Pineapple Express

The name Pineapple Express conjours up warmth, tropics, beauty, good taste, like maybe a type of yogurt. What the phenomena actually means when it hits the Northwest is lots of rain and unusually warm temperatures. The storms, on a weather map, show a solid white streak from Hawaii right to our shores as one storm after another arrives to dump its load.

If there had been much snow in the mountains, which there wasn't, it would be melting. Down here in the valley, daytime highs are running close to 70. This year, as it has before, the express arrived after a prolonged dry spell.

The storms come with lots of wind which is right now blowing the last leaves off the oak trees. Oh yeah, and remember all that rain we were saying we needed earlier? It has come with the storms. Should we have been more specific in saying that we didn't want it all in one load? However, with this warmth, it will cause the grass in the pasture to grow which we could use.

So here are pictures of the creek over its banks and the farm denizens. Nothing is very pretty and could as well have been described by a few words-- mud, lots of mud, mud everywhere-- at least wherever there aren't puddles.

My assortment of felt hats are being put to use (I have a thing for that kind of hat). I let one drip itself dry while the next one gets pulled out. Also I had to dig deep in the utility room to find my Muck boots. Even with them, it can be interesting crossing the barnyard. Fortunately I don't have to do that today-- the sheep got kept in-- not that they were pleased.

The hat in this picture is my current favorite. Partly because when I knock apples out of the tree for this cow (she's in to be treated for an eye problem), if one hits my toughest hat, I barely notice it!

As you can tell from this photo, the cow expectantly waits right near the tree, until a good wind or I come out to knock her down some treats.

Freedom

Across the United States, in two days people will be voting (some, with vote-by-mail, like Oregon or absentee ballots, already have). We will mark our ballots with the belief that it makes a difference, that we owe it to those who have sacrified to make it possible for us to live in a country that has this right.

My month of only writing about politics, politicians and policies ends with this blog. To those, who support the Republican message and President Bush, I have probably seemed pretty hard on him and those who support him. I understand the desire to think the best of our country, of the leadership that governs it. I wish I could feel that way about this current administration, but what I have seen them do seems a threat to what I value most.

Where people who support Bush must see a good man, I have seen increasing corruption, intellectual laziness, a desire to take our freedoms to gain power at any cost.

Our nation is governed by majority vote, but that doesn't make the decisions of the majority to be correct ones. We know at one time a majority thought slavery was okay. In another era it was all right to have children working in factories. Yet another time justified abuse of Native Americans and a confiscation of their lands-- even those with signed treaties.

Majority doesn't guarantee anything in a mob or in a country. It does mean they won. Right now winning seems to be all some care about, but some of those caught up in a desire for victory can lost track of the price they are paying for that victory.

I ask for those of you who are gung ho on the Republican party, please look at what this president has done, is doing, and what the people who are behind him want. For a moment, forget your dislike of Clinton. Don't go just by what Bush says, look at his actions; and when you go to the polls, be sure you have really thought through where we are heading if we stay on this path.

It's worth all of us taking some time to consider how much is security worth? It's hard to believe this nation which was founded by pilgrims, emigrants and pioneers, who braved the unknown and faced hardships most of us can't even imagine, would be so fearful a few generations later that we wouldn't mind throwing away freedoms that others fought so hard to gain.

Hopefully when we vote, we all vote our conscience, not our pocketbook. I worry when we hear from those who justify torture in the name of personal safety. I don't understand those who are willing to throw away their right to a trial based totally on faith in the Bush people or their hope that Republicans are godly and will keep them safe.

I hope we all keep in mind the goals on which this country was founded. We haven't always lived up to them, but they are grand goals. This is such a beautiful land, with a proud dream behind it. We can have that but not without cost. It has never come without cost.

Devil's Tower, Wyoming was not chosen because I think Bush is the devil. It was because freedom and good things are not free. They require vigilance and courage to hold onto them because there is always someone willing to take them away. This huge chunk of rock seemed like a good reminder of the dream with which our nation began.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

from the Declaration of Independence. Some might even see those words as Revolutionary today!

Evil Democrats and Saintly Republicans?

When I wrote about John Kerry and his big mouth, I didn't go far enough with what I feel is going on right now regarding Iraq, the military and George Bush. I was trying to be nice, to be polite. That's the way of a Libra, but the farther it goes, the more I see happening, the more I am losing any desire to be nice or give anybody the benefit of the doubt where it comes to what has happened in Iraq.

If Bush is smiling today over Kerry's inability to talk straight, then he's a cruel man to go with his ineptness, or was it ever ineptness? What is really going on with Bush and what were his goals with Iraq? If he attacks Iran next, which with Republicans controlling Congress, he could possibly do (after all this is the guy who said having a dictatorship would be fine if he was the dictator), where will that leave our country in two more years? The bunch behind him are favoring military action there-- not paying for it with their own dollars though.

Bush is good at talking like he is on the side of the military; but this is a man who sent them to war not fully equipped, who under supplied their numbers (against the recommendation of generals), who substituted fast food in their commissaries for sufficient armor on their vehicles, who believes so much in this war but doesn't even count its cost into the budgets, who tried to stop increasing benefits for veterans, and evidently must be hoping for some miracle drop from heaven to cover the bills. They won't come due until he is out of office. Maybe that's all he and Rove care about.

He has hidden from the American people any real reason for attacking Iraq (Spare me saying it was to get rid of a dicator who killed innocent people. The war has killed at least as many and the ones supporting it don't care. They didn't care before either) , hidden the cost, tried to say that everyone dying there is for a purpose. Who knows what that purpose is. He says the Democrats don't have a plan for Iraq but he won't tell us what his plan is or rather hasn't told us.

Paul Krugman at New York Times had a great column for November 3 on what is happening in Iraq. I just wish it wasn't membership only as it is something Bush supporters especially should read. I know how the right sees Krugman, as the devil's advocate, but he has facts in this column that should be read and denied if someone doesn't think they apply.

Bechtel, the engineering company, is pulling out of Iraq after having gotten 2.3 billion dollars of taxpayer money for restoring electricity, water and sewage... Finished their mission and going home right? That's how the right would spin it. No, they failed on every level and lost a lot of their employees in the process of being there. Electricity in Baghdad is maybe 6 hours a day if the people are lucky, and the countryside not only doesn't have that but doesn't have clean water or sewage. The growing civil war in Iraq doesn't make doing the work possible or else the Bush people have decided that throwing 21 billion dollars into this with no results is enough for anybody.

For you on the right, who still support this man, take out a membership in NY Times and read Krugman (or I'd be happy to email this column to anyone who doesn't have the money for the NYTimes or sees it as a corrupt organization that only favors commies), however, you get it, figure out where he's wrong and write a comment here about that... but if he's right, then I would like you to face something.

This president has been a money-making machine for a certain group of people. Bush is good at strutting around like a war hero, which he never was, apparently great at lying with a sincere face and hiding any facts that don't suit his agenda. He has an ego as big as his pal, Rush Limbaugh's. After Limbaugh ridiculed Michael J. Fox, by mimicking his spastic movements due to Parkinson's Disease, Bush went on his show. Does that tell you who Bush is?

