Arkansas Issues Blog

Kayaking NW Arkansas

2008-11-08T16:28:00.003-06:00

I've enjoyed opportunities this summer to visit several launches on Beaver Lake. I've found most outboard motorists to be quite respectful of kayakers never getting too close with their high-speed rigs. My boats are highly stable and the waves don't affect me much. I like to get some wave action on occasion since I'd rather be whitewater kayaking. However, I'm sorely hooked on lake kayaking after this summer. NW Arkansas has too many opportunities to paddle year-round to be a couch potato. No excuse to miss days on the water in this great state.

Beaver Lake has kept me interested each weekend. I've visited the lake 1 day of practically every weekend and I've almost explored the entire lake. I lack three launches on the far side of the lake. I plan several more lake tours this winter and so far, the weather has been gorgeous this fall. I would love to return to Cane Creek S.P. and Lake Chicot S.P. in winter as well, but I may have to settle for a visit to the White River Refuge along the lower White River valley near its nexus with the Arkansas River. I love that area in winter as well. There is so much water in that vicinity including other lakes and sloughs and bogs I've enjoyed visiting in the past. Plus, SE Arkansas is no fun in mosquito season or cottonmouth season(I've had one in a boat with me once while frog-hunting nearby). NW Arkansas and NE Oklahoma have some really neat spots to paddle and I've enjoyed ,many on them last summer and I've begun expanding my area of interest and will update each trip worth mentioning in the future.

My interest will include more biking this winter. I really enjoyed my biking excursion at Lake Chicot S.P. with the levee road nearby. Fayetteville recently opened the new trail segment from Steele Crossing to just past North Street and I will be biking the trail quite a bit in the future. I've neglected my love of biking this summer and spent all my time paddling. I was collecting 100 plus miles per week. Too busy lately to do everything I love. Til next time.

Summer report card: Arkansas state parks have many natural gems to offer

2008-10-26T15:02:00.005-05:00

I've been busy with my self-assigned task of visiting all Arkansas state parks at least once. I have visited several parks in my relatively short lifetime, but I haven't been to all. In the past, I have visited Village Creek S.P., Crater of Diamonds S.P., Devil's Den (too many times to recount), Hobbs S.P.(a number of times), Withrow Srpings S.P., Mt. Magazine S.P., Lake Ft. Smith S.P., and Petit Jean S.P.

I visited Mt. Magazine, Devil's Den, Hobbs, and Lake Ft. Smith this summer. Lake Ft. Smith has been reborn since the raising of the height of the dam to combine Lake Ft. Smith with Lake Shepherd Springs. I had quite a time paddling the new 1,400 acre+ newer, larger lake. From the entry of Frog Bayou beneath Artist's Point to the rope barrier near the dam, it is quite a gem of the Ozarks. A gem of a park I visited in SE AR this fall was Cane Creek S.P., a rather new lake and state park in Star City, AR in Lincoln County between Pine Bluff and Monticello along Hwy 65. It is a timbered lake with scores of aninghas perching and flying in procession if you get too close. The trail cut through the lotuses into the cypress brake is a real treat and I'm sorry I didn't have another day to explore the 17 mile mountain bike trail that surrounds the lake. Unfortunately, if one dosn't own an rv or care to camp in a tent, the best for lodging is nearby Monticello or Pine Bluff. I opted for Monticello. Cane Creek needs cabins, if any Arkansas state parks employee is reading. I read on a reviewers site that it was built in 1997. It took about 4 hours to get around the lake at my pace. I would certainly visit agian next time with my own boats. Rental boats are horrible at the park. Lake Monticello is another lake we explored, though the city of Monticello has no kayak rental place. It is a gorgeous lake with a number of waterfowl hanging nearby.

Cane Creek Lake is next to Bayou Bartholomew, a common site along roadsides in SE Arkansas, since it is the longest bayou on earth (a bayou is described as a slow-moving river by one pamphlet I have on the area). The lilypad trail, aforementioned, is a real treat leading to the cypress brake where many cool beaver dams may be encountered. Lots of barely submerged logs and trees in the lake, but it reminded me of many fishing holes I enjoyed in my native county in eastern Arkansas and practically every frog-hunting trip through one of many Big Creeks in Arkansas. I have also frogged and fished the St. Francis River , which is part of a coming attraction to the state park system, Mississippi River S.P. encompassing developments at Bear Creek, the mouth of St. Francis (a downright scary swift current there has been encountered, including a wicked scary lightning and torrential rainstorm that brewed on a frog-hunting excursion), and Storm Creek Lake, according to the state park brochure. Bear Creek is getting a new campground opening tentativley in Fall 2008(dunno if its open as i'm wirting this in October. This could be one of the coolest parks in the state park system in our beloved state. In my book, Cane Creek S.P. is certainly a must-see for folks who want a sampling of eastern Arkansas' marshland habitat. It's one of the finest opportunities for those unaccustomed to the marshy lowlands to get a close-up view in a safe environment to explore without need of an outboard, though outboard fisherman were sharing the lake the day we visited. The only drawback to some will be the lack of services (grocery stores, restaurants) in the immediate area, and the near-pervasive whiff of the paper mills that produce in this timber paradise within Drew, Lincoln, Bradley, and Ashley Counties. Northern Louisiana has its share of paper mills also. The scent can be really putrid, but I've been exposed to such industrial scents having visited my family members in Jefferson and Desha Counties often during my youth, but my wife from a northern state didn't much care for the smell at first.

