued that a better line might have been drawn — between using doomed and discarded fertility-clinic embryos created originally for reproduction (permitted) and using embryos created solely to be disassembled for their parts, as in research cloning (prohibited). But what Bush got right was to insist, in the face of enormous popular and scientific opposition, on drawing a line at all, on requiring that scientific imperative be balanced by moral considerations.

History will look at Bush’s 2001 speech and be surprised how balanced and measured it was, how much respect it gave to the other side. Read it. Here was a presidential policy pronouncement that so finely and fairly drew out the case for both sides that until the final few minutes of his speech, you had no idea where the policy would end up.

Bush finally ended up doing nothing to hamper private research into embryonic stem cells and pledging federal monies to support the study of existing stem cell lines — but refusing federal monies for research on stem cell lines produced by newly destroyed embryos.

The president’s policy recognized that this might cause problems. The existing lines might dry up, prove inadequate or become corrupted. Bush therefore appointed a President’s Council on Bioethics to oversee ongoing stem cell research and evaluate how his restrictions were affecting research and what means might be found to circumvent ethical obstacles.

More vilification. The mainstream media and the scientific establishment saw this as a smoke screen to cover his fundamentalist, obscurantist, anti-scientific — the list of adjectives was endless — tracks. “Some observers,” wrote The Post’s Rick Weiss, “say the president’s council is politically stacked.”

I sat on the council for five years. It was one of the most ideologically balanced bioethics commissions in the history of this country. It consisted of scientists, ethicists, theologians, philosophers, physicians — and others (James Q. Wilson, Francis Fukuyama and me among them) of a secular bent not committed to one school or the other.

That balance of composition was reflected in the balance in the reports issued by the council — documents of sophistication and nuance that reflected the divisions both within the council and within the nation in a way that respectfully presented the views of all sides. One recommendation was to support research that might produce stem cells through “de-differentiation” of adult cells, thus bypassing the creation of human embryos.

That Holy Grail has now been achieved. Largely because of the genius of Thomson and Yamanaka. And also because of the astonishing good fortune that nature requires only four injected genes to turn an ordinary adult skin cell into a magical stem cell that can become bone or brain or heart or liver.

But for one more reason as well. Because the moral disquiet that James Thomson always felt — and that George Bush forced the country to confront — helped lead him and others to find some ethically neutral way to produce stem cells. Providence then saw to it that the technique be so elegant and beautiful that scientific reasons alone will now incline even the most willful researchers to leave the human embryo alone.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Mom today, and not just because I was at a reunion where her name, recipes and demeanor seeped out of conversations that I overheard or was part of today.

I just read an article that talked about how much of America has a hard time thinking Sarah Palin is qualified to be Vice President of these United States when they accept that Barack Obama is.  Is it a guy thing?

Each day I understand more why my CD2 Candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks is so very excited about Sarah Palin’s nomination.  It’s even becoming clearer why Geraldine Ferraro is being so generous in her comments about Palin’s candidacy, or that Hillary is watching her step in discussions about Palin.

In 1964 my mother helped me write a nominating speech for Barry Goldwater for my 6th grade class (probably would not surprise you to note that Barry won – in my class).  It was my Mom who wrote letters to the editor when the price of sugar rose for no real reason; it was my Mother who was told she could no longer be engaged at the level she was in Church Sunday education activities because she only had a high school education.  It was my Mother who was so much smarter and capable of leading.

Sarah Palin is a pioneer woman who respects the land, who is not afraid of hard work or to work with her hands. [I love this] She can “field dress a moose”; she is a woman who can take care of herself and was raised to do just that.  Palin has a mind of her own and has forged a solid family with shared responsibility with her husband – something that shows balance and maturity – a quality of spirit.

What are people afraid of?  That she doesn’t know the potholes of DC?  That she’s not smart enough for the job?  Are they saying that only someone from a big city or with an Ivy League education can lead America?

I respectfully disagree.

Some people on the side that likes her, are comparing her to Ronald Reagan.  There was only one “Ronald Maximus” and that comparison is not fair.  In the 90’s and even more so after RWR died a few years ago – I started reading the papers he wrote during his “wilderness years” – when he was out of public service.  It was ridiculous how much smarter he was and how he “GOT IT” so much better than many of his age.  Ronald Reagan was a born politician.

Sarah Palin’s world is not complicated; she is not a politician; nor did she strive for public service.  She just knows what’s right, what’s wrong – how to mow over someone to get what she believes is right for her constituents and has lived in their world.  Many of today’s politicians have not.

As I’m thinking of these qualities some of the words of Teddy Kennedy’s eulogy for his Brother Bobby come to mind.  He wanted Bobby to be remembered…

… as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:
“Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.”

Watch Sarah’s spirit soar over the next weeks. Why not? She has what it takes; and may God continue to bless people like my Mother who helped push us all in the right direction.

Country First

I’m not trying to make lite of all the Palin drama, I’m sure there will be some bad news along the way – and you can count on the MSM to make it seem horrible.

You may not find these funny but these things struck my funny bone. -pf

=============================== 

Alaska Democrats remove crediting Palin re: “Bridge to Nowhere”  from their website.

===============================

“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let’s be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”
credit.

This site has some good Palin Rumor statements (my favorite below)

“yes, she has a college degree in Journalism, but I won’t hold that against her, as she seems to have found honest work as well”

================================

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama — locked in a tight presidential race against Sen. John McCain, widely considered a war hero — said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he once considered joining the military himself.

=================================

From the Political Party of the Feminist (cough) Movement:

Howard Gutman, an original member of Barack Obama’s finance committee said Friday that Sarah Palin is putting her career above her family by accepting the nomination as John McCain’s running mate.

Palin’s Popularity: Obama’s “Emperor has no clothes moment”

Bar Room Economics:
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings ) The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings). Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,”exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

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

Welcome to the Party

I was talking to a friend’s little girl the other day. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied, “I want to be President!”

Both of her parents are liberal Democrats and were standing there.

So then I asked her, “If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?”

She replied, “I’d give houses to all the homeless people.”

“Wow – what a worthy goal.” I told her, “You don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where this homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house.”

Since she is only 10, she thought that over for a few seconds.

While her Mom glared at me, the child looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?”

And I said, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”

Her folks still aren’t talking to me.

Return to the Article

May 25, 2008

The Heroes That Dwelt Among Us

By Lance Fairchok

This Memorial Day our nation has been at war for over five years against a brutal and intractable enemy. Most Americans know only what they hear in news sound bites and see in flashing images on TV, as the attacks of 9-11 fade from our memory and no sacrifice is required of our citizens; the battles our soldiers fight become part of the background noise, the evils they shield us from distant and unreal.

The strength of our nation lies in our ability to defend our institutions and our culture, and in the willingness of our citizens to take a stand for the rights and against the wrongs that they hold incontrovertible. We are guarded by the knowledge that whatever our origin and whatever our beliefs, regardless of politics or ideology, the essence of America seeps deep into our hearts and that defending what she stands for is not only right, it is an honor and a hallowed duty. Out of the fiery crucible of history, our union has emerged stronger than any that came before her, in large part by the sacrifice of our soldiers.

Unlike previous generations, few Americans know a service member or have served themselves; the military is a distant and poorly understood institution, often maligned and frequently misrepresented. Despite this, and like those courageous generations that came before us and sacrificed to build the prosperity we enjoy, there are always those who step forward to answer the nation’s call. It is these brave few that we remember and honor on Memorial Day. Remarkable men and women, the best of us, to whom we owe so much, that perished in their duty. Their loss is a great sadness, but it is a greater sadness still that so few of us know their names.

Sergeant Timothy Padgett, from DeFuniak Springs in Walton County Florida, was 28 years old when he died in a firefight in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Sgt Padgett was a Special Forces medic. He almost certainly spent more time helping remote villages and their children than he did the wounded in combat. That is what the Green Berets do; that is what Americans do. He came home last spring in a flag draped casket, to a small town that remembers him as a volunteer firefighter, who had his Mom drive him to fires before he got his driving license in high school. He understood at a young age what citizenship means. He was the youngest of three, and his mother calls him her baby. Her heart is broken, yet she respects his decision to serve, and in that heartrending sadness, she is proud of his bravery, his dedication and his desire to help others.

I was on Hurlburt Field, the local Air Force Base the day they brought Sgt Padgett home to Florida. As I came through the terminal of the Base Operations building, I saw a thousand young Americans standing motionless. Dressed in Battle Dress Uniforms identical to each other, their faces as different as the many lands that sent immigrants to our shores; Korean, Italian, African, German, Polish, Chinese, Mexican, Russian. Each one profoundly American, and brave beyond any reasonable expectation, brave even beyond imagining. Many standing there were veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq; they had seen the enemy’s vision for our future. They had fought him, and they know the depravity of his ideology. They stood in silent ranks as an honor guard carried the casket in a solemn cadence past them; each individual salute a personal tribute, so precise, so intent, they utterly shamed me.