I am just plain furious that people like me, who not only support the troops but want to pay for them to be full equipped, who want them to receive full benefits and all the help they need once they get home, are being accused of not being good Americans because we consider GW Bush to be the worst president in our lifetime or maybe in this country's existence.

This is a man who sent troops to war and now produces a few tears of sympathy while he continues his personal power trip. A man who made his own jokes at the troops expense when he joked about not being able to find the weapons of mass destruction anywhere, not even in his own office. What was he thinking when he said-- bring 'em on? Why does he get a pass on such awful things but someone who isn't even running for office can convince a lot of people that Democrats hate the military? Go figure!

If you managed to read Krugman and still support Bush, try this from Olbermann.... Yeah, he's mad too. We on the left are mad at what has been done in this country's name, at the accusations that because we do not see Bush as a Messiah we are not only immoral but also un-American. And we're mad not just at the president but at those who continue to defend his wreaking of havoc around the world.

None of us can vote Bush out. Thanks to the Democrats choosing an inept choice two years ago (which was shown again this last week), Bush has two more years to continue on his path, which might even include attacking Iran for all we know given the secrecy and attitude of that administration that their opinions are all that count. I hope if it does, he recognizes a tax increase and draft are required. The idea that a war can be fought with no cost is a lie in itself.

We can't change what this president does for the next two years. Unless we vote in Democrats who can at least get heads of committees, we have no way to know if there has been graft or outright theft of taxpayer money sent to Iraq. Right now there is no outside oversight because the Bush administration and their minions in Congress don't want there to be.

We have been told this all has been to make a new democracy out of Iraq but who knows? Was it really only to make another fortune for certain already rich people. What I really don't know is how some people sleep at night.

(This was a rant and no pictures for rants! I am as sick of writing about politics as probably some of you are about reading about it. The election comes up soon. Thank God!)

Same Ol' Same Ol'

When John Kerry managed to botch a joke in such a way that it left open the interpretation that he was saying people end up fighting in Iraq because they didn't get good grades, rather than a president ends up sending people into a war because he wasn't willing to study the deeper issues, it led right into more of the same ol' same ol' that politics has become.

That joke was written down for him to say correctly with no chance anyone could have thought he meant the troops, and he couldn't manage it. It gave Republicans a chance to jump all over the issue and accuse every Democrat in the whole country of hating the troops. Botched jokes or jokes in bad taste are not unique to John Kerry. Bush has a ton of them back there but he's not running for president. Oh wait, neither was Kerry. So the point of this was exactly what?

Until I saw Jon Stewart's Daily Show the other night, I had no clue how bad political ads have been. He ran a montage of them for various candidates across the country. They had nothing to do with the issues these people stood for but were all about cheap shots and a hopeful soundbite that would possibly get a voter to ignore the issues and be carried away by emotion.

I thought of this when I was out in my field the other day and the sheep flock was grazing to the back of the pasture. I was out with my .22 more to let the coyotes know I'm around than with a real expectation that they would come in and give me a shot. The sheep glimpsed me and suddenly panicked. They ran for the cows (a smart technique actually), but the idea that they would scatter so fast at the sight of me was not smart. I have never hurt them, have done nothing but shake down apples from the trees, feed them hay and give them water but still they saw me and panicked.

What we have to do as voters is be sure we don't get caught up like sheep when we hear various things like the spin on what Kerry said. Kerry's joke was not intended to put down our soldiers. He has been a friend to the military in terms of voting for more benefits but he doesn't have a knack of saying things wisely-- which is a definite negative in a presidential aspirant. There is one plus. We probably don't have to worry about Kerry running in '08 after this.

The horrible thing about this is it meant Republicans didn't mind at all using our soldiers as tools if it got them votes. Bush's speeches, using this non-issue, were particularly self-serving and disgusting as they so often are when he's using someone or something to gain power for himself. When the Republican party decided to spin what Kerry said into an accusation against our troops, it was done not caring if it hurt their morale or not. The spin was to turn Bush being ignorant (which he was) about the consequences of going into Iraq, about the culture there, into an accusation that Democrats hate our troops-- which is patently ridiculous if you stop to think but if you are sheep, you don't stop to think.

What we need to be aware of is all the candidates, of either party, who run ads not about what they will do or believe, but cheap shots at their opponents. From the looks of it, when you hear an ad come on, you would be wise, to tune it out. Listen to your candidate's speeches, read the voter pamphlets on what that person says they will do-- not that politicians are noted for doing what they say. Like who would admit-- I am open to graft-- just make me an offer and I'll consider voting your way!

And on a national level-- if you like what Bush is doing, vote for Republicans. They will keep him "keeping on".

If you don't like what he's doing, you have to vote Democrat even if you have to hold your nose to do it. It is the only way to turn the House or maybe even the Senate in a new direction giving a chance for fresh thoughts.

The main thing is don't be caught up in spin. It is rarely about what really matters.

States' Rights

One of the issues that conservatives used to pat themselves on the back for was how they valued states' rights. Basically that meant a conservative would not favor rolling over a state with the federal government's power. Supposedly liberals were not so good about this, and they were the bad guys for taking away individual freedoms.

Before we go farther, it is important to recognize that the Constitution has superimposed its will onto the states since the time of the Civil War, which some in the South still call the War of Northern Aggression.

The Civil War determined states had to bend to federal opinion where it related to the Constitution. This is why issues like Civil Rights for blacks became a federal issue. It didn't matter if a state decided it was okay to divide up people by where they could sit in a theater, go to school, or drink from a water fountain. The federal government said they could not based on the Constitution.

Since it was written, the Constitution has received a lot of tweaking through amendments or just reinterpretation of things such as privacy. Does the right to privacy exist in the Constitution or was that invented to figure out a reason for the federal government to forbid bans on abortion? Scholars disagree on this issue, but today what the right to privacy means is constantly being reinterpreted.

Are we a nation of individuals who enjoy the fact that we are different or should we all be made to be the same by the federal mandates of whoever happens to be in power at the time.

Oregon and several other states have seen the federals try to bring their power to bear and only the changing balance of the Supreme Court can stop or allow these movements. If Bush maintains absolute power to appoint who he chooses to please the far Right, it's clear the Supremes will look with favor on corporate rights but not so favorably on individual people's moral choices.

In Oregon's case, the voters twice agreed that someone who was dying (6 months or less to live) and of sound mind (attested to by two doctors) had the right to get a lethal prescription to end their life on their own timetable. That was always there if you had a gun, but many felt that was more brutal to the family and the ill person. The Christian right objected to the idea that anybody could take their own life. Wonder if they would have said those who jumped from the World Trade Center, rather than burn to death, committed suicide? It is the same thing, you know.

So, as with marijuana laws to permit sick people to use it medicinally with a prescription, the federal government under Bush has been using its power against that of the states to block them from what the local voters would decide was appropriate.