Another state park treat this fall was Lake Chicot S.P. in Lake Village near the new cool bridge over the Mississippi River, the so-called Greenville Bridge. Lake Chicot is a mammoth lake that once served as the main Mississippi River channel until approximately 1300 C.E. The rental boats at this park are scary, but my wife and I enjoyed the duplex-cabin overlooking the lake and next time I visit this wonder, I will have my own boats. I still managed to reach the opposite end of the lake section adjacent to the park, which is separate from the near 20 mile-long Lake Chicot, despite the scary unstable Perception kayak I paddled with a rudder permanently placed under the hull of the boat. Real scary for a huge lake with big waves that day because of wind and boaters and alligator gar bumping into the boat. Real cool experience and I love that park. Got some nice camera phone pics and a beautiful sunset. Lake Chicot is a quiet place and good folks from all over the Mississsippi River vally had gathered at the park the 4 days, three nights I stayed. My wife and I biked the nearly deserted road past the park entrance to the levee and the levee road seems to go all the way around the lake, though I couldn't follow the whole way. Our pet was not allowed in the lodging, so an RV is a must if you have pets. The other major criticism is the uncomfortable beds and unbearable sofa sleeper. The state park should spend some of the fund on upgrading those most important furnishings. Plus, the state park should get Mad River to make a deal on supplying all the state parks rental boats, as Lake Ft. Smith rents out to canoeists. Mad River makes kayaks and canoes and they are among the most stable for many novice paddlers who want a memorable experience for all the right reasons, not feeling like an upset is looming with any of the next few waves that might hit. I should be hired to advise the state parks on needed changes, but overall, our state park system is head and shoulders above neighboring states. Oklahoma should be embarassed. It is such a beautiful state unfortunately under the care of a negligent host. I love Tenkiller S.P., but it needs attention and infusion of resources to make it the gem it should be of the Oklahoma S.P. system. I enjoyed a Corps site better than the state parks in the vicinity of Lake Tenkiller and nearby mammoth lakes in eastern Oklahoma. Corps sites in Arkansas are usually woeful compared to the care and service provided at our state parks. The US Forest service sin't all that hot either.

I'll describe my other summer adventures later. I've visited many of Oklahoma's eastern lakes and many Forest service and Corps sites in Arkansas and Missouri this summer. The Corps has a dandy off Highway 100/82 on the east side of Tenkiller Lake. I want to explore that lake by kayak and the lower Illinois looks like a cool place to paddle also. I visisted several Corps spots along Beaver Lake, including some of the abandoned sites, where a boat laucnh is maintained and the Corps patrol those areas rather frequently. I love Beaver Lake and many of its feeder creeks and rivers. Lake Sequoyah, in Fayetteville is at the crossroads of the East, Middle, and West Forks of the White River, though West Fork joins below the dam, is a real birder's delight and the rivers are great smallmouth waters. Branson has some nices places along the water to enjoy boating of all sorts and certainly a grand new attraction, Branson Landing, is a neat addition to the touristy Mecca of the Ozarks. Paddling, motorboats, sailing craft, and more trails than one might imagine. I was surprised at how many nice trails are maintained in the area. I purchased a Branson tourist guide, though I'd visited many times and knew the city fairly well, I immediately gained a better knowledge than my parents, who visit at least twice yearly as my mother's parents had for 30+ years before her. The Henning forest lured my parnets into the hike and they loved it. My dad's hikes in his lifetime have always included a firearm of some sort. He was involved in military service for many years and he hunts squirrels, coons, deer, rabbits, doves, ducks, turkeys, and other wild game. Hiking always had a shooting purpose. So there's my recommendation for the city's Henning Forest hiking trails. It's a gem of Missouri's natural sanctuaries.