To most Americans this dignity is reserved for Presidents and Statesmen, yet these young volunteers give it to comrades fallen in battle, a warrior’s farewell, as proud and as powerful as anything I have ever seen. It was appropriate, yet somehow insufficient. There should have been busses here, with teachers and students, construction workers, doctors, lawyers, families with children, immigrants, everyday people, standing silently and respectfully, standing with the bravest of us, standing in tribute to who we are, thankful for all we have, thankful for this brave, honest, eager young man. There should have been thousands.

Twenty Three year old Sgt Eddie Jeffers died in Iraq on September 19^th, 2007. Eddie was from Daleville Alabama. He was on his second tour and newly married. His father has pictures of Eddie on his desk, pictures of a tall young man in uniform, smiling with his proud father, pictures of a warm and loving relationship, images that are doubly precious now. The February before his death, Eddie wrote an article entitled “Hope Rides Alone,” about the frustration he and his men felt about how the press and our political leaders were spinning the war. They battled a vile enemy and were there to win. Eddie was a patriot, not in the sense of blind nationalism, but with an intuitive understanding of what freedom brings to humanity. He believed in liberty, he believed that people had the right to freedom whether they lived in America or Iraq, he believed in the innate goodness of man even as he fought profound evil.

“We are the hope of the Iraqi people. They want what everyone else wants in life: safety, security, somewhere to call home. They want a country that is safe to raise their children. Not a place where their children will be abducted, raped and murdered if they do not comply with terrorists demands. They want to live on, rebuild and prosper. And America has given them the opportunity, but only if we stay true to the cause and see it to its end.”

Eddie’s war was about freedom from tyranny and terror. For Eddie, there was no second-guessing, no moral confusion, no other option but to fight for what he believed in, for the people he saw everyday on the streets of Ramadi and Anbar Province.

Some people influence their world far beyond the wisdom of their years, far beyond the wisdom of their elders, far beyond the understanding of a nation that barely knows its children have gone to war. In a time when the battle lines are clear for those who have the eyes to see, the bravery, the loyalty, and the strength of these men should knock us to our knees in thanksgiving and humility. In the eternal battle between good and evil, each drop of blood they shed should be sacred to us, and remind us that the blessings we have are hard won, and fleeting.

On Memorial Day Eddie’s father does not know what he’ll do or where he’ll go. The pain of losing his son is too fresh, too deep. He knows Eddie believed in what he was doing, and he knew his family loved and supported him. He takes some comfort in that. He wears a gold star on his lapel every day; one is his window, and one on his car. They are his daily tribute to his son.

Remember Eddie, Timothy, and their families.

Remember there are many more like them across the nation, whose children, husbands and wives still serve in the dangerous places of the world. Think of the wounded and maimed, the recovering and scarred who were so brave and so young and who suffer still. Remember them and say a prayer before you gather to enjoy this solemn holiday with family and friends. Think how terrible our world would be if they had not been willing to do what they have done, what so many like them still do.

Enough about Politics and Football for a while. This is about Life. The article below is a about a friend of a friend. I was privileged to met Bret and his girlfriend Tracie when some of us drove to Cincinnati to see a professional tennis tournament last year. If you ever get down on yourself – come back and re-read this story. -pf

Here is the original story from last August – CLICK HERE

April 23, 2008

Teaching lessons about life

Students see teacher/coach Bret Neylon as an inspiration

By Josh Duke
josh.duke@indystar.com

He still faces struggles and sometimes reluctantly asks for help, but Bret Neylon says his first full year back as a teacher and coach at Brownsburg High School has gone better than expected.

Neylon returned to the classroom last fall, 14 months after a bicycle injury left him paralyzed from the neck down.

“At first, it was kind of weird to see him in a different environment,” said Jeremy Beasley, a junior in one of Neylon’s U.S. history classes who also had him as a teacher three years ago.

“But it didn’t take as long as I thought it would to adjust and get back to history. He can do just as much as any other teacher. I’m glad to have him.”

Neylon suffered his injury June 17, 2006, during a bicycle race in Wilmington, Ohio. Unable to avoid an accident in front of him, Neylon catapulted over his handlebars and onto his head. The impact fractured a vertebra in his neck.

Neylon rarely complains or even speaks about it, but he teaches and coaches despite a neurogenic pain that he says feels like a cross between a bad sunburn and a blow to the funny bone. The pain, caused by his nerves getting mixed signals from the paralysis, is always there throughout his body and usually increases in intensity the more he speaks. His only relief from the pain comes while sleeping.

“I don’t want people feeling sorry for me,” he said. “It hasn’t kept me from teaching anything. It just makes it a little more difficult.”

Neylon has pulled positives from the injury. He believes it even made him a better teacher.

“My handicap has made me focus more on technology and given me more time to do research, prepare for class and develop better lesson plans,” he said. “Teaching U.S. history really has been one of the few things that hasn’t changed for the most part.”

To aid his return to the classroom, the school district and Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation — a state organization that helps people with disabilities — spent about $30,000 to prepare Neylon’s classroom. They added technology such as Max, a voice-activated computer software program that lets Neylon send e-mails, answer and dial the phone, and run the overhead projector and other video equipment.

The school also hired Neylon’s sister Cathy Stinson to help grade papers, make photocopies and handle other daily chores. Stinson and other teachers feed Neylon at lunch and help get him dressed for track practices or meets after school.

“What has impressed me most is just how good a teacher he is,” Stinson said. “I find myself stopping what I’m doing sometimes just to listen. Every minute of every day I think about what he has accomplished. I don’t think I could do it.”

During a recent writing assignment in class, Neylon maneuvered his electric wheelchair around desks and book bags checking to see if students needed help.

“Don’t just write a sentence or two,” he said after glancing at one paper. “You need to think about it more than that.”

Students say they don’t see a teacher with a disability when they enter Neylon’s class. They see an inspirational leader who just happens to teach U.S. history.

Beasley said the example Neylon set in the worst of times encourages him to work harder as a student.

“He has proven to me that anything can be accomplished if you want it bad enough,” Beasley said.

This has been eventful school year for Neylon outside the classroom as well. His boys and girls cross country teams made it to the semistate in the fall — the first time both teams advanced that far in the same season in Neylon’s coaching career. He and his girlfriend, Tracie Morris, set a wedding date and will marry July 5.

“Everything in my life is as close to being as normal as I can make it,” Neylon said. “Teaching and coaching (have) meant everything to me. I can’t imagine sitting at home and staring out the window feeling sorry for myself.”

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”

She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently,

“Welcome to the Republican Party.”

Although I agree with many of the points in this article, John at Powerlineblog.com does not.  -pf

Link to original article below

The Dumbing Of America
Call Me a Snob, but Really, We’re a Nation of Dunces

By Susan Jacoby
Sunday, February 17, 2008; B01

“The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.” Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today’s very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble — in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

This is the last subject that any candidate would dare raise on the long and winding road to the White House. It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled an “elitist,” one of the most powerful pejoratives that can be applied to anyone aspiring to high office. Instead, our politicians repeatedly assure Americans that they are just “folks,” a patronizing term that you will search for in vain in important presidential speeches before 1980. (Just imagine: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain . . . and that government of the folks, by the folks, for the folks, shall not perish from the earth.”) Such exaltations of ordinariness are among the distinguishing traits of anti-intellectualism in any era.

The classic work on this subject by Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter, “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,” was published in early 1963, between the anti-communist crusades of the McCarthy era and the social convulsions of the late 1960s. Hofstadter saw American anti-intellectualism as a basically cyclical phenomenon that often manifested itself as the dark side of the country’s democratic impulses in religion and education. But today’s brand of anti-intellectualism is less a cycle than a flood. If Hofstadter (who died of leukemia in 1970 at age 54) had lived long enough to write a modern-day sequel, he would have found that our era of 24/7 infotainment has outstripped his most apocalyptic predictions about the future of American culture.

Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture (and by video, I mean every form of digital media, as well as older electronic ones); a disjunction between Americans’ rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism.

First and foremost among the vectors of the new anti-intellectualism is video. The decline of book, newspaper and magazine reading is by now an old story. The drop-off is most pronounced among the young, but it continues to accelerate and afflict Americans of all ages and education levels.