These are issues for people to consider when they look at the two parties, when they consider who will be appointing judges. Both parties would use federal power to block individuals from performing acts that hurt nobody else, but it's just which ones.

I might not have even written on this particular issue but I had to find a place to use these photos-- first one is Marion and Buck's Bait Shop taken in Georgia 8 or 9 years ago and second of a husband and wife store in Idaho where I bought an Amish quilt from the left side where it was all frills and crafts while on the right side was survivalist and hunting gear.

I love American individuality. To me, these kind of businesses represents the independent nature of Americans throughout the country-- an independence that both parties claim they value and people in both parties squash whenever that independent nature goes against their own idea of what is correct.

States Rights as well as keeping the federal government with its nose where it belongs is a good reason to consider an independent, third party with a fresh look at ideas. You never know, maybe someday people will get mad enough and really mean it when they say they aren't going to take it anymore. Maybe.

By the way, I am the only member of my family who actually liked boiled peanuts. While they aren't on any list of my favorite foods, I thought they were not bad. That is evidently highly unusual for someone who was not born in the South. Actually, from what I hear not real common in those born there.

Who needs Taxes

Over and over we keep hearing that the Reagan administration lowered taxes and miraculously, rather like Jesus with the fish and loaves, the actual revenue increased. So when little Bush cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, everyone waited for manna to fall from heaven.

The Bush-lites didn't let the fact that they had entered into an expensive war change their plans. They didn't let the rising deficit change their plans. They still had the temporary fix of the miracle credit card to play; and they could increasingly send off pork to quell any unease in their people while they waited for the multiplying. They have currently worked the debt to such a level that their children's children won't pay it off while they wait.

What about that miracle Reagan plan? In reality while he did decrease the rate on the highest income earners, he also cut a lot of what had been tax deductions-- things like deducting the interest you paid on consumer loans. That used to be something the average citizen could deduct come tax time. I knew about that well because suddenly my family lost it and it hurt. We had a lot of consumer debt in those days.

Then after Reagan's tax cut, along came big Bush's time as president. Big Bush faced reality. He was a man who had done that a lot given he was in a war and actually did fight. He was a man who had earned his way up the rung politically, run a lot of bureaus and understood budgets. He knew that what Reagan had promised was, as he had earlier called it, voodoo economics; and so he bit the bullet and raised taxes to straighten the mess out. He paid the ultimate price: Tell the American people the truth and you are out of office.

Now here we are years later, many tax cuts later, while there is talk of more tax cuts, and a growing budget deficit which nobody currently working in the administration has any interest in cutting. After all there is pork to satisfy. There is a war to fight without causing the American people to feel the pinch from it.

So the magic credit card keeps being extended. The idea of actually paying for what you are doing is used as a threat to most frighten Americans about those yucky Democrats who might call an end to the party. Besides that, Democrats are wimps who won't fight for their rights or anybody else's. Meanie, high spending Democrats have no guts for going to war, like Republicans have, they will raise your taxes (does wimpy Democrat and toughie, increase-tax Democrat seem to go together in your head?).

The Republicans have their arguments down pat. Why should anyone have to pay taxes goes the argument? You can manage your money better than we can is a favorite phrase to get people to not think that maybe that war, their freeways, their police and fire departments, border protection, their military, the care for the truly indigent and disabled, the elderly, not to mention just paying the interest on that rising debt... all of those things might just cost money.

Well who should worry. Just vote out anyone who suggests you can't have it all and remember the magic credit card!

I was thinking for this subject that a picture of a moose was most suitable. It is a reminder that without tax revenue, there would be no Yellowstone National Park where we could all see and photograph animals such as this moose. It also represents the third party that Theodore Roosevelt once tried to start. I don't actually think anybody in the current government-- on either side-- truly is ready to bite any bullets and tell the American people the truth about paying the piper. Maybe it's time to get a real third party and revive that old Bull Moose Party, ya think?

Stem Cell Controversy

Politics and morality. To use those two words together could be considered an oxymoron, but the subject here is not whether politics are moral. They aren't. Politics is a technique of governance that in itself is not moral or immoral but can be either. This subject is about the role religions and individual concepts of morality are playing in the current political debate over stem cell research.

As an aside, I understand science has learned stem cells may be harvested from adult humans and some believe prove to be as valuable as those from an embryo (some also disagree with this). But for now the most effective way to do such research is with unused embryos which would otherwise be destroyed.

Into this simmering cauldron, Michael J. Fox, the actor, dove headfirst when he allowed his Parkinson's Disease symptoms to be fully shown in a video for a political ad urging voters to choose a senator who favors stem cell research. To me, his doing so was humble and brave especially in a culture such as ours where it's considered virtuous to hide differences so as not to make someone else uncomfortable.

To the members of the far right, Fox's appearance amounted to a challenge-- especially right before an election. At first it appeared to just be Rush Limbaugh putting his big foot in his equally big mouth. Limbaugh (ego on loan from who knows where) began by saying he thought Fox was faking his symptoms. When he was informed Fox had been seen other places in an equal state, and for him to film scenes for his show, it takes a lot of time and patience waiting for when he can get control of the spasms, Rush decided this was all the fault of the wicked Democrats who used Fox.

So to those of LImbaugh's mindset, Michael J. Fox not only has a physical disability but must also not have the intellectual capacity to decide this for himself. Hannity on his talk radio program joined the chorus, bringing in guests to validate the accusations against Fox and the Democrats for daring to make visible a severe disability. Fox's appearance gave a reality to a disease that some might have considered abstractly until then.

This bunch on the far right don't care about what they are doing to others. They have a spin agenda, and they follow it without mercy. Mercy is for church and pious talk.

First, I have some preset opinions on this topic. Nobody in this country is advocating creating embryos for research. The debate is over using those which are already created and frozen. They are ones that will never be used to impregnate a woman. If not used for research, they will either be destroyed or frozen forever. There could be as many as 400,000 of them.

Nobody forces those parents to donate the embryos for research; and, yes, they will be destroyed when the stem cells are harvested. If someone really doesn't like the idea of embryos being killed, if they see this as being murder, maybe they need to be working to stop such techniques that help childless couples get pregnant.

There is no talk of that; instead, it's about the embryo having a soul. For the purposes of this debate, what if life did begin at conception? What then would be the superior moral choice-- that the souls be kept on ice forever? Frozen is better than freed to go back to heaven-- if you think that way?

This summer, the spinmeisters used emotion to create a hundred baby photo-op for Bush as he signed his veto of stem cell research. The pretence was that those few could be all 400,000 frozen embryos. Not only do not all potential parents want someone else raising their genetic child, but some of those embryos are too old to be successfully implanted now. The fact it might help someone else live, who has already been born, is nothing to the kind of people where winning is everything.