One of my next vacation trips will be to return to Crater of Diamonds for maybe the 5th or 6th time in my life and nearby Daisy S.P., Hisoric Washington and White Oak Lake S.P. I really want to see Lake Greeson and 2,700 acre White Oak Lake should be a fun paddling experience. Too bad they don't have cabins, so an RV or tent is a necessity. I'll speak more about Arkansas' natural wonders no matter who administers them. The state of Arkansas is to be commended for its dedication to preserve natural places and allowing an escape from everyday life. I love this state and cannot ever imagine living in any other state. We have so many outdoor opportunities that can keep a person busy for the rest of this lfe and still believe one has missed out on a golden experience. I feel as if I'm destined to enjoy many more of these blessed outdoor experiences in my home state and I hope the good Lord decides to allow me more time to see all that I can. Anyone reading this should give the Arkansas outdoors a shot beyond hunting sports, though hunting is a real pleasure in this state of abundance for most hunted species. It's a life changing experience each time out. I have enjoyed paddling and fishing Arkansas waters this spring and summer. Fall and winter will surely hold some delights in late '08 and early '09 and I want to be in the water or on the trail. I will, hopefully, be involved with building a mountain bike trail on an acquaintances property in Logan County. I love to visit Logan County. I visited a handful of times this year and I love that little town Paris. Clean, well-kept quaint little town that should be visited at least once by everyone. It's near Mt. Magazine, Cove Lake, and Blue Mountain Lake, as well as Lake Dardanelle and Mt. Nebo state parks.

Could've guessed: TN church murders hate crimes

2008-08-02T08:03:00.003-05:00

I hate to say this, but I strongly suspected the Unitarian church murders was a hate crime when first reported. The redneck asshole attacked the church reportedly because of their "liberal" views on social issues. Another piece of redneck trash who can't mind his own business. It's funny how folks across the heartland of America claim they want to live their lives without some witless asshole telling them how to live their lives. You know, that heritage of freedom celebrated by rightwingers not because they actually want to extend freedom to others, but only to those who agree with their extreme views. In other words, they revere their freedom to oppress others just like the puritans of American history. I grew up southern baptist and the baptists have completely ignored their own history in America. Massachusetts colony was a puritan theocracy that kicked Roger Brown off the premises because he was not free to practice his beliefs on their soil. He founded Rhode Island, but that's actual American history. Right-wing theocrats choose to ignore most American history, particularly concerning the founding of this country. Unfortunately, when I now hear heritage and freedom in an ad or in a statement, my sensors become alarmed that I'm about to be propagandized and I'm saddened that rednecks and jackasses have usurped "patriotism" and turned it into something ugly. Maybe that's what Michelle Obama was describing when she had her "moment" when she hurt her husband's campaign with her "proud" comment.

Jim D. Adkisson, Tennessee white trash, has fired his salvo in this "culture war" that has attacked the foundations of our democracy and our true heritage in the Constitution we once held dear. Adkisson's cynicism led to the deaths of folks who are good citizens who love their children and love their lives and love humanity. People like O'Reilly, Wildmon, Dobson, and Hagee are secretly delighted at the unitarian church murders I'll be willing to bet. They got their wish. They have their war, obviously. Not to forget the cartel that includes the Bushes have been waging war on rank-and-file Americans throughout the disastrous Dubya administration and certainly since the GOP took over Congress in 1994. At a time when our western culture is under attack by hateful Islamic believers (American right-wingers' fellow Islamic fundamentalists--that's right, there's no difference between Adkisson and Mohammed Atta, except Atta was probably much brighter than Adkisson, but just as evil), American fundamentalists have been on the attack on fellow countrymen. Adkisson declared war on our way of life and guiltless Americans just like Atta and his band of Arabian rednecks and assholes who have been granted a special favor by God to judge and murder those who disagree with their hateful wahhabi beliefs have been attacking westerners.

These murders were just as evil as the attack on the Dallas area fundamentalist church-goers, mostly children, a few years back. AMERICA SEEMS TO BE IN LOVE WITH MURDER AND MAYHEM, NOT GOD. Our fundamentalist Islamic attackers' views and acts gained tacit approval from Adkisson. As Camus described in his writing: "Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic; every revolution ends either in police rule or insanity." People who wish to become judge, jury, executioner are all the same whether in Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, or Judaism. Granted, most fundamentalist Americans don't wish to endure or propagate murder and mayhem like the Adkissons and Attas of the world, but they need to tone down the hateful rhetoric and take a stand against plowing other folks values into dust like the good folks at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian fellowship suffered at the hands of a TN redneck asshole.

Arkansas State Parks magnificent

2008-07-05T09:55:00.003-05:00

This summer I have decided to visit as many AR state parks as possible on daytrips. So far, I have visited Mt. Magazine, Lake Ft. Smith, Hobbs, Pinnacle, and Devil's Den. Most of these places I have visited in the past, but the tax increase levied specifically for state parks has made a dramatic difference. The new lodge at Mt. Magazine is amazing and the view from below the lodge is as beautiful a view as there is in Arkansas. I'm very happy to see the AR state park system has added St. Francis National Forest to its offerings building additional campsites at Bear Creek near Marianna. The St. Francis project the federal government never cared to improve will be a boon for east Arkansas. I practically grew up in the St. Francis National Forest and all the trails I walked were not maintained or improved (most were logging roads) and I did my fair share of trailblazing. That could be one of the gems of Arkansas and luckily the state stepped in where the federal government failed for decades. In my lifetime, I have visited, in addition to the aformentioned parks, Crater of Diamonds, DeGray, Petit Jean, Withrow Springs, Village Creek, and the Delta Heritage Trail (though at the time, fewer than the advertised 14 miles had been prepared).