Reading has declined not only among the poorly educated, according to a report last year by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1982, 82 percent of college graduates read novels or poems for pleasure; two decades later, only 67 percent did. And more than 40 percent of Americans under 44 did not read a single book — fiction or nonfiction — over the course of a year. The proportion of 17-year-olds who read nothing (unless required to do so for school) more than doubled between 1984 and 2004. This time period, of course, encompasses the rise of personal computers, Web surfing and video games.

Does all this matter? Technophiles pooh-pooh jeremiads about the end of print culture as the navel-gazing of (what else?) elitists. In his book “Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter,” the science writer Steven Johnson assures us that we have nothing to worry about. Sure, parents may see their “vibrant and active children gazing silently, mouths agape, at the screen.” But these zombie-like characteristics “are not signs of mental atrophy. They’re signs of focus.” Balderdash. The real question is what toddlers are screening out, not what they are focusing on, while they sit mesmerized by videos they have seen dozens of times.

Despite an aggressive marketing campaign aimed at encouraging babies as young as 6 months to watch videos, there is no evidence that focusing on a screen is anything but bad for infants and toddlers. In a study released last August, University of Washington researchers found that babies between 8 and 16 months recognized an average of six to eight fewer words for every hour spent watching videos.

I cannot prove that reading for hours in a treehouse (which is what I was doing when I was 13) creates more informed citizens than hammering away at a Microsoft Xbox or obsessing about Facebook profiles. But the inability to concentrate for long periods of time — as distinct from brief reading hits for information on the Web — seems to me intimately related to the inability of the public to remember even recent news events. It is not surprising, for example, that less has been heard from the presidential candidates about the Iraq war in the later stages of the primary campaign than in the earlier ones, simply because there have been fewer video reports of violence in Iraq. Candidates, like voters, emphasize the latest news, not necessarily the most important news.

No wonder negative political ads work. “With text, it is even easy to keep track of differing levels of authority behind different pieces of information,” the cultural critic Caleb Crain noted recently in the New Yorker. “A comparison of two video reports, on the other hand, is cumbersome. Forced to choose between conflicting stories on television, the viewer falls back on hunches, or on what he believed before he started watching.”

As video consumers become progressively more impatient with the process of acquiring information through written language, all politicians find themselves under great pressure to deliver their messages as quickly as possible — and quickness today is much quicker than it used to be. Harvard University’s Kiku Adatto found that between 1968 and 1988, the average sound bite on the news for a presidential candidate — featuring the candidate’s own voice — dropped from 42.3 seconds to 9.8 seconds. By 2000, according to another Harvard study, the daily candidate bite was down to just 7.8 seconds.

The shrinking public attention span fostered by video is closely tied to the second important anti-intellectual force in American culture: the erosion of general knowledge.

People accustomed to hearing their president explain complicated policy choices by snapping “I’m the decider” may find it almost impossible to imagine the pains that Franklin D. Roosevelt took, in the grim months after Pearl Harbor, to explain why U.S. armed forces were suffering one defeat after another in the Pacific. In February 1942, Roosevelt urged Americans to spread out a map during his radio “fireside chat” so that they might better understand the geography of battle. In stores throughout the country, maps sold out; about 80 percent of American adults tuned in to hear the president. FDR had told his speechwriters that he was certain that if Americans understood the immensity of the distances over which supplies had to travel to the armed forces, “they can take any kind of bad news right on the chin.”

This is a portrait not only of a different presidency and president but also of a different country and citizenry, one that lacked access to satellite-enhanced Google maps but was far more receptive to learning and complexity than today’s public. According to a 2006 survey by National Geographic-Roper, nearly half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 do not think it necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. More than a third consider it “not at all important” to know a foreign language, and only 14 percent consider it “very important.”

That leads us to the third and final factor behind the new American dumbness: not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge. The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it’s the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place. Call this anti-rationalism — a syndrome that is particularly dangerous to our public institutions and discourse. Not knowing a foreign language or the location of an important country is a manifestation of ignorance; denying that such knowledge matters is pure anti-rationalism. The toxic brew of anti-rationalism and ignorance hurts discussions of U.S. public policy on topics from health care to taxation.

There is no quick cure for this epidemic of arrogant anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism; rote efforts to raise standardized test scores by stuffing students with specific answers to specific questions on specific tests will not do the job. Moreover, the people who exemplify the problem are usually oblivious to it. (”Hardly anyone believes himself to be against thought and culture,” Hofstadter noted.) It is past time for a serious national discussion about whether, as a nation, we truly value intellect and rationality. If this indeed turns out to be a “change election,” the low level of discourse in a country with a mind taught to aim at low objects ought to be the first item on the change agenda.

info@susanjacoby.com

Susan Jacoby’s latest book is “The Age of American Unreason.”

Well this is completely off topic, but my favorite actor when I was growing up (about 10-15 years old), just received her star (finally!) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There have been people behind the scenes working on this for years. RIP Elizabeth – deserved, but she never cared about awards…

A kicky site if you want to read more – click here. Sony did a great job of restoring the episodes and have released up to season 5 (I think) years 1-5 were the best with Dick York – very nice DVD sets to watch on a winter’s day. They used to release 35 episodes a year in the 1960s, now less than 25. The first three years are offered in B&W or colorized, and the colorized is well done (I, of course have both).

link to part of the ceremony here

Elizabeth Montgomery’s Biography will be rebroadcast Wednesday, January 9 at 7 AM on the Biography Channel and then again at 1 PM that day and then January 11 at 3 AM.

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Elizabeth Montgomery posthumously received the 2,353rd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Friday, nearly 13 years after the “Bewitched” star’s death.

Montgomery’s widower, actor Robert Foxworth, and fellow actress Elizabeth Sheridan, a longtime friend and racetrack companion, were among those attending the rain-soaked ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard. Montgomery’s children, Rebecca Asher and Bill Asher, will accept the star on her behalf.”Elizabeth would have adored the fact that it’s raining today,” said Sheridan, best known for her portrayal of Jerry Seinfeld’s mother Helen on the classic NBC comedy “Seinfeld.” “She loved the rain — I love her, and I miss her.”

Honorary Hollywood Mayor Johnny Grant told the crowd that Montgomery “is probably in the heavens laughing at us as we stand in the rain.”

Foxworth said Montgomery was a big fan of the rain and would have appreciated the wet weather.”It is a great tribute to her that there are so many of you here,” he said.”You will be surprised to know that Elizabeth was very shy,” Foxworth said. “Her shyness gave her roles an extra sparkle.”

Montgomery received Emmy nominations for five consecutive years from 1966-70 for her portrayal of Samantha Stephens, a good-natured, nose-twitching witch married to a mortal advertising executive.After “Bewitched” was canceled by ABC in 1972 following eight seasons, Montgomery starred in 21 made-for-television movies and the miniseries “The Awakening Land” from 1972-1995, receiving three more Emmy nominations.Born April 15, 1933, in Los Angeles, Montgomery was the daughter of movie and television actor Robert Montgomery and stage actress Elizabeth Allen.

Montgomery made her television debut in 1951 on the NBC dramatic anthology her father hosted and produced, “Robert Montgomery Presents.” She made 21 additional appearances on the series, and also appeared on such anthology series as “Playhouse 90″, “Studio One” and “Kraft Television Theatre.”

Her other memorable pre-”Bewitched” television roles included a portrayal of a prostitute on a 1960 episode of “The Untouchables,” for which she received her first Emmy nomination, and as a soldier opposite Charles Bronson in the 1961 “Twilight Zone” episode “Two.”

Montgomery’s movie credits included “The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell,” “Johnny Cool” and “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?”Montgomery died May 18, 1995, from colorectal cancer at the age of 62.

Montgomery’s star is a block west of her father’s. The Montgomerys join Frank and Nancy Sinatra and Danny and Marlo Thomas as father-daughter duos with stars on the Walk of Fame.

The day after Christmas is a good day for reflection on 2007.

I’ve posted a summary of some of my favorite posts here. If you want to see a quick representation of the posts for 2007 go there first.

2007 was an interesting year, politicking for the 2008 presidential election started way too early – has it turned us away from engagement in politics?

Communication and Trust

How do we change the trend of divisiveness in politics? I’m not sure we can change attitudes and assumptions easily; especially if Americans don’t fully engage in the process. We certainly can’t if we don’t listen to each other.

One issue that highlights the disconnect is the theory of Global Warming.

I believe the hyperbole surrounding the theory that man has severely influenced and can ultimately change the cyclical nature of earth’s weather, has hurt not helped the environmental movement.