I did some research on this topic. I already knew the spin from the right regarding it's being murder. I found this from a site which attempts to explain the debate from both sides:

"The human body contains 220 different types of cells. In 1998, researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore MD found a way of harvesting stem cells from embryos and maintaining their growth in the lab. Stem cells are a type of primitive cell. Scientists have found ways of developing these stem cells into most types of human cells, such as blood, brain, heart tissue, nerve cells, bones, etc. Researchers are confident that they will lead to treatments to many diseases: bone loss, broken bones, brain damage due to oxygen starvation, severe burns, cancer (some forms), diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease, heart disease, hepatitis, incomplete bladder control, Huntington's, leukemia, lupus, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, and stroke! The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research estimates stem cell research shows promise to develop cures and/or new treatments for 100 million Americans who currently suffer from a wide variety of diseases and disorders."

from http://www.religioustolerance.org/res_stem1.htm

I would like to ask a question-- if you watched the video Michael Fox made for Claire McCaskill in Missouri, and you saw in it what Hannity and Limbaugh did, I would like you to explain where your head and heart are? It's beyond me to understand.

I believe this argument is not over using embryos that will be destroyed anyway or frozen for eternity but rather about religious hypocrisy, and I am not sure why any Republican anywhere is not throwing up over it. (Please spare me a litany of the dumb things Democrats do. I won't defend them but this issue is about stem cell research and the Michael Fox ad.) If you haven't seen it, please click on that link. It might open your eyes if you follow it up with the pomposity of Hannity and Limbaugh. What a team those two make!

I do understand in the future the stem cells may be with adult humans, but it won't solve the problem of what you do with embryos that are already created. Is being permanently frozen anyone's idea of mercy?

If you believe in things like stem cell research, consider your vote carefully this November. The next Supreme Court Justice could well be chosen in the next two years; and if so, the vote you make in November could impact many such 'moral' choices which come not from science or even logic but some kind of religious piety that doesn't value life already here as much as that which 'might' be.

The Grand Tetons in Wyoming might seem like an odd photograph to choose to illustrate this subject, but when I think about the issue of stem cell research, I think of those who are suffering with crippling diseases, like Michael J. Fox. I believe we all want so much for there to be cures that allow these people to lead a good life. So this picture is for inspiration, for beauty and for hope. The emphasis should not be the ugliness of the political debate but instead the hope for a brighter future for those who right now do not know hope.

Is the sky falling?

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles."
John Adams in letter to Thomas Jefferson 1816

The question of whether there is a natural law would be considered heresy to some. There are those who see God as one who tosses aside such rules on what amounts to whims. Pat Robertson prays to reverse a hurricane's path and it does. Others think a hurricane hit New Orleans because of abortion or homosexuality. If someone reasons that way, can you have a real debate about global warming?

If you look at climate from a geologic or prehistoric view, and assume there are laws of nature, the given is: Change will come. Plants that lived somewhere our whole lifetime have no guarantee they will continue. It's humans who want to think we can alter or stop change. Actually, we can; but in small ways that impact local areas. We can cut down all the forest in a region that doesn't readily grow new, and voila create a desert. We know we can to some degree alter air or water quality.

When you start discussing global warming, those who don't want any change in regulations or the government even being involved, begin with-- hey don't worry, the earth will always be here. So true, but that's not why we worry. We worry that we won't, or that a lot less of us will be able to sustain life.

The question should be a non-political one (of course, it isn't). Scientifically, are we heading into global warming on an epic scale or just a cycle that will soon reverse?

To put it more simply-- Is this Henny-penny screaming the sky is falling? Or is it "The Grasshopper and the Ant"? Are some preaching panic when there is no reason or are we humans taking our pleasures and not preparing for what is to come?

If we are facing massive climate change, was what humans have done a factor in it? Or is it just what happens? Can we change the situation if we try? Well we won't know that as we aren't trying. But are we at least preparing?

Many scientists, who do believe in global warming say that the one for sure thing is that the oceans will rise. The question being debated is how much? Seacoast towns better be thinking about this-- not that most could do much about it. Big cities like New York could right now be figuring where to build dikes as they have in the Netherlands. Except in the United States, dike-making appears to be less than state of the art.

The fisheries are changing but is that over-fishing or warming? Off the coast of Oregon there are fewer fish as the 'dead zones' expand. Salmon and steelhead aren't coming back up the streams in the numbers they once did. The ocean water is warmer (I can personally testify to this given I can wade in it and not numb my feet).

The seasons have been warmer than usual where I live in the Pacific Northwest. When I was a girl the summers were like this last one, but the winters were much colder, and my father remembered the Columbia River freezing over solid enough to drive cars on it. That certainly hasn't happened in my lifetime. Does that prove anything? Seasonal swings have been part of life on earth all along, and our entire recorded history is a short one.

One thing to make clear-- "global warming" is about climactic change. There would be places that would be warmer, but others could have an ice age descend on them.

If there is an approaching climactic catastrophe, would our government or anybody else's tell ordinary citizens about it? Not likely given they try to hide anything they think might cause panic. Are they studying it? Maybe. Are there any relocation plans in place in case they are required? Silly question given the experience of Katrina where everybody knew something like it was definitely coming, and this one is just a 'maybe.'

Personally, and maybe surprisingly to some, I don't believe Bush did wrong to refuse to sign Kyoto. Not because such an idea was a bad one; but was that treaty intended to limit emissions around the world? It was aimed at the developed nations and didn't deal with places like India and China, who are pouring out pollution. If there had been serious United Nations concern about greenhouse gases being behind the global warming, the standards would have to be worldwide.

To add to it, if the United Nations was taking climate change and the health of the earth seriously, shouldn't there be some kind of concerted effort to help Brazil stop razing the Amazon which has been a major part of oxygen balance for the world. That would require the rest of the world cooperating by sending money to help Brazil find new industries enabling them to give up their own money-maker. That has not happened and the cutting down of the Amazon continues unabated.

So what can we do? Maybe nothing. I think we should demand our government seriously study and have plans in the works on how to protect our major coastal cities. Regardless of whether emissions are factors in global warming, limiting them definitely relates to healthier air quality.

I'd like to think governments around the world were considering how they would handle a need to shift populations. In our country, Bush and Republicans aren't going to do any of that. Bush goes back and forth whether he even thinks it's a problem. Part of his constituency is convinced Christ will come again first. Republicans generally fight any increase in air quality standards on industry based on its cost. Like cockpit doors were too expensive to make solid up until 9/11 showed what expensive was.

These pictures are from a month I spent in Massachusetts. They represent the two sides of this coin. The first one is of Rockport, the second the shoreline on Cape Ann.

Rockport represents the bigger picture. Fisheries receive some of the first alerts on ocean changes. They will also be the communities submerged if the seas rise.

In the picture of Cape Ann, that air you see is not fog but smog. Until that month, I had no idea that the East Coast suffered so much pollution in the summer, but the people there said it came up from inland states like Ohio. The air was heavy with it the entire time I was there. Although I will say that kind of sky made for some interesting photographs, I doubt it was particularly healthy to breathe.

Environment regs to rags

When I used to listen to right wing talk radio, before I decided I'd lose my mind if I kept checking such radically different ways of thinking, their mantra tended to be that nobody would deliberately pollute the earth, and there was no need for environmental regulations because who wants to foul their own nest (not those exact words but close enough).