Our state parks are becoming treasures that more dollars will dramatically improve. Lake Ft. Smith and Mt. Magazine are the most improved parks I've visited by far. Later this year, I hope to visit several more state parks if the fools in the White House don't exacerbate our nation's failing economy's tragic state. I've spent most of my time in the outdoors along federally protected rivers, Corps of Engineer parks, and WMAs and federal lands. The Corps really do a poor job of maintaining their sites practically everywhere I've encountered them. I haven't been as active with river trips the past two years as I was for over a decade, unfortunately. I've traveled practically every navigable river in NW Arkansas including Frog Bayou, nearly every stretch of the Buffalo beginning near Fallsville(Hailstone Creek) all the way to the the White Bufalo resort area, Mulberry River, Little Mulberry River, Little Buffalo, Big Piney, King's River, Upper (Middle, East, and West forks) and Lower White River, War Eagle Creek, Arkansas River(various stretches), Mississippi River(various stretches), St. Francis(near the mouth of the mighty Mississippi with ancient archaeological sites and a nasty swirl where it meets the great river), Spring, Illinois, Lee Creek, and a number of little swift creeks that I didn't catch the name of all of them. The prettiest river I've ever kayaked was without a doubt, Hailstone or the upper Buffalo beginning at Red Star, especially with all the water converging from the two massive creeks that empty into the main channel of the Buffalo. No prettier site, except for a novice paddler, than the beginning of the Buffalo.

Get out and visit the wonderful hiking trails, biking trails, rivers, and state parks in this beautiful state. Have a great rest of the summer!

Hillary must take VP nomination if offered

2008-06-03T20:10:00.002-05:00

Hillary put her foot square in her mouth with the Bobby Kennedy remark engendering the famous Olbermann rage. Before the remark, I thought Hillary should continue her work in the Senate. Now, she has to take the post if offered to rehabilitate her character. Not to forget the dimensions of race she included in her campaign. The Democratic party MUST WIN THIS ELECTION!!!!!!!!!!! Obama can't win working-class white voters. He can't win a southern state (maybe---the recent Mississippi election results might prove otherwise);Hillary can and would if she'd captured the nomination. I am annoyed the 20-somethings seem to have done in Hillary's hope to succeed the worst presdient in American history. Not annoyed because they voted(which is a miracle for most of their peers) for Obama. I'm annoyed because their track record porves they'll likely stay away from the polls this November. If that happens and another GOP failure-in-waiting takes the presidency, these youngsters will have possibly caused further irreparable harm. 20 somethings: Get your asses to the polls this November!

For the good of America, if Obama decides, Hillary MUST accept his plea to accompany him this election as his VP candidate.

Thankfully, we live in this great nation

2008-05-23T19:58:00.002-05:00

A word from Zimbabwe, where an aging, embittered despot has absolutely stripped the former "breadbasket of Africa" to the bone. Earlier this week , Mugabe's rival in the upcoming runoff election opted to remain in exile because of the prospects of his assassination had he returned, after a month away. To date, since March, 43 opposition leaders have been murdered by Mugabe's henchmen according to BBC. The latest body found was that of Tonderai Ndira. Mugabe'e war against opposition over the years has claimed thousands of lives and his fury was directed against white farmers as they were chased away and Mugabe's cronies allowed the spoils. Zimbabwe was fairly conciliatory with white business and farm owners because Zimbabwe would have been doomed after the war to unseat the white leadership of the former Rhodesia. Their opposition to his bloody regime changed all that and now Mugabe seems content to destroy the nation outright.

The phrase "freedom isn't free" certainly come to mind when considering the hell into which Zimbabwe has been dragged by Mugabe. No leader in Africa seems to give a damn about the old man's death grip on his own people. Mbeki of South Africa has practically aided and abetted the murder and mayhem of Mugabe. What could a presidency of Obama do to change the hearts of African leaders toward Mugabe? I'm not sure it would mean anything more than business as usual. More brave folks like Ndira will die before the deadly Mugabe regime is toppled or he dies, finally. Hopefully, Mugabe's face will be shattered before they end his life like Ndira's. Sad times in southern Africa.