Our use of fossil fuels needs to end for a multitude of political, financial and environmental reasons. In general conservation of any and all resources is a very important “attitude” for the 21st century. How do we de-politicize Global Warming? How do we move “Band wagon” politics into thoughtful dissection of facts? This will be our challenge for 2008.

Look at the candidates running for President. Democrats attempting to best each other in gifting voters, instead of inscenting them toward excellence – continuing to villainize those who create wealth, and promise that wealth to their voters for their support.

“Those who continue to promise the most for the least will drive good and just men from politics”

We have seceded our national communication to the Media; people listen in sound bytes and don’t verify issues for themselves. Trust in our national government is at a very low mark and people are just too busy to care.

My personal favorite post remains from 2006 – a cut from a site that specialized in satire that produced a thoughtful “editorial” about the aftermath of Katrina. This post from Scott Ott is as meaningful today as it was a year ago; we have yet to learn that lesson.

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, journalists sought someone to blame. They, predictably, found President George Bush was the best scapegoat. But in lashing out, yet again, at their favorite source of all discontent, they missed a bigger target. If anyone “out there” is to be blamed, it is the large, remote, centralized federal government which has become a surrogate father to so many millions of Americans.

Over the decades, we have ceded power, authority and responsibility to the federal government far beyond anything envisioned or desired by our founders. As a result, instead relying on our own intelligence, resources and ability to work with others in our communities to solve problems, we have turned to Washington D.C..

This is not a matter of ‘blaming the victim’, because the victim has become so immersed in this twisted view of human life that he cannot see what has happened. The federal government’s dehumanizing effect has torn up neighborhoods, torn apart families and turned brave, capable people into compliant recipients of redistributed wealth.

The problem is that the morsels of that wealth never provide enough to do anything other than keep folks in a perpetual state of dependence upon the State. Even if those morsels became chunks big enough to choke a horse, the dependency would remain. The federal government has become not only the safety net, it is everything from the crib blanket to the casket lining.

The danger of centralized government control is not that it robs a few dollars from rich people and gives them to the poor. It’s not even that such a bureaucratic behemoth spawns the waste of billions of dollars. After all, it’s just money.

No, the threat of this system is that it strips a man of what makes him a man, and turns him away from his inner resources, or the inclination to partner with neighbors to solve problems. It humiliates him, blinds him and ultimately cripples him.

Of course, when a government-built levee bursts, and a government subsidized house is immersed, the natural, reasonable reaction of the displaced person is to turn to the government; both to blame for the disaster and to petition for relief. Many of the homes that were destroyed belonged to middle and upper-class citizens as well, and yet still somehow even some of those people turned toward Washington to vent anger and cry out for restoration.

Sadly, the story that rarely gets told are the daily acts of bravery, fortitude and cooperation in dozens of communities where people — often through the agency of local churches — have pulled together in reliance upon each other and in a shared dependence upon superintending grace. Work crews that report to no one in Washington have poured into the region to cart off debris and help lay the foundations for a better future. Against all odds, many of the washed-out residents have worked long hours, endured separation from family and almost-overwhelming hardship in order to rebuild what the waters ravaged. These people are beyond number, and below the media radar.

Journalists, by habit, prefer stories they can receive from the tip of a spoon held by an “expert” or official. They, too, have turned to big government and have become dependent upon her for their sustenance. What most Americans know of the situation in the hurricane zone is only what TV or other news sources tell them. Most of that information comes from “authorities” in the government. The reporters have told us that the real story is all about the government’s response. They have largely ignored the responsible activities of thousands of unseen hands restoring towns, parks, homes and lives.

Success stories are buried. Tragedy is blared from the housetops. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle that further deepens dependence upon the government, and further strips the dignity of the person.

The victims of Katrina are not really the victims of Katrina herself. The tragedy began long before the hurricane hit.

Natural disasters have always happened and always will. While, mercifully, they don’t occur every day in every place, they are common enough that we ought to have an expectation that bad things can and will happen. We need to cultivate the inner resources in ourselves, our children and our neighborhoods to cope with the inevitable. When we cede that power and responsibility to the federal government, we surrender a part of what makes us human and leave ourselves more vulnerable to the tempest.

Whether you believe in God or not, you have surely experienced how the human soul sings when we gather in chorus to accomplish a great purpose in the midst of tragedy. It’s as if we were designed to work together with our family, friends and neighbors. There is a blessing in it that exceeds the penalty of the curse.

When my own community was hit by flooding some years ago, people stepped off their porches, shouldered sandbags, delivered meals, took in the homeless, wielded shovels against the muck, and generally helped each other in the task of restoration. As awful as that flood was, I will always remember it fondly, not for the harm it did to us and to our property, but for the good it did in us and in our community.

Our state-run schools and spoon-fed media have conditioned us to look to government. They’ve also trained us to take offense at any expression of love that doesn’t result in government intervention and redistribution of taxpayer dollars. ‘Compassion’ has been redefined as ‘entitlement’ and thus stripped of its power and utility.

The devastating impact of this mindset is the apparent withering of the individual spirit and of community cooperation which have been the hallmarks of this great nation.

But all is not yet lost, and perhaps not so much is lost as we have been led to believe.

Since what we know about America flows mostly from the media, we can be certain that most of what we know is just plain wrong, or at least atypical. My old journalism professor used to say, ‘News is coups, earthquakes and three-legged chickens.’

In other words, Walter Cronkite was exactly wrong to say ‘That’s the way it is.’ Journalists don’t report the truth about life. They are carnival barkers selling the unusual, the atypical, the freaks. And we continue to reward them for doing so.

The actual truth about life in our great Republic is quite different from the daily portrayals in the media.

Everywhere in this God-blessed America covert radicals roam, committing seemingly-random acts of kindness — unmonitored, untallied, uncontrolled, unshackled from the federal government. It is, in effect, a shadow government that we have set up for ourselves to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.

This decentralized movement of men and women accomplishes most of the great work of charity, compassion and community building. Their individual efforts are a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of government largess, but in the aggregate and ultimate their service far exceeds anything that government can deliver.

In fact, the vast majority of Americans behave as if the federal government did not exist in their day-to-day lives. This underground movement is entirely healthy and necessary for the maintenance of our Republic and for our pursuit of happiness.

We don’t have time to blame anyone for our misfortunes. We’re too busy working to overcome them. We don’t have faith in some distant bureaucrat, rather we turn to the resources that God has placed near at hand. We lean on our brothers. Many of us call on our Father in our time of need, and He sends our neighbors who love us more than we love ourselves. Later, we will turn to our helpers when they need us and repay the debt, only to learn that no debt existed because acts of compassion shower blessings on giver and receiver alike.

We find these local (and spiritual) solutions not only adequate, but invigorating and inspiring because it is only when we are pressed hard by life that we discover there is more life in us, among us and beyond us than we had imagined in carefree hours.

Electing any Republican President may not move us exactly in the direction I want to go, but it’s clear to me any Democratic President could make great changes that will put us on a path of destruction of this great nation. Democracy isn’t a gift, it needs to be fought for generation after generation.

As a nation of free men we must live through all time, or die by suicide. – A. Lincoln

It’s time to choose. I choose Rudy.

Happy New Year and May God Continue to Bless the United States of America. pf

Whose Christmas Is It Anyway?

By Kyle-Anne Shiver
Here we go again. Even before the Thanksgiving turkey made it through the leftover cycle, the now-annual, national Christmas squabble began.

Neighbors in a stew over a manger scene in somebody else’s front yard; call the ACLU. A store won’t call their evergreens Christmas trees; it makes the evening news. A company’s catalog says “holiday” instead of “Christmas”; a boycott is announced. Somebody get out the volume of Supreme Court rulings labeled, “Christmas,” so we’ll know which way the Christmas winds of justice are blowing this year; it’s all capricious nonsense. This bickering is downright sacrilegious.

Time to plan the little tykes’ holiday pageant; Santa is fine but Jesus is banned. Santa brings sugar-laden candy; call the AMA. Now that you mention it, he’s too fat; call Jenny Craig. Put the reindeer on hold and call the PETA; animals are people too. Santa says “ho”; cover the children’s little ears. Please, does it get any sillier than this?

We’re not really celebrating Christmas on the right day. Jesus wasn’t born in the winter. It’s mostly recycled pagan ritual anyway. They didn’t even celebrate Jesus’ birth until a couple of centuries after. The Church just co-opted a bunch of Roman stuff and made it conform to Christianity. Who really cares? A symbolic feast is a symbolic feast is a symbolic feast.

Christmas is too commercialized. It’s not commercialized in the right way. Don’t dare misappropriate our holy day for ghastly profits. Buy, buy, buy or the retailers and their families will suffer. How dare they put a Coca Cola in Santa’s hand? What, you prefer Pepsi?