Are those who say such things serious? Do they truly not realize that by necessity, as well as sometimes greed, the dollar rules business? Or do they hope their listeners will not know? Have they never seen the desolate areas around mining towns, never heard how many cases of cancer there are among the children in some of the places where the environment was only seen in terms of dollar signs?

Fear of lawsuits slows some down from deliberately sickening their workers; but if the fines or lawsuit penalties aren't high enough, it won't do the job. Think back to when Chevrolet knew they had a gasoline tank placed where it could burn up the vehicle in an accident. They made the economic decision that a few small lawsuits were better than paying re-engineering costs. That lasted until a family was horribly burned and the lawsuit's verdict high enough to convince them otherwise.

Businesses are not in the business of being benevolent. They are in the business of making money and must compete with other countries around the world who have no environmental regulations. Most will add environmental protections into their costs only if government mandates it. You know which party would mandate that and which will not; so you can decide which you personally want. Remember though, what we mistakenly protect today can be changed tomorrow but not the other way around.

Yes, there are some people who are benevolent by nature and would not deliberately run a mine with faulty safety just to make money, but the reason government began to regulate such is that those kind weren't in the majority. Without an overseer, many companies would pour asbestos into the environment and figure a few sick children was not a big deal.

Since the Republican right came into power... okay there are two Republican rights. One is the financial side and the other the religious. The religious would not work to cut back environmental regulations. They are too busy limiting sex on cable televisions, protesting Janet Jackson's breast, stopping a woman from getting an abortion, blocking stem cell research, and preventing a gay couple, who have lived together 10 years and have kids, from being able to have a legal marriage. They have a lot on their plate and adding to it environment is just one too many issues.

It's up to the economic right wing of the Republican party to fight to remove environmental regulations. Bush ran for office with the determination to do what he has done in terms of cutting regulations and making it easier for business to avoid costly lawsuits even when they did something damaging. The people on the far right see environmentalists as wackos.

Unfortunately they have not been totally wrong. Who can deny some dumb things have been done supposedly to save the environment?

Does it really matter if a three-toed squirrel, with a black spot on his tail, finds his pasture plowed up given there are lots of four-toed squirrels, with white spots, in the next valley? Environmentalists have used the canary in the mine example way too many times and have they forgotten they supposedly believe in evolution? What did they think that meant?

So the Bush administration took a few goofy decisions by environmentalists as an excuse to bash one regulation after another-- whether there is solid science behind them or not. After all science is part of the evil trio anyway (lawyers, scientists and teachers). Science has too many facts involved in it, takes too much time to study to see if it is factual, and gets in the way of effectively using emotion.

So regulations are bad. Clean air now can be reinterpreted to mean dirtier air. Every time the Bushites say something, you have to look to see what was really going on. This year he even had western state governors (some in red states) down on him for wanting to open up logging areas that had been closed due to lack of profitability for the government and because it was no longer legal for raw logs to be exported overseas for processing from forest service lands.

If it costs more to build roads into a logging cut than the logs produce in profit, should the government be doing this? Was selling off the national parks to concessionaires a good plan for long lasting stewardship of those lands? It goes on and on.

There are many links on all of this but they are either from the right spinning how good the Bush administration is as a custodian of nature and how many dumb things the environmenalists have done. Or you find the environmentalist links who list one travesty after another that his administration has done to damage our air, what we eat, and our natural world. So if you are interested in checking for yourself, you will have a lot to dig through and I don't think on this subject anyone is really neutral. We live on this earth and the consequences can be dire for the ones who are wrong on what it takes to keep us living here.

These photos are all of Opal Creek in Oregon which is an environmentalist success story. Today it is a pristine, old growth forest. The stream is clear, cold and emerald green due to the minerals in the area. A trail skirts alongside it enabling the hiker to get down to the water as well as enjoy the views.

Opal Creek was at one time a mining camp. The buildings remain from that as well as much of the equipment with a few people living up there year round. Logging interests wanted to log the whole area. What could that hurt? After all, trees grow back and what real difference does an old one make to the world? The issue to them was dollars, not beauty. They'd most likely have left a few trees along the creek.

Fortunately there were a group of people who valued Opal Creek for its soul restoring properties and its beauty, not just its oxygen generation-- although that's not bad either and fought to preserve it from the logging interests. They raised funds, they brought it to the public's attention, and eventually they got through a bill to protect it.

Now this was before Bush's time, but what we are really talking here is a political movement-- two of them. One is where only money matters. The other is that some things are worth more than money. In this case, the second group won; and Opal Creek will remain what it has always been, a beautiful place to go and recenter your soul.

There was a great statement on the subject of money in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp. Charlie had won a ticket to meet Willie Wonka but the boy knows his family is poverty stricken. He feels he should sell it. His old grandfather, who has nothing to gain from the boy going on the tour and who would profit from more money in the house, says (paraphrased)-- Charlie, money is always around. You can always get more of it, but a tour through that factory, it's a once in a lifetime experience. That is what is rare.

I wish more people in that economic right part of the Republican party could see places like Opal Creek and realize some things are worth more than money. Dollars come and go, but Opal Creek remains as a soul restoring place. If you get to Oregon, check it out for yourself.

Next blog will be on the subject of global warming.

Spinning the Message

Dictionary definition of spinmeister - a public relations person who tries to forestall negative publicity by publicizing a favorable interpretation of the words or actions of a company, political party, or famous person.

Spin happens all the time about everything you hear, but I think many Americans aren't aware of all the places they are receiving bombardment. For instance, you receive Republican emails that are forwards. They are jokes making fun of Democrats (or some other group who is not 'you') for being wimps, cowards or maybe even traitors. The word traitor is thrown around a lot by the right when anyone finds fault with the current elected head of our nation.

(Insert: Bush is not our king, he is not the nation. Yes, he has taken on and been handed king-like powers that eliminate habeas corpus for those he alone deems to be traitors, but he is still an elected official who will be out of office finally in two years. Hey Republicans, when you relish how Bush has amassed power, how he can run roughshod over the rights of others when he deems it necessary in the name of security, consider this-- Hillary likes the idea of that kind of power. Are you that sure she won't be elected president or someone you equally dislike?)

Okay, I got diverted but anyway on the spin emails, the jokes are intended to be humorous. Don't take it so serious. Except they apply to issues that are not funny. These emails are spun out so quickly after the Bush administration makes some kind of statement that you have to think it's all part of their public relations department.

Along with these will be essays that validate the administration position by someone who often (if you do some research) said no such thing. Lies are apparently okay in the fight for... hmmmm... What is the fight about these days? Certainly not freedom from fear given that is the stock and trade of Republicans. Be afraid very afraid and only we can keep you safe.

If you get one of these emails, just remember if you pass it on, you have become part of the spin machine, and you have no idea who that spinmeister really is. Power often is not in the hands of those out front.