Mother Jones:" Myth of Moral Majority" repercussions

2008-05-22T20:13:00.003-05:00

I'm going to sound like a honest-to-goodness rightwinger at this point. Mother Jones had an online article about the myth of the moral majority in America reporting the claim by Pew of 40% weekly church attendance in America. Actually, it seems 20% is the absolute cap on regular church attendance. An excerpt about writer Christine Wicker, a prodigal Southern Baptist who returned to her childhood denomination, but questioned the realities thereof:

"Take that 40 percent church attendance stat. Looking around her half-empty Southern Baptist church outside Dallas, Christine Wicker had her doubts. Wicker, a veteran Texas newspaper reporter, was born again when she was nine but drifted away from her evangelical roots in adulthood. A few years ago, she returned to the Southern Baptist Church to both renew her faith and write The Fall of the Evangelical Nation, an insider's look at evangelicals' power, wading in where secular journalists feared to tread. When she started looking into the numbers on church attendance, she found that researchers could vouch for only 18 percent of Americans being regular churchgoers—less than half the accepted figure. That led her to wonder about the already widely reported claim that 25 percent of Americans are evangelicals; could the real number also be less than half that?
In size, only the Catholic Church dwarfs the Southern Baptist Church, the biggest evangelical denomination and by far the most organized and fastidious of the Protestant record keepers. But Wicker discovered that the numbers the Southern Baptist Convention (sbc) releases for public consumption tell a much different story than the ones it uses internally. The organization claims 16 million members, but as one reverend cracks, "the fbi couldn't find half of [them] if they had to." A 2006 sbc report states that only 11 million of its members live in the same area as their home church anymore; that number includes those who've been double- or even triple-counted elsewhere. It also includes perennial no-shows and those who attend services at "bedside Baptist" (they sleep in on Sunday but show up for Easter and Christmas). And that's not to mention those who've lost their religion or converted to another faith. If their names were ever on "the roll" at a Baptist church, they're probably inscribed there for life."

I grew up a Southern Baptist "evangelical" who has certainly opted not to follow that hateful religious path. Many of those with whom I grew up in the same denomination have joined some of these "megachurches" that spring up with more dangerous ideology because they don't answer to a broad organization that keeps an eye on orthodoxy. James Dobson occasionally says things that may be objectional to SBC leadership, particularly the predominance of "charismatic" believers in the evangelical movement. SBC will never advocate charismatic tongue talking, at least not in my lifetime.

I know that the SBC still counts me as an SBC believer as well as those friends I mentioned who haven't darkened an SBC door except when they visit parents(not me, I never go to church with my parents when I visit) or attend funerals. The SBC have always counted practically anyone who has ever joined an SBC congregation. I know of some who have become UMC or Presbyterian faithful as well as SBC members who converted to the Catholic church, the " Great Whore" mentioned in the Revelation according to every SBC pastor I've ever known or heard preach personally just like John Hagee, the Hitler and anti-Catholic enthusiast. Hagee and the evangelicals political coalition relied heavily on Catholics to vote down Dems and voting their "values" at the polls and selling out America to the devils Bush and Cheney(along with Kristol, Krauthammer, Wolfowitz, et al---I suppose I'l be accused of anti-Semitism--nah, just anti neo-conism).

My point of emphasis concerning the article, which is questioning the actual impact of outright evangelicals. I haven't read the book, I just read this article about The Fall of the Evangelical Nation, so I won't critique in-depth (I'm wrapped uo in AR history reading now). My problem is going to sound xenophobic. The cultural identity of the nation can be in the balance if we don't wake up and find a way to embrace a church-going mentality and try to save the old denominations that tend to moderate with time such as most Methodists, Presbyterians, and others of the old faithfuls that aren't tied particularly to the disastrous nexus of intolerant evangelicalism and politics these days. I don't want to be in Europe's position with declining population and declined church attendance--almost zero in some places--and an alarming growth of the numbers of Muslims and the possibility of their ideology finding more believers and actual mosque-attenders. I don't mind other believers finding America's virtually tolerant society(as opposed to what our nation was not too many years ago--invidiously racist)to their liking and moving here. Let's face it;Islam could never create this kind of tolerant nation. Islam's Golden Age, dating back to our Dark Ages and ending at the advent of the historical modern age(circa. 1500). Wahhabists began to dominate in the Islamic heartland Saudi Arabia about 1700s, but Islamic tolerance of the scholarship during the Euro middle ages blessed the folks who started the Renaissance in Christendom with the works of the ancient Greeks, who engendered classical republican democracy we enjoy today(or a more liberalized version evolving through the years). Islam has been more progressive centuries ago and threatens to descend the depths over the current crises in the world and the Islamic populist martyrdom movement hatched by Carter's arming and training of Islamic reactionaries and the GOP orthodoxy of supporting ideological nutjobs to fight the Soviets. Presdient Zia of Pakistan was a fundamentalist Islamic servant and he supported like minds fighting in Afghanistan, including bin-Laden. Blowback is hell and we have felt it since 9-11.