My teacher said, “Merry Christmas”; I’m scarred for life. No red and green this year; it says “Christmas” loud and clear. No, it’s really a holdover from a way, way, way bygone year. Just another pagan thing, you know. Hang a wreath; don’t hang a wreath. Only a live evergreen will do. Artificial trees are more ecological. Get some mistletoe and kiss yourself.
Good gracious, who cares!

I’ve had it up to my neck with the squabbling, the nit-picking, the analyzing and every other little bit of scrooging and religiosity. None of this bickering comes across to me as even coming close to the joy-to-the-world Christmas that I believe God intends it to be.

I take my Catholic faith very seriously; it defines my life. But I’ve never been a form-over-substance person, so I can’t get all worked up over what appear to be insignificant details. And it seems to me that when we take our eyes off Christmas’ meaning and get caught up in the details instead, we hurt God much more than any societal slight ever could.

I think it just might be time we get down to brass tacks on the matter and ask ourselves simply:Whose Christmas is it anyway?

Christmas, as defined by the Church, is supposed to celebrate God’s supreme gift to mankind for all generations, past, present and future. As Christians, we believe that Jesus, born in Bethlehem in the land of Judea, is the Messiah, foretold by the prophets.

And we believe, according to our sacred Scripture, that when he was born, an angel appeared to the shepherds guarding their flocks in the fields, and proclaimed: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.

And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest! On earth peace, good will toward men.”
Luke 2:10-14 (New American Bible)

Just how we got from that idyllic scene of glory, peace, good will, good news and joy for all, to the current state of squabbling over every little detail, is a 2,000 year up, down, right, left, east, west and every which way story. But the bottom line is that Christmas belongs to God.

His idea. His Son. His angels. His manger. His gift.

Truth be told, if God were anything at all like Santa Claus, and he had asked us humans first what we wanted, most humans would probably have opted for a gift quite different than the babe in the manger who was supposed to hold the promise of internal soul-peace that surpasses understanding.

I don’t intend to give up a minute of that peace this Christmas paying any attention whatsoever to a single squabble. Everywhere I go, I’m going to share Christmas in a smile with everyone I encounter.

As for my husband, me and our house, we will shut the door tight this year against the cacophony of Christmas squabbling, and seek the peace of Christ in our own way.

We’ll hang the wreath on the door and not worry over whether a pagan ever did the same to honor some other made-up god with a wacky name. We’ll don the tree with the all-white lights, because to us, they most resemble the star of Bethlehem, and as we gaze magically upon them in our darkened living room by the fire, we will also be reminded that we know Jesus as the light of the world. We’ll hang our ornaments one by one, old and new, and talk about the year our little ones pulled the tree over and broke every single breakable object in sight. We’ll remember that Santa, to us, has always represented the spirit of sacrificial giving, and we’ll try to play the merry ole fat guy for each other. We’ll put up the dozen golden angels over the mantle, and spread our collection of crèches all over the house. We’ll spike our eggnog, roast our turkey, and enjoy our friends, both Christian and non-Christian alike.

We’ll rejoice in the freedom to worship our God in joy and song and dance, not only in sacred liturgy. We’ll try to rekindle warmth with our neighbors and look for any who might be alone or neglected. We’ll buy gifts for the children of strangers just for the happiness of the smiles we won’t even see.

We’ll stay up late for midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and as our hearts are lifted to the heights of heaven on the majestic chords of the Gloria, we’ll imagine that we were there on that starlit night, and heard the angels sing. And we’ll know – yes, we’ll know – that nothing else matters one little bit.

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight.”
Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver@yahoo.com.

Mark Steyn: World should give thanks for America

MARK STEYN

Syndicated columnist

Speaking as a misfit unassimilated foreigner, I think of Thanksgiving as the most American of holidays.

Christmas is celebrated elsewhere, even if there are significant local variations: In Continental Europe, naughty children get left rods to be flayed with and lumps of coal; in Britain, Christmas lasts from Dec. 22 to mid-January and celebrates the ancient cultural traditions of massive alcohol intake and watching the telly till you pass out in a pool of your own vomit. All part of the rich diversity of our world.

But Thanksgiving (excepting the premature and somewhat undernourished Canadian version) is unique to America. “What’s it about?” an Irish visitor asked me a couple of years back. “Everyone sits around giving thanks all day? Thanks for what? George bloody Bush?”

Well, Americans have a lot to be thankful for.

Europeans think of this country as “the New World” in part because it has an eternal newness, which is noisy and distracting. Who would ever have thought you could have ready-to-eat pizza faxed directly to your iPod?

And just when you think you’re on top of the general trend of novelty, it veers off in an entirely different direction: Continentals who grew up on Hollywood movies where the guy tells the waitress “Gimme a cuppa joe” and slides over a nickel return to New York a year or two later and find the coffee now costs $5.75, takes 25 minutes and requires an agonizing choice between the cinnamon-gingerbread-persimmon latte with coxcomb sprinkles and the decaf venti pepperoni-Eurasian-milfoil macchiato.

Who would have foreseen that the nation that inflicted fast food and drive-thru restaurants on the planet would then take the fastest menu item of all and turn it into a Kabuki-paced performance art? What mad genius! But Americans aren’t novelty junkies on the important things. The New World is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.

We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany’s constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy’s only to the 1940s, and Belgium’s goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it’s not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France’s, Germany’s, Italy’s or Spain’s constitution, it’s older than all of them put together.

Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent’s governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they’re so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union.

If you’re going to be novelty-crazed, better the zebra-mussel cappuccino than the Third Reich.

Even in a supposedly 50/50 nation, you’re struck by the assumed stability underpinning even fundamental disputes. If you go into a bookstore, the display shelves offer a smorgasbord of leftist anti-Bush tracts claiming that he and Cheney have trashed, mangled, gutted, raped and tortured, sliced ‘n’ diced the Constitution, put it in a cement overcoat and lowered it into the East River. Yet even this argument presupposes a shared veneration for tradition unknown to most Western political cultures: When Tony Blair wanted to abolish, in effect, the upper house of the national legislature, he just got on and did it.

I don’t believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.

In Europe, by contrast, one reason why there’s no politically significant pro-life movement is because, in a world where constitutions have the life expectancy of an Oldsmobile, great questions are just seen as part of the general tide, the way things are going, no sense trying to fight it. And, by the time you realize you have to, the tide’s usually up to your neck.

So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they’ve been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.

But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.

Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in – shoring up Afghanistan’s fledgling post-Taliban democracy – most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.

If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It’s not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.

That said, Thanksgiving isn’t about the big geopolitical picture, but about the blessings closer to home. Last week, the state of Oklahoma celebrated its centennial, accompanied by rousing performances of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s eponymous anthem:

“We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!”

Which isn’t a bad theme song for the first Thanksgiving, either.

Three hundred and 14 years ago, the Pilgrims thanked God because there was a place for them in this land, and it was indeed grand. The land is grander today, and that, too, is remarkable: France has lurched from Second Empires to Fifth Republics struggling to devise a lasting constitutional settlement for the same smallish chunk of real estate, but the principles that united a baker’s dozen of East Coast colonies were resilient enough to expand across a continent and halfway around the globe to Hawaii.

Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.

Chicago Cubs win N.L. Central

On our way to a Cincinnati tennis event in August we stopped in Indiana to visit Bret in his new house. He and his finance are friends of the daughter of a good friend of mine; they are all life long biking circuit enthusiasts. I thought you would enjoy the story even though it’s not about Politics – OR – Football. Truly inspiring. -PF

August 14, 2007

Welcome back, Mr. Neylon

Brownsburg teacher paralyzed in accident returns to classroom, helped by technology

By Josh Duke

August 14, 2007

Students in Bret Neylon’s Brownsburg High School class got more than a U.S. history lesson on their first day back to school.

They also learned a little about life.

Neylon returned to the classroom Monday just 14 months after a devastating bicycle injury left him paralyzed from the neck down.

“Just him being here shows how much he wanted to teach again,” said junior Robby Hechinger, 16. “He could have just given up, but he was willing to work hard for us, which means we need to work twice as hard for him.”

With the help of high-tech equipment and widespread community support, Neylon, 40, is achieving something most people in his situation don’t.

Just three out of 10 people with an injury like Neylon’s go back to work within 10 years after the injury, according to the Maryland-based National Spinal Cord Injury Association. The numbers are much smaller for those, such as Neylon, who are just one year removed from the accident, said Marcie Roth, chief executive officer and executive director of the association.

“The message he is sending to his students is invaluable,” she said. “We want them to know anything is possible.”