When John Kerry was running for president, we were bombarded by emails about Jane Fonda being a traitor. What?! She was in Iraq sitting on a big gun? No, this was all about what she did years ago, something she has long admitted was not done right, but happened during a divisive time in our culture. You might wonder what the connection could be to the issues facing the United States today; but to the right, the very name Fonda works as a spin; and although she had no connection to John Kerry's run for the presidency, the spin implied there was. Who knows he might have appointed her Secretary of State... Hatred for her was spun up as a way to gain and maintain power. Truth wasn't part of it. Spin knows no morality. It's a technique of politics.

Now, more than any time I have known, people can assure themselves they are right and hear only information that fits their political viewpoint. If you want to believe Iraq is going well, that any negative numbers are just put out by the Democrats, for that matter that any attacks right now are intended only to increase the Democrats chance to win because everybody knows terrorists and Democrats are in bed together, then listen to Fox and Rush Limbaugh. Both will tell you exactly what the Bush administration wants said.

Lately, it seems whenever I hear people from the right appearing on talk programs, their words are all about spin. I listened to an editor from Wall Street Journal (which has become a very political paper if it wasn't all along) and couldn't believe the spin that came out with every issue. If it didn't fit his machine dictates, he would switch the topic to something that did. In other words, don't answer the question, simply change what it was.

Real issues are not easily spun; so spinning machines are all about distraction and keeping away from real issues. Right now Bush and his spinmeisters are frantically throwing out fear talk and cowardice accusations. I know, Bush didn't use the word coward. He said the Democrats will cut and run because they don't favor staying the course anywhere. What kind of people cut and run in life? Everybody knew what he was really saying. Democrats, like me, must be cowards because we disagree with what he has and is doing.

Bush is looking for the sound bite that will hit the evening news and resonate with his base to keep them thinking how superior, brave and tough they are, and how weak anybody is who disagrees. If his spin works, people vote Republican in November as a patriotic and brave way of not only fighting back at terrorists but supporting our troops.

Never mind that the battle in Iraq did not start out about the terrorists and never mind that this is the same bunch that sent men and women to war not fully equipped, who are using a back door draft with the National Guard because they cannot admit how many real troops would be required for winning in Iraq. Never mind facts because spin isn't based around facts.

How can we be aware of spin when we hear it? Well if all the Bush people suddenly are using the same phrase, that is a tipoff.

Sometimes spin is hard to recognize. The Bush administration has sent (not sure if they did after the information became public) to small television stations prepackaged videos for their evening news as though it was news and factual which it could be but it also could be suds with no substance. Their only concern was that it suited their agenda. If you missed reading about this when it became known, an article worth reading on the topic-- White House news forgeries widespread. There are more out there for those interested in doing a search. The stations might know this is propaganda, but do the viewers?

Spinning didn't work so well with Hurricane Katrina because as the spin machine was telling us how much the Bush-lites were on top of all of this, we saw images of him looking befuddled (happens anytime he's not prepackaged), saying great job to the FEMA director, which would have meant Bush was also doing a great job.

Except there were those photos of the disaster, of people waiting for help that wasn't coming. If the Bush people had their way, they'd block such actual footage from happening again. Their spin will keep people happy and who needs to know the truth. That works best when it's from a foreign country; but given how the word traiter is being stretched, it might be someday here too.

This link is an article on how the Bush administration blatantly hired thinkers like Armstrong Williams to spin their take on the No Child Left Behind. Not just him but many such are seduced or paid to spread the doctrine that suits the administration.

When you hear a person like Rush Limbaugh completely defend whatever Bush does, do you ever wonder if he thinks for himself or waits for his talking points on any breaking news? If you don't consider this possibility, you are not being aware of spin. Rush never has guests.. that is except Dennis Hastert right after the Foley scandal or Dick Cheney whenever he needs to get out his side of an issue. What does that tell you about Limbaugh's program?

One of the things that might be making this country seem so divided is the difference in where we get our information. For instance, if you want to only hear Bush is doing well as president, that Iraq is successful and a new light is dawning in the Middle East (no it's not dependable electricity yet), that if there was any responsibility for what went wrong on 9/11, it's Clinton's, that you can have benefits with tax cuts and a war, that deficits don't matter, just stick to watching Fox News and certain talk radio spin machines, and you can feel content with how it's going and mad at the other side for lying about the 'truth.' More than any other time, we can control our personal news sources to a comfort zone for what we want to believe.

Although most reporters and journalists are said to be Democrats, most stations are owned by Republicans. I can't say for sure where Rupert Murdoch fits. He owns Fox entertainment which sells sex and salacious programming; then turns around and condemns it on his Fox News. Is that what you call covering all bases, drumming up business, or schizophrenic? I am still trying to decide..

When you get one of these emails intended to panic you into believing say the ACLU wants to remove crosses from military cemeteries, please do a search online for more information and check them out with Snopes who will give you facts you can consider along with that email.

Yes, I only hit on the Republicans because it's how I see it right now. I think this time is worse and more blatant than any I have known for how information is twisted, but if you want to write one on the left sending out the same emails, comment freely. Of course. I won't believe you because I know MSNBC and Keith Olbermann wouldn't lie to me!

The Tucson desert picture was chosen because it's a cactus wren nest in a cholla-- a neat contradiction between the softness and nurturing of a mother and babies with the nasty threat of the spines. This bird has built her nest in the safest place she knows. The nest is secure for her young to grow, but she can't stay there. She has to go out to find food for those babies.

What it says to me is, even in a confusing and frustrating time such as this, we can build our own secure nest; but we can't totally stay there. We have to be aware and look through all information with discrimination. Not everything out there is true or nourishing.

Education from the Inside

Before I posted my last blog, I asked a friend of mine, who teaches in the public school system in a big city, to read what I had written and give me her opinion. She is on the front lines of actually trying to educate our future generations; and being a substitute teacher, she sees a variety of schools. What she wrote seemed valuable to share, and she agreed to let me post it as a blog. It's anonymous, which is good as I think it could as well be written by teachers anywhere across this country.

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You make some valid points. The most poignant to me, being the schools left to 'raise' children these days. In the effort to give our children a 'better' life than we had in generations before, we have done a disservice to the new generations of children and now young adults. We have raised a few generations now of young people that have never been taught to accept responsiblility for their behavior.

They have never been allowed to lose, all kids get trophies.. all kids get to play equal time on teams, even if they have NO or little talent. They were promoted on in school to save their self esteem, only to be lost now with no real education because they were not held back when they needed the time to mature and really master skills at the beginning of their school career.

If you really want NO child left behind, then abolish the practice of 'moving them through the grades' when they have not mastered grade abilities! It is no wonder we have so many people depressed and on anti-depressants these days; they never learned to cope with failure or defeat growing up. They never were allowed to feel bad and learn to work through those bad times and feelings. But bad times and feelings ARE part of being human.. It is no wonder to me, that we have shootings in the schools, that children snap, they have never learned coping skills needed in life.

Yes, more and more people want out of the public school system for private schools.. where there ARE strict expectations/rules/ values/uniforms and where you toe the line or you are OUT. We need more structure like THAT in our public schools.