We shouldn't rejoice in the demise of Christian religious belief; we should be mortified. Christianity gave us an undeniable cultural center for our democratic government, though I disagree with the evangelical assertion that the founders of this democratic republic blindly followed their narrow view of God. That assertion is simply untrue and church attendance and membership have been much lower percentage-wise than today. We noticed so-called great awakenings over the years of evangelical moments over the years in the late 18th century, 1840-1860s and the 1950s because church attendance and active belief was so low from the start, particularly in rural areas including the South, where Southern Baptists began their great baptismal push in the mid 19th century and the 1950s with Billy Graham's ubiquitous crusades for Christ. The greatest humanists who ever lived in the english-speaking world or any world or age founded this nation and hammered out this constitution we all hold dear. I have heard enough of the "secular-humanist" bashing. Bash Jefferson or Franklin if you must, but I believe their ideological stubborness was good for America. Yes, Franklin describes moments he would pray or Americans should pray, hardly a deist's mentality, but Franklin has more evidence in the historical record of his secularist leanings.

I'm sorry to sound like a xenophobe, but I suppose since I supported Hillary that many left-leaning Dems would accuse me of unspeakable evils(monstrous), but I know I'm right on this one. We must moderate our Christian beliefs away from the most hateful possible worldviews. America is a marketplace of commerce, ideas, and certainly religion. As talk radio has become dominated by hateful right-wing talk shows because of their relative popularity; American Christianity has suffered an equivalent bastardization. The most vocally hateful, malcontented who need to hate the other, yet harboring a gregarious need to find at least a few like-minded toxic fellow faithful so they can hate the other together and carve out a heaven for themselves they don't mind sharing with a few select folks. Commercial religious belief has pushed aside the more social beliefs that want to promote at least a hint of utopian endeavor and improve the earth on which they'll live all their natural lives. I'm not saying SBC faithful don't try to ease the suffering of the less fortunate; my parents have worked their tails off in disaster areas to help with cleanup and helping those with immediate daily needs like food, clothing, and shelter on behalf of their denomination. On the whole, though, supporting right wing ideology in America paints them with a hateful brush denying healthcare to Americans unfortunate enough to work for employers with deficient if any affordable health care access. Their stubborness over healthcare reform is sickening to me. It's part of why I rejected my youthful fundamentalism and SBC membership. On social issues, SBC ideologues have missed the mark entirely in my view. Social issues MUST not be reduced to anti-gay lobbying, anti-immigrant hell-raising, and assorted other objectionable planks these past few years. The SBC was the major problem with the continuation of Jim Crow legislation into the 1960s and some components lasting as actual law until the present day(e.g. legislation banning interracial marriage or sodomy, not exactly Jim Crow, but it fits nevertheless). Their blindly following a war profiteer electing him not once, but twice, Dubya, is one memory I'll never let go. I would never return to the SBC on that demerit alone. Supporting an obviously toxic ideologue like Bush is a fault I can never forgive(I know, that's not very Christ-like)

Again, I have rambled, not gonna proofread, so enjoy.

Election postscript: Benton County/Obama

2008-05-21T21:15:00.003-05:00

I'm happy to say Benton County residents aren't complete fools. Keith Ferguson, Robin Green, and Courtney Henry all won their elections. Ferguson is the old time officer I knew growing up around the fire department, where my dad was a volunteer for many years. He's not a great public speaker, but he's a professional who does his job without all the self-promotion bullshit common with Andy Lee. Robin Green caught a lot of flack over her handling of the Trooper Norman shooting. I knew law enforcement folks who vilified her for prosecuting Norman, but I believe she handled the prosecution acceptably. Also, Courtney Henry bashed the HIM(Higher Image Marketing)-Holtinista Brigade over the head crushing her opponent. In case you haven't read Brummett's column I'm describing Jim Holt's HIM "agency's" work on behalf of Williams in a supposedly impartial race (by law it must be impartial after an amended act during Huckabee's time). There are some runoff races remaining, but these three elections showed some brainpower on part of the NW AR GOP, the most reactionary group in the state, next to of course, Pulaski County white-flighters.

Let's all hope Obama's inexperience doesn't completely bite him on the ass. Obama MUST win this election and try to begin reversing the GOP disaster. I'm praying Dubya the Dumbass doesn't hand Obama a nation at war with Iran as well as the Iraqi people and the Islamic diaspora's lost youth who are easy marks for those who would foster endless jihad against modernity. It's time America had another liberal in leadership. I voted for Hillary and I'm better described as a moderate Southern Democrat, but I'm not completely unhappy to push a real liberal into the White House. Carter was more liberal after office than at the end of his days in office, so he doesn't count as a liberal. Johnson was a liberal until Vietnam dragged him into the military-industrial complex's form of gutter politics. You have to admit though, the Cold War was GOOOOODDDD for business in America. If one wishes to promote the vast military-industrial complex (Ike), you are a socialist because those are technically, actually rather, government jobs. I have relatives who made a lot of money working for defense contractors.