Neylon views his return to the classroom as the last step to resuming a normal life.

“When I teach history, the No. 1 goal I have is to teach about tolerance and understanding and appreciating different people,” he said. “There are many things that people with paralysis can accomplish in life.”

Neylon suffered the injury during an all-out sprint to the finish of a June 17, 2006, bicycle race in Wilmington, Ohio. Unable to avoid an accident in front of him, Neylon was catapulted over his handlebars and onto his head. The impact fractured a vertebra in his neck.

While Neylon spent months in a rehabilitation center in Atlanta, the move to help him began immediately back home. Brownsburg residents and area cycling enthusiasts held fund-raisers, prayer vigils and even built a handicap-accessible house that was waiting for Neylon when he arrived in September.

“His return was never a question for us,” said Kathleen Corbin, superintendent of Brownsburg Schools. “Bret Neylon before June 2006 was a wonderful teacher and he is a wonderful teacher now, and you don’t want to lose good people like that.”

Neylon resumed coaching duties with the high school track team last spring and is leading the cross country team this fall.

To aid his return to the classroom, the school district and Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation — a state organization that helps people with disabilities — partnered to pull resources together and hired Easter Seals Crossroads to prepare the classroom. Wade Wingler, director of assistive technology for Easter Seals, estimated the cost at up to $30,000.

“I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I’ve never had another employer that has embraced a situation like this,” Wingler said. “Disabilities affect everybody differently, but Bret is a shining example of someone who dealt with it, and then considered, ‘What do I have to do to move forward?’ “

A special helper Neylon has depended upon at home became key to his return to the classroom. A voice-activated computer software program called Max allows him to send e-mails, answer and dial the phone, run the overhead projector and even provide a little comic relief on command.

“Max, these are the students I told you about,” Neylon said as the class settled in Monday. Max promptly filled the room with pre-recorded laughter.

But Max can’t do it all, so the school district hired Neylon’s sister, Cathy Stinson, to be his assistant. Stinson was a special education aide in the Mooresville school district before leaving to help take care of Neylon.

“She will be my hands whenever I need it,” Neylon said.

Stinson will help with grading papers, taking attendance, making copies and feeding Neylon at lunch. If the computer system goes down, Stinson would help Neylon teach the class using the chalkboard, he said.

On his first day back, Stinson’s assistance at the chalkboard wasn’t necessary. Max worked flawlessly, and Neylon and his students quickly adjusted, said Donna Petraits, director of communications for Brownsburg Schools.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it would be different,” said Robby Hechinger, who also had Neylon as a teacher in middle school. “But it really wasn’t any different than in eighth grade. He used the computer system and a microphone, but otherwise it seemed like any other teacher up there.”

After Stinson took attendance, Neylon showed historical clips from the Vietnam War, the sinking of the Titanic and the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

Neylon saved the last 10 minutes to talk about his accident and answer any questions students might have, Petraits said.

Junior Erika Hess, 16, came away from Neylon’s class inspired. She said he already changed her outlook on life.

“I’m just so grateful that I have him for a teacher. . . . I’m so excited about this year now,” she said.

Technology at work – Bret Neylon’s return to a Brownsburg High School classroom depends on technology. Here are two examples:

A voice-activated computer software system, called Max, lets Neylon accomplish routine tasks on command. Max recognizes Neylon’s voice and does whatever he asks, whether it’s answering the phone, turning on the overhead projector or sending an e-mail.

School officials rewired Neylon’s entire room and added speakers to help amplify his voice. He uses a wireless lapel microphone to project his voice, which was weakened by injuries.

The National Spinal Cord Injury Association

Well we got just a bit more than 24 hours notice that Rudy was going to be back in Iowa on Friday. For me personally, it was the most fun I’ve had at an event to date and I didn’t hear a word he said or even shake his hand! The story I’m most interested in telling is at the very bottom of this post because I spent the last 30 minutes there.

We were talking about taking time off work and driving there, but then got the call that we were needed and gladly accepted the mission.

The event was held at Ross’ Restaurant on the corner of State Street and 14th under the I-74 bridge over the Mississippi. The first people were three people waiting on a mission to see Rudy – pictured below with Ambassador Terpeluk (Luxembourg 2002-2005). He was traveling with Rudy on this 2 day 6 event swing through Idaho, Iowa, Illinois. Tracie, Rudy’s paid staffer for SE Iowa, picked them up at the airport at 3am on Friday Morning z z z z z z 

These three are regulars every Friday at Ross’ and they heard from the couple’s son (the two in the middle) that Rudy was going to be at Ross’ on Friday. Funny thing, their son is in Grenada! All three are leaning Rudy (they like Mitt too) and were very nice to talk to during the down time. The fellow on the right is a friend of theirs who got a scripted autograph in a copy of Rudy’s book “Leadership” during the event. The autographed book is for his wife’s 60’s birthday and Rudy wrote what he asked him to write and more.

I did talk to the Ambassador for a bit. Rudy’s campaign needs a higher internet presence – his website is fine but more needs to be done generally on searches, etc.  joinrudy2008 and a better use of humor, IMO. The Ambassador said the campaign has over 9,000 video clips on file – but that’s not what I really meant. Hmmm…

this is a good picture of the Mayor, and you can see Maggie Tinsman just out of range to the left side of the picture (Maggie is a state co-chair and is running the SE Iowa district volunteer effort for Rudy with Tracie)

I just couldn’t resist posting this picture. A young family had breakfast at Ross’ just to meet Rudy.

The lady in the forefront is the daughter of the owner of the Restaurant. I will try to ID the others later. ( and those below)

To me, this is the most interesting story. During these “meet and greets” Rudy will literally shake everyone’s hand (ok I missed because I was a moving target during the event) and create a photo op or sign an autograph. At some level this is a better event that the “town halls” because of the informality. Iowa is really lucky that we get to meet the next President of the USA at this level of informality.

This picture (below) was taken at the very end of the event. The gent shaking Rudy’s hand was with two older people who, until after Rudy left, I assumed were his parents. As it turns out he was just helping some older acquaintances with water damage and brought them to Ross’ for breakfast. They didn’t know Rudy was going to be here. “Do you think I would have dress like this?” he said. From our conversation he was clearly a Rudy fan. After sitting in the booth for a minute (I was handing out brochures, answering questions about Rudy’s candidacy) the husband and wife with him were unclear on the value of Rudy’s candidacy and (imagine this) we talked.
This is going to be hard; I promised Allan and Joyce (the older couple) a letter with more information since they don’t have internet access. I’m worse with snail mail than I am at returning phone calls.

I sat down and talked to Allan and Joyce for about 20 minutes toward the end of the event because they had some questions and wanted to tell me about the problems they had with Rudy generally. I promised them more information but will outline the conversation here. I never asked them if they were ( R ) or ( D ) it doesn’t much matter – we talked issues. Allan’s two big issues for President is 2nd amendment rights and a relationship to lack of union support that affected him personally in the 1980s during Ronald Reagan’s terms as President.

Rudy is going to have problems with gun advocates. Saying he supports 2nd amendment rights to keep and bare arms will not be good enough in the Midwest. I did think he answered the question as best he could in this video – click here to view it.

What Rudy did previously was based on governing the largest City in the world that was also at that time – the crime capital of the United States. He had to do something and he focused on reducing taxes and removing guns. He’s said in his 12 Commitments that what is right for NYC is not necessarily right for Montana. He believes states should make their own laws on gun control – but he has stated again and again that he supports 2nd amendment rights and would never be in favor of removing guns or the ability to carry licensed guns. I fear this will never be enough for some voters, but those who call Rudy a “gun grabber” are unfair.

However, Rudy frankly admits not everyone holds the same views that he does on every issue – but his “80% friend is not his 20% enemy”. What you won’t see is Rudy changing his mind about issues based on polling data. Voters need to balance how each candidate may govern based on what they say and prior experience.

The second issue Allan wanted to talk about was a bad feeling he had of memories of President Reagan firing the Traffic Controllers in the 1980s when they went on strike – and probably more importantly, losing a union job in the 80s that he associated with Reagan.

I’m not sure people understand or remember that it is illegal for government workers to strike and PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) did just that. If you take this link here, you can read a Q&A session including President Reagan’s opening remarks on the announcement. Basically, Reagan allowed the workers to return to work within 48 hours or face termination. Most lost their jobs, many returned – air travel continued.

You can read here what I think about unions. I’m not anti-union, I’m pro economic growth. You can also search on the Iowa Politics category to view other posts from me about the Fair Share bill unions are trying to cram down the Democrats and Republican throats in the state house this year.