School is as you say, a child's 'job' not a place to be entertained! We need to teach our children they are AMERICANS,....not Hispanic or Islamic or Asian Americans... but Americans, to take a page from Theodore Roosevelt. He warned that our strength is in the diverse peoples that become a AMERICANS. We need to quit putting 'political' agendas from the far right or the far left in our schools.


Children 'know' less, and yet the educational system asks more and more from it's educators. Educators have little time to actually transmit educational material. Teachers are too busy disciplining, or trying to, with little or no cooperation from the parents in most cases. Parents are in denial that their children are in anyway at fault or they themselves for that matter.

Most parents cannot control their own children at home, yet expect to send them to school, and have ONE adult, take on a room of 22 to 30 children of the same age, and that adult, that teacher, is supposed to control all of them at once. This is to be done, all without damaging anyone's self esteem, showing nurturing interest and kindness to each 'individual' student.

Educators are then expected to teach ALL the diverse cultures to these students, teach them to respect others things and personal space, that it is wrong to damage school property, and to cheat, and find ways to reach the growing numbers of Spanish speaking students, so they are NOT left behind. Finally we may find a little time to actually teach the curriculum.

When I went to school, we were held responsible for our work.. our behavior our dress our actions to others. If we slipped on any... we took a bad grade, and for what discipline we got in school...(and I was Never in a school that used corporal punishment) it was 100 times worse when we got home. We learned what we did or failed to do mattered, that there was a price to pay, just as there is in life!


This country is doomed if we don't save and strengthen our public school system. Jefferson's words are words of truth..no democracy can stand, with an unedcuated electorate. I can see the edges decaying already. Public schools used to help us 'define' ourselves, our values as Americans, now it is so watered down and diluted with pleasing every special interest and culture group, we are losing our IDENTITY as Americans.

Educational wisdom from Jefferson

In scanning and trying to get some organization to a stack of my photographs, I came across the one above. Some years ago, I had photographed it in a small, historic museum in Kaycee Wyoming, (real cowboy country, hometown of Chris LeDoux, not far from where the Wild Bunch had their Hole in the Wall hideout). At the time, I was taken with the words. I still am today.

If you find it difficult to read, click on it to enlarge it. If it's still not clear or you don't get images, it says: "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education." Thomas Jefferson.

For those today who are convinced public schools are no longer important, who don't trust the people, and yet want to take from them the educational system that has helped make this country what it has been, for those who don't think education was something our government originally saw as important, please reread the above.

In the elections about to be held there is one party in this country who believes in less taxes and favors vouchers that would benefit private religious schools at the expense of the public system. These people generally call themselves Republicans.

If you are one who values the public school system, who wants it made stronger, not weaker, you need to carefully look at which party will get you where Thomas Jefferson said we need to go.

I don't disagree that some liberals have made a mockery of the public education system by trying to mandate their moral agenda and filling the hours up with that instead of the teaching of basics-- some conservatives would do the same thing today-- different agenda, of course.

Some months back, I read Mary Lou's blog (linked to the side as Life after Nexcom) with a test showing what an eighth grade education used to mean when my parents would have been children. It was mind boggling. In the first eight years, students used to be taught what they are lucky now to get as freshmen in college.Why is this happening? Is it the fault of the public schools or is it our culture, the expectations of our children to be constantly entertained, and the need for teachers to play nursemaids?

Back when I was in school (the dark ages), teachers taught morality by example and classroom expectations. Class time was for reading, writing, science, geography, mathematics, history and if you were going onto college more of them all. Still not bad for bedrock criteria. In a nation where we see things so differently in terms of morality, I believe it's enough if we succeed in teaching not to shoot or beat each other up and no sex in the halls. Given the way a lot of parents don't seem to teach such things at home, that will stir up enough parental angst.

I believe strongly in the public education system in this country. It's very frustrating to see those, who themselves benefited from it, but today would destroy it if they could. We need to support teachers, work toward improved methods of teaching, encourage schools to hold the line on real values like not cheating, solving problems without violence, treating others with respect. Don't destroy the system that got us to where we have been.

Bush started a program that he milked for much publicity called No Child Left Behind. I guess it's definitely served to benefit his brother Neil, who according to the Kos has made a tidy profit from it (this is the same Bush who was involved in the savings and loan scandals). Just in case you think Kos is prejudiced-- No Bush left behind from Business Week . This is all so typical of the Bush administration who talk one way and do another.

Americans need to stay alert because our country is being sold out for the almighty dollar by those who claim to have high standards but in reality only value the buck. They are not only stripping our environment but our educational system of tax resources, demanding tests that accomplish nothing; and if they have their way a system of vouchers to take my tax dollars from public education and hand it over to private schools who may be teaching things that are contradictory to everything I would believe are part of being an educated and informed citizen.

If there are problems, the solution is fixing the system, not breaking it.

(Oh and one more thing, call me an old fogy, I now favor simple uniforms for school kids. This should not be a federal issue but rather local, but it just makes sense to me given some parents let their youngsters head to school with everything showing; and then wonder why the students can't keep their minds on their studies. I didn't used to think uniforms were good-- back when parents had standards that cooperated with the school systems, back when kids had to wear neat, clean and properly covering clothing to school-- back in the dark ages (and there was no more money then than there is today). Children need to understand when they head to school, it's not primarily about socializing but it is going to their job. They are there to learn. Maybe it takes uniforms to impress this on them.)

Wave Action

Pretend you are sitting above a cove along the Oregon Coast. You can hear gulls and sea birds crying in the distance. The sound of waves crashes against huge rocks. You draw the salty air deep into your nostrils and let yourself feel the surge of energy from the sea. It surrounds you with the sweetness and regeneration of life

The quotes that follow are ones I have stuck above my desk to read when I most need to remind myself what is important. They each came to me different ways, from blogs, books, friends, to my own search for inspiration.

Each of these wave images can be enlarged if you want to spend an extra moment and think on some of the words.

"What would it be like if you lived each day, each breath, as a work of art in progress. Imagine that you are a masterpiece unfolding each second of every day, a work of art taking form with every breath."
Thomas Crum

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
Anais Nin

"Feel your feelings. Stand out in the rain naked and let the rain wash your soul."
email from a friend

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a winged bird that cannot fly."
Langston Hughes

"Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken! Take heed-- do not squander your life." Evening Gatha from the Great Mountain Zen Center

"If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it."
Annie Proulx

"Dreams are ncessary to life."
Anais Nin

"Om Namaha Shivaya"
which I got from a friend, who told me the meaning basically meant surrendering to god. I have since read that there are other possible translations but that one suits me as well as any.

"The power of God is within me, the grace of God surrounds me."
from the same friend

And then there another which I don't need to have written down. I used to carry it on a small piece of paper that became very tattered as it went everywhere with me. Now I carry the words in my heart.

"Let my love like sunlight surround you and yet give you illuminated freedom."
Tagore

(These words and pictures from Whale Cove and taken on my birthday have been a bit of a break from the political which will resume next blog, but I believe we always need to keep the big picture in mind. Be alert to what is important in the world but on a personal level, live a life that is true to our souls. It fits one more quote-- Think Globally; Act Locally. And that starts inside our own hearts.)