Guaranteed health care is an HEW responsibility for our government and it's time we became a more humane nation and provided for our people. However, the lingering costs of the wars and the cost of our major companies crumbling may preclude Obama's ability to make lasting positive changes for America. He has to be a crisis manager from the first hours of his presidency. Sorry, cart before the horse; he's got to BEAT MCCAIN first! I want all those 20-somethings to get their ass to the polls and complete what they brag about having started. Obama won the nomination, sort of.

A word about ANB's collapse

2008-05-16T20:39:00.002-05:00

Since George W. Bush has opted to declare war on the history of the United States attempting revision of FDR's impact. Now FDR is an "appeaser" of Hitler, according to the legendary genius Dubya. I personally bank at the old ANB and I want to thank FDR and his economic advisors for founding FDIC to protect folks like me who had nothing to do with the bank's poor leadership provided by Dykema. From the articles I've read in weeks prior to the takeover FDIC's was definitely a possibility. No bank would have offered to purchase ANB with the shape they'd been in since the Bush economic disaster began to truly affect us even in NW Arkansas, where we'd been practically immune from Dubya's failure of leadership. I am happy that the government was there to protect me and my assets. FDR's programs weren't enough to lift Americans out of the depth of Depression, but the programs certainly rescued Americans from complete destitution by actually trying to have a positive impact on life, unlike the GOP self-righteous assault on all but the wealthiest. Such a whine in the news today about how Dubya has actually lost some of his personal wealth since he ascended to the presidency. He's rewarded his father's people for giving the Bush family a second shot at ruining the economy for the underclasses.

Bush World: Denying the Bush family role in arming and financing the Nazis

2008-05-15T20:04:00.007-05:00

President Evil again shoots off his mouth accusing FDR of appeasement of Hitler. The looney-tunes right wing headed by America First advocates like Robert Wood of Sears Roebuck and Eureka Springs famed Christ of the Ozarks builder Gerald L. K. Smith who wanted no more American intervention overseas and were in love with Hitler, you know, the looney-tunes right wing that drove the prosperity for the under classes into the ground the past 7 -8 years. If Bush wants to point fingers at appeasers, there were many in this country who bitched about FDR's Lend-Lease Act. Not only could Bush have pointed fingers at "appeasers", he should have pointed fingers at abettors to the crime of aiding the Nazis in building their war machine. Of all people, a history major from Yale fails to point out his family's role in building the Hitler war machine. His grandfather was up to his ears in complicity with the Nazis during and after WWII. Hell, there was a Congressional investigation in 1942 if you want to read about it. (Averill Harriman was one of them and he actually was a major part of FDR's wartime diplomatic effort and he was against the Churchill idiocy of overthrowing an elected prime minister of Iran in the early 1950s to be fair.)

The Bush family have been described as Merchants of Death in years past and the American people who voted for W the Disaster Bush are completely oblivious. I was an 18 year-old kid when I voted for the elder Bush, but I didn't repeat the mistake in 1992, nor did I vote for the His Royal Highness Dubya in 2000/2004. Prescott Bush was involved with multiple companies seized by the US government for trading with the Nazi enemy. No bigger fool has "served" this nation as president. Is there even a question over whether the Bush's aided and abetted Hitler and profited from the war which killed millions of human beings throughout the planet? Go to hell Mr. President. Retire to the island you voted to move Helton's corporate registry and never touch American soil again! Traitor!

The nerve of this blithering piece of shit Dubya:

JERUSALEM (CNN) – In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

The Race Ahead

2008-05-10T12:49:00.002-05:00

Obama has all but sewn up the nomination. Let's hope he'll displace the criminally negligent Bush administration and the morally corrupt GOP majority in Congress forever in this cycle of elections. My take on the Obama pastor debacle is that Obama's history does not suggest that sort of radical thinking Wright espoused. If we narrowed our view on GOP pols' preachers, hopefully most sensible Americans would be equally horrified. I've heard my share of reactionary idiocy as I grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist environment. One of my parents' church's former pastors was a close friend of Bill Alexander, erst of 1st Congressional district, but he was no Rev. Wright. Never heard any inflammatory racial views from him. Politicians routinely visited my family church during election time and none ever took the mic. Never heard such political preaching from any of my family's pastors through the years, save the reminder that this right to vote is from God and it's a duty to exercise your right. My church had liberal Democrats as well as DINOs who eventually switched allegiance to the GOP, particularly a number of farmers who should be ashamed of themselves for supporting GOP candidates. What the hell have GOP pols ever done for American farmers? The Reagan years were such a wonderful time for family farms-shhittt! Reagan cared nothing for those platitudinal agricultural values he espoused. All propaganda, while family farms crumbled throughout his administration. Dubya's done a hell of a lot I suppose as commodities prices rise with each passing day of his disastrous administration and global food shortages threaten famine and war. So much for family values. I will support Obama with no hesitation, though I'm certain our nation would be in better hands with Hillary as our president. Too bad she failed to earn the nomination.