It got so nasty one of the three democrats that did not fall into line with the unions, changed party affiliation after the session ended this spring.

From a purely business perspective, it’s horrible law. Few new businesses will re-locate in Iowa if this bill is made law, some have threatened to leave Iowa. Union leaders aren’t concerned about long term impact on workers families – look at the rust belt; jobs are gone. Unions were started for a good reason, and are responsible for some good things like the 40 hour work week and overtime. But I have a simple statement that you will read over and over in these posts – “you can’t be pro-worker and be anti-business”. Too many union leaders don’t balance the profitability of businesses when representing their unions in negotiations, and union leaders for government workers think there is an unlimited supply of money from your tax dollars.

Rudy understands there needs to be a balance. It’s interesting that the Union Leaders of the Fire Fighters don’t support Rudy, but a significant segment of the rank and file do support Rudy. It’s hard to be a union member and fight the tsunami of the labor organization against republican principles.

My notes (Republican vs Democrats) are already about to drop off the front page – so I will link to them here: Remember, I’m only speaking for myself here; but these threads are important to me.

Part 1 – Politicians and the Press
Part 2 – National Government
Part 3 – National Defense
Part 4 – Paradigm Shift

I have been struggling to write the next segment I have in mind – why social conservative (or liberal) values should not be part of political discussions or legislated at any level of US government. I may instead, summarize some philosophic biases in part 5 to continue to my thoughts toward that previously stated end.

Never having been to the Iowa Straw Poll, I did watch some of the speeches on CSPAN yesterday and noted the voting. Romney won with 31%. Mitt has run a well organized campaign in Iowa; I like him. I just don’t think he will be as strong of a national candidate as Rudy will be. Time will tell.

The Iowa Straw Poll is a fund-raiser for the RPI (Republican Party of Iowa) and gives its party faithful a chance to voice their personal opinion on who they think is the best candidate. Running for President takes an enormous amount of money, time, effort and organization (paid and volunteer).

Huckabee finished 2nd with 18% and Brownback with 14%. Those two are both very similar in policy and stance – with one subtle difference. In my opinion Sam Brownback spent quite a bit of time pandering to the religious right – his group was responsible for some anti-Mormon literature early in the campaign. Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas Governor, Baptist Minister, and born again nutritionist (he had bariatric surgery several years ago and lost 200 pounds) was more subtle – yet their messages were almost identical.  (If only one of them were running would that candidate have won? Yikes!)

The only things I took out of this Iowa Straw Poll, were these:

1) The Fair Tax element continues to be well organized (more on that later)

2) Rudy was right for not entering the “battle” (the investment of millions of dollars would not have reached his audience in the state, he was much later in organizing than others, and the money is better spent elsewhere). He has been in the state every other week for the last 6 weeks and will be at the State Fair next week.

3) The Social Conservatives continue to dominate RPI organizational structure – but it is yet to be seen how well that will translate into caucus voting in 2008.

Stay tuned!

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

I sent this letter to the editor today.

We more moderate Republicans have felt out of step with our party over the last 20 years.

Rudy Giuliani is trying to take the politics out of a heated argument and return it to the rule of law yet was derided in the press for his answer in the first Republican debate last week when he said:

“It would be OK to repeal. It would be also OK if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as precedent. I think a judge has to make that decision. I think the court has to make that decision and then the country can deal with it. States can make their own decisions.”

Democrats generally are pro-choice and have an abortion “litmus test”. Democrat submitted judges must pass their litmus test.

Conservative Republicans are pro-life and have an anti-abortion litmus test. Their candidates must pass their litmus test.

“Issue” litmus tests are deceptive and politicize what should be a non political issue. In my opinion Roe V Wade was bad law, but repealing it would be difficult in today’s political climate. Rudy talks a lot about Federalism and bringing decision making that divides us back to the states.

More critically, I see the media trying to create conflict because they see Rudy as the one Republican candidate that could win in 2008. If you do not believe there is a bias in favor of democrat candidates in the media consider this 2005 UCLA led study:

“As a result of 20 of the major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center.”

If anything, the bias has been stronger in the last two years. Media bias is filtering the news you hear, watch and read every minute of every day.

Republican fiscal principles are smaller government with fewer regulations, lower taxes, making government more accountable “to the people” and allowing us to choose how we live our lives. Republicans have been associated with “big business” or “big oil”, but those who complain about high gas prices need to look in the mirror. There are inherent problems in every institution and business, but they can’t “all” be regulated away.

Our Economy is based on supply and demand. It is business that runs for profit that makes America strong. Big government by its very nature cannot solve problems. Having a president appropriate “big oil” profits (as one Democrat candidate suggests) turns us into a socialist society. Even a democrat legislature in Illinois realized that last week when they unanimously voted down their Governor’s wild idea of taxing the gross receipts of the state’s biggest businesses. That proposal would have driven good jobs out of Illinois.

Rudy understands all this. One example of his actions in NYC was lowering hotel taxes 6%. The result almost doubled tax revenue just like the President’s tax cuts have increased tax revenue – although the press will not report that fact.

The 2008 election is important for many reasons, and Rudy is my choice for the job for many reasons other than those I’ve noted here.

We can pick and poke at weaknesses of all the candidates. What you hear from Rudy is the truth – what he believes, not driven by today or tomorrow’s poll numbers. He loves America and will do what he can to protect it from those who want to destroy it.

I encourage all Republican, Independents and Democrats to tune in to look at Rudy during the Debates on Tuesday night.

I’m looking for fellow Rudy supporters in Muscatine – email me at cjhawkeye01@yahoo.com

Cold Standard (where were the adults?)

I saw an old friend on the Acela on the way to Washington, and he told me of the glum, grim faces at the station he’d left, all the commuters with newspapers in their hands and under their arms. This was the day after Virginia Tech. We talked about what was different this time, in this tragedy. I told him I felt people were stricken because they weren’t stricken. When Columbine happened, it was weird and terrible, and now there have been some incidents since, and now it’s not weird anymore. And that is what’s so terrible. It’s the difference between “That doesn’t happen!” and “That happens.”

Actually I thought of Thoreau. He said he didn’t have to read newspapers because if you’re familiar with a principle you don’t have to be familiar with its numerous applications. If you know lightning hits trees, you don’t have to know every time a tree is struck by lightning.

In terms of school shootings, we are now familiar with the principle.

Dennis Miller the other night said something compassionate and sensible on TV. Invited to criticize some famous person’s stupid response to a past tragedy, he said he sort of applied a 48 hour grace period after a tragedy and didn’t hold anyone to the things they’d said. People get rattled and say things that are extreme.

But more than 48 hours have passed. So: some impressions.

There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don’t notice in the day-to-day but that become obvious after a story like this. Common sense says a person like Cho Seung-hui, who was obviously dangerous and unstable, should have been separated from the college population. Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won’t help.

And all those big cops, scores of them, hundreds, with the latest, heaviest, most sophisticated gear, all the weapons and helmets and safety vests and belts. It looked like the brute force of the state coming up against uncontrollable human will.

But it also looked muscle bound. And the schools themselves more and more look muscle bound, weighed down with laws and legal assumptions and strange prohibitions.

The school officials I saw, especially the head of the campus psychological services, seemed to me endearing losers. But endearing is too strong. I mean “not obviously and vividly offensive.” The school officials who gave all the highly competent, almost smooth and practiced news conferences seemed to me like white, bearded people who were educated in softness. Cho was “troubled”; he clearly had “issues”; it would have been good if someone had “reached out”; it’s too bad America doesn’t have better “support services.” They don’t use direct, clear words, because if they’re blunt, they’re implicated.

The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be “mentally ill” was due to the lack of a government “safety net.” In a news conference, he decried inadequate “funding for mental health services in the United States.” Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.

The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost — almost — comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush’s fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the “global warming challenge” and “today’s Supreme Court decision” upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.

One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups?

I wondered about the emptiness of the phrases used by the media and by political figures, and how pro forma and lifeless and cold they are. The formalized language of loss hasn’t kept up with the number of tragedies. “A nation mourns.” “Our prayers are with you.” The latter is both self-complimenting and of dubious believability. Did you really pray? Or is it just a phrase?

And this as opposed to the honest things normal people say: “Oh no.” “I am so sorry.” “I’m sad.” “It’s horrible.”

With all the therapy in our great therapized nation, with all our devotion to emotions and feelings, one senses we are becoming a colder culture, and a colder country. We purport to be compassionate — we must respect Mr. Cho’s privacy rights and personal autonomy — but of course it is cold not to have protected others from him. It is cold not to have protected him from himself.