Ideas from Parapluie

When I began this political series, I invited any readers who had thoughts or opinions, agreeing with or differing from mine, to email me a possible blog. Parapluie and I are friends, and she hadn't written this for that purpose but rather was just writing her ideas to me. I asked if I could publish it for others to read, and she agreed. So what follows is from Parapluie:

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Going back to the recent history behind our war in Afghanistan and Iraq will reveal all the ways that have not worked yet. World War II concluded with the Europeans carving up of the Middle East into countries that are not yet governable and peaceable. Neither totalitarian governments or democracy has worked yet.

The United States present involvement is a sink hole. Winning a war will not work. Winning will not empower our enemies. They will be humiliated and needing terror all the more. We are not ending terror with war. Terrorists have always existed where people feel they are powerless.

So the problem is to give people in Middle Eastern countries the feeling of power. OK we have given them a chance to vote but is it really giving them power over what is happening in their lives? NO!!!. Why? The enemy has propaganda that is stronger than placing a ballot in the ballot box. Our problem is how to educate the world to believe in their own power and worth.

Education can start in the smallest grass roots communities here in the United States. The Evangelical Church movement towards home schooling is a step away from victory on the world front. I don't care if these home schooled children get social interaction and have social skills among their like minded families. What the world needs now is education that will make each child aware of their own individual self-worth with the feeling of power coming from their own individual background. They need to know how to solve problems in groups of diverse backgrounds. Respect for oneself and others and learning to work together can only be learned in mixed classrooms where the teacher respects the students.

A little seed of hope that I enjoy is Public Broadcasting Channel 28, The Learner Channel. The taped workshops are presented "in the pursuit of excellence in teaching." I like seeing the teachers step down from a totalitarian pedestal and how they become partners in learning with their students. I like how they encourage students to bring their own background to class to help the group solve problems together. And how individual children can suggest courses of investigative problem solving. The thread of investigative learning is present in all subjects whether they are studying statistics, writing, the visual arts or physics or biology.

This learning begins as early as the first grade and builds as the children mature! They are all learning to think in every learning discipline. It is wonderful watching the children express their understanding of concepts to peers and adults. Especially encouraging are the classrooms in underprivileged neighborhoods where the diversity is great and the children are not used to being listened to. There is evidence of these children opening up and beginning to express their views - the true beginning of being self impowered and readiness for democracy.

Politics of Iraq and Terrorism

One of the political issues with the war and terrorism has been the spin that both sides jump to put onto anything that happens. A recent example is what Ted Turner said at some speech. What got spun out was an implication that he didn't know whose side he was on-- terrorists or the West.

If you get what he really said, not the spin, he was asked how he saw the Iraqi war and what was his attitude toward it. He said he felt it has been pressed so quickly with the statement-- you are with us or against us!

Unlike how the right immediately spun, he was not saying he wasn't sure if he was on the side of terrorists but that he wasn't sure if he had favored the war and had wanted time to consider it and yet no such time was granted.

His words were deliberately twisted to make him sound crazy by Fox news... I use the word news loosely. For some people the only news they get is Fox and the right wing talk radio people like Rush Limbaugh. Although if all you get at night is a quick spin from the day, with quotes taken out of context, you aren't in much better shape.

So how do we decide? Basically we have to read whole speeches, look at statistics, and realize they can be manipulated, and get many different opinions to get any concept of what might be done next. Is there a solution? To Bush there is only one, but are there other possibilities without being a traitor to this country as some are so quick to accuse?

Suppose we did make a mistake as many (excluding Bush and Cheney) increasingly believe or maybe it wasn't a mistake and our government deliberately misled us but whatever the case what can we do now? Do we have options?

Politically, it's likely true that if we leave, the Arab world will say we lost. They think we lost anyway. Staying in Iraq, through what increasingly looks like a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites (with al Quaida thrown into the mix to keep both stirred up), is not going to end the terrorism war elsewhere no matter what happens.

If we totally subdued that country, killed off all of those who don't want us there, got electricity restored, etc etc. we still would have Muslim terrorists around the world attacking us and any other western nation. Their vendetta against the western world is not going away because their goal is total victory. Can the United States or any other nation give people like bin Laden and his ilk that? There is no detente possible with them. You don't negotiate with killers and that is what they have become whatever their original motives.

To discuss what we do next in Iraq, we have to separate terrorism from that war as they were never connected in the beginning. The argument that we must fight them there to avoid fighting them here is not only stupid but cruel. The question instead should be are we helping the Iraqi people right now? Are we hurting them? No one can say for sure, but as many as one hundred thousand innocent civilians may have been killed and the numbers could be higher. Those citizens didn't sign up for this but were simply born in a place that has turned very violent. The next question is are we helping our own soldiers and our country by what we are doing there?

If the answer to these questions indicates we should get out, we should be big enough people to admit a mistake and move on that knowledge. We could still give military aid to the side we would rather see win in the Iraqi civil war... although that won't make us more friends with either side and those who think it would are ignoring history. It's like a stranger stepping between a battling husband and wife. He often ends up being attacked by both.

Do you correct a mistake by perpetuating it into eternity or by admitting it and stopping the losing behavior? Maybe if we did pull our troops out of Iraq, we could put more energy into the real battle which is against radical terrorism spiraling out of the Middle East and attacking the world. Some of that could be done (and for that matter is right now) through good police investigations, effective espionage, and the military brought in to fight pinpoint battles with hopefully minimal loss of civilians on either side.

We might also apply pressure on our supposed allies in the Arab world to see that their oil money, which is fueling the current wars, is re-channeled into better lives for the people who supply much of the fodder for suicide bombings. This is not just about education, as most of the 9/11 bombers were educated, but it's what kind of education. There have to be real jobs in countries where they have tremendous wealth but, as with Saudi Arabia, all the wealth channels into a few families leaving 40% of the Saudis unemployed. That is asking for something bad to arise in any nation.

So what can ordinary Americans do right now about this? My obvious suggestion is vote democrat this time even if you never have before. That way there is at least a chance for a reassessment.

Bush was quoted in the new Woodward book that even if only Laura and his dog supported him, he wouldn't let us leave Iraq. That was an interesting comment considering it means he wouldn't care what the military thought either. We know from what the generals have said that he didn't care earlier when they said they needed more troops on the ground, and it was denied for political reasons. The Bush-lites were evidently pretty sure Americans were all for this war if it didn't personally cost them anything and its debt was being pushed onto future generations.

Bush can't admit he is wrong because it would mean he sent a lot of people, on both sides, to their deaths for nothing (and worse for him that his father had been right). We Americans should not accept his solutions as ours. We have to be responsible and find out for ourselves what is right, and then have the courage to do it.

(The Absaroka Mountains in Montana are impressive. To imagine getting across them is intimidating as it's wilderness with grizzlies and cougar to add to the rugged terrain. But in doing anything difficult, it has to be one step at a time. You start at the trailhead and begin walking. I think our situation with the world and terrorism is that way. We have to begin somewhere, but we equally need to be sure we are not walking the wrong way.)