The last testament Cho sent to NBC seemed more clear evidence of mental illness — posing with his pistols, big tough gangsta gonna take you out. What is it evidence of when NBC News, a great pillar of the mainstream media, runs the videos and pictures on the nightly news? Brian Williams introduced the Cho collection as “what can only be described as a multi-media manifesto.” But it can be described in other ways. “The self-serving meanderings of a crazy, self-indulgent narcissist” is one. But if you called it that, you couldn’t lead with it. You couldn’t rationalize the decision.

Such pictures are inspiring to the unstable. The minute you saw them, you probably thought what I did: We’ll be seeing more of that.

The most common-sensical thing I heard said came Thursday morning, in a hospital interview with a student who’d been shot and was recovering. Garrett Evans said of the man who’d shot him, “An evil spirit was going through that boy, I could feel it.” It was one of the few things I heard the past few days that sounded completely true. Whatever else Cho was, he was also a walking infestation of evil. Too bad nobody stopped him.

(Rudy Now!)

I have been asked by Democrats, Independents and Republicans why I am writing this blog and why I support Rudy Giuliani for President. Actually it’s pretty simple. I agree with Rudy on almost every philosophical point, but let me sort through them.

This is what I believe.

Prosecution of the Global War on Terror. Democrats and now the UK (did ya’ read that?) want to ban the use of that phrase; I think they are nuts. I believe they (most of the rest of the political world) are in some type of denial. I defined “they” as the “political world” because I don’t believe the majority of the people in the world believe in their political leaders. They live in fear and nuclear family insulation from the real world (isolation is almost impossible in today’s world).

If America loses its WILL to be a world leader; America will stop BEING a world leader. The fact that our Democrat leaders think our military is only the poor “children” from urban areas that have no other job prospects and are fighting against their will, is just plain nuts. Rudy Giuliani is a leader, and believes in a strong volunteer military. Rudy also understands America needs to be on offense.

Most of the world thinks this war will go away if we just wish it so.

Strong economy. Rudy understands lower taxes stimulates growth. He’s practiced what he preaches – ‘nuf said.

Limited role of government. Strictly speaking our founding fathers wanted the national government ONLY to provide for the “common good” related to national defense infrastructure (roads, etc) and some management of commerce between the states. A good logic model is the tragedy at Virginia Tech. “Gun Grabbers” think that removing all guns from citizens will eliminate the crazy things that happen like Columbine, the University of Iowa in 1991 and Virginia Tech this week. nonsense. There is sound evidence that our legal system failed us in the case of the latest tragedy. Several professionals sounded a loud call of concern about this student but they were ignored. Our legal system protects the intruder into our civil liberties more than our law enforcement can protect us from that intruder. You can link this issue to the Global War on Terror as well as 2nd amendment rights.

States Rights. I believe in States Rights. I believe the national government has taken too much power from the states. I believe keeping the presidential electoral system (which protects the voice of the smaller states) is critical for this republic. When this country was founded, there were large and small states, manufacturing and agricultural states. Each state deserves a level of independence in judging what is good “For the People, By the People”. The national government has become a burden on it’s citizens. Rudy believes in smaller government as well as fiscal responsibility and understands what works in one state may not work in another.

Right to Life. This has been a horribly divisive issue since the 1960s. At some level it’s tearing the country apart, and keeping focus off real priorities like health care. The vitriol has diminished the message. I believe abortion is wrong, but I don’t believe the government should legislate these types of personal issues. The people who use the phrase incendiary phrase “baby killer” associated with those who support limited government intrusion in personal affairs, miss the larger point.  Rudy believes creating a national referendum on Roe v Wade is not useful or practical legally.

This dialog does not belong in courtrooms or congress, or most especially the Supreme Court. A phrase I’ve used for years is “you can’t legislate morality”. I understand the hopes and prayers of those who believe they are fighting the good fight; but I also believe this fight has not served their cause well. What has this vitriol accomplished? I feel the same way about gay issues; it’s not my concern. But, committed couples deserve the same insurance protection, etc. as married couples. Rudy is about results and he cares about human life in all forms. Glass Houses…. stones…. think…

2nd Amendment Rights. Our Founding Fathers were smarter than us, of that I am sure. If you read any books on the writing of the founding documents that still guide us today, you will marvel at their foresight and prescience. The second amendment was written by a group of men who where used to handling guns and saw a time when a larger government may want to control its population militarily. These protection issues bothered our founding fathers. Now, I’m not as much for guns as I am against legislation to control people’s lives. The government’s message seems to be that they need to protect us from ourselves. nonsense. Rudy believes in strict gun control in New York City. Rudy has stated publicly that he would not be the “gun grabber” some people accuse him of being as President. He recognizes “what is right for New York City would not be right for Montana”. Rudy thinks this a states rights issue, has a track record of reducing crime and that is a good thing.

School vouchers, yes (Rudy too) “Parents should be able to pick the school their child attends”. (Rudy quote in DM on 4/14/07)

Health Care. Rudy spoke a lot about health care when he was in Des Moines last week. He thinks our system is the best in the world but has a lot of weaknesses, mostly caused by the government’s stifling (catching a consistent thread here?) good business practices. It is lunacy to look at the failing or failed systems in western Europe and Canada and want to emulate them. Haven’t we already proven to thinking people that socialism does not work? So why do we want to socialize medicine. That said, we do need a plan to provide more and better heath benefits for those who do not have insurance. One thing we know, the free market place works, let it work; stop tying it up with red tape.

Global Climate Change. read my blog. Where he agrees there is a climate change happening he does not buy into the hype.

Immigration. THIS is quite possibly our toughest issue after the GWoT and it can be connected to each issue above in some way. We’re going to have to be creative here. Rules of the 20th century will not work in the 21st. In this country of entitlements that stifle business growth and burden taxpayers, noncitizens should not get a free ride. Is it not fascinating to you that as much as people across the globe think America is an evil country – very few leave our country (even when they threaten to, as during the 2004 election – yes you Alec) and more people pour into this “evil” country today than we can handle? Evil, my fat Aunt Harriet.

Constructionist Judges. Rudy is a lawyer. He’s fought corruption in government and he’s fought organized crime and won. He says Alito and Roberts are exactly he type of judges he would nominate, not judges who will interpret (read – rewrite) the law of the land.

Rudy has had a history of working with both of those men. This is where the conservative right needs to keep their faith. Without good judges all is lost – and I don’t believe this statement is too strong. Democrats will elect judges that will legislate from the bench and that could be very scary.

So there you have it. Rudy’s my guy.

Now you might say, look at the baggage he’s bringing with him with the dysfunctional family and three marriages. I have two answers – 1) let’s see what a good campaign housecleaning turns up for all the candidate’s before we start isolating Rudy as unfit for the Presidency. 2) I want him as the leader of the free world; he’s not running for Pope.

And about his fitness because he was only a city mayor? New York City would be the 10th biggest state by population and the 11th biggest state when measured by economy (gross state product)… you’ll find that sourced in a Rudy post on this blog somewhere.

Democrats like to claim a mandate with the 2006 election results. I think that’s wrong. I think people voted against republicans not for democrats. I think Republicans did dumb things like perpetuate big government and they had their share of scandals, with Mark Foley and more. I blame media bias on a lot of this (compare treatments of Senators William Jefferson versus Tom Delay and Sandy Berger versus Scooter Libby for biased treatments) and you can find that also documented throughout this blog. I would like to see conservatives that continue to create litmus tests for candidates related to social issues take their energy outside national politics.

I liked the President’s “Faith Based Initiatives” early in his first term. I’m not sure why that lost steam other than the Democrats dogging a perceived problem with separation of church and state. I thought there were good controls in place to use Christian Fellowship and support without trying to convert people. I think stronger religious organizations reaching out in communities helping build a strong family base, accountability with a support system, would see better results than picketing an abortion clinic or creating divisions in the Republican Party. Morality isn’t Catholic, Jewish, Protestant or Muslim, etc. Again, look toward where results CAN be achieved apply energy there.

I believe in the politics of personal responsibility with understanding that we will all be accountable for our actions to a higher authority some day. We have a great opportunity and responsibility to nurture the next generation of Americans and to show we are not the evil people the rest of the world seems to believe we are. (oh yeah, not relying on foreign energy sources needs to be a national defense policy – high priority! but for now? Drill ANWAR damn it!)

I believe Rudy is the best man out there that I’ve seen to lead the way.

Will we be strong enough to leave the shining city on the hill to the next generation?

A quiet, and reflective night after a evening thunderstorm, brought me to find and post these videos. view preferably with high speed internet connection. I will copy these over to my RWR Tribute page later.

A Rendezvous with Destiny (30 minutes)