Oprah...Warmonger

2008-05-06T14:22:00.003-05:00

I have always despised Oprah Winfrey, admittedly. I hate talk shows. I hate half-truths, and I hate phony populism. Bill Moyer's program on the rush to the Iraq War and Oprah's show "exposing" Saddam's nuclear arms buildup, despite 12 years of virtually unchallenged coalition bombing(you remember, the real coalition the elder Bush gathered prior to ousting Saddam's forces from Kuwait and southern Iraq) was an eye-opener about the woman who single-handedly hopes to push Obama on the Democratic party. Oprah wasn't propagandizing, she was just telling her viewers what is, er, wasn't. I'd be willing to wager Oprah has assets which have directly profited from the war profiteering president and vice-president's selective invasion of Iraq, which, by the way, many administration insiders tried to push Bill Clinton to undertake in 1998 (see PNAC). For the record, I will vote for Obama if he hangs on to defeat Hillary for the nomination, but I'm four-square on the side of Hillary. I have my suspicions about Obama's chances for victory over McCain because of a mixture of racism, distrust, and outright fear of a black president who rubs elbows with firebrands like Rev. Wright among white voters. I've known many black pastors over the years personally who make Wright's rhetoric look tame in comparison. My family's unexpected presence at a service at one of Arkansas' oldest black churches(in dire need of saving--Centennial Baptist in Helena---so sad to see its dilapidated condition last time I was by there), broke up a political rally planned to really turn up the hate, according to one of the flyers the ushers were removing as we entered the church. We heard the commotion when we were spotted in the parking lot and one of my father's political rivals was helping the ushers hide the pamphlets. I would have felt better about voting for Obama in the general election and I'm as fair-minded a person as most will meet. We have got to remove the War-Profiteer's Party from power, hopefully forever, and Obama has narrowed his voter pool significantly by waiting to denounce Wright. He needs white folks to vote for him too and that doesn't mean 20 somethings alone (though it's about time many appeared at the polls in droves for once) and I believe Obama can't win the older white middle class constituency because many were waiting to say "I told you so...Obama's a reparationist just like the rest of 'em (black Democratic politicians)!" Someday a black person will be elected president based on what I've seen in this election cycle. Obama nearly pulled it off, so there is hope for black Americans to have one of their own in the White House. Certainly, Obama may yet cling to victory for the Party and for the White House. If he wins, I will feel much better about his prospects for success than I ever did for Dubya the Witless. It's Hillary's time to lead this country under these circumstances. She's certainly been baptized by fire and made some very public mistakes in her time. She's also proven she has some very good ideas for America.

Richard Allin dies

2007-10-20T13:31:00.000-05:00

It was nice to reminisce about what was good about growing up in smalltown Arkansas as his hometown Helena. I remember the Helena he remembered though it had been years since he called it home. I've traveled much of this state and I rmember the trips to all four corners of Arkansas, towns when towns were real communities and singing voices from the Baptist church could be heard quite clearly the few blocks away at the old Ft. Curtis site to the block where Allin's Episcopalian and the Helena Methodist church set. I remember those moments as clearly as yesterday when our church held large picnics and other after church Sunday afternoon gatherings and enjoyed the day. It was nice to be transported to sights and sounds of the more villagesque approach to life was observed by so many who wanted to maintain decorum and treat others with the respect they demanded and deserved in reciprocity. The Arkansas of my childhood has dissolved, but Allin wouldn't let us forget what this state did right in those days. I've missed him since his retirement and now, we've lost one of the great people in print of yesterday. Sad to see whatn the ADG has become without folks like Richard Allin.

Rambling: 2008 crucial to survival of Constitutional democracy

2007-09-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

Summer's been pretty good to me this year and I couldn't be more hopeful for my own personal future. It does no good to seethe in depression or rage that can be such difficult emotions to contain. There's a lot happening in America these days that should trouble those of us who hope to see Constitutional government survive another 220 years (since 1787). I won't bother with that discussion today because it's my day off and I've had a really busy week. I have to hold on to the hopeful view that my ancestors had it much tougher and endured more difficult circumstances to continue in highly lucrative, stressful jobs. Well, actually, my ancestors were happy to have meager incomes, barely enough food for survival and a few stitches of clothing. My family are descended from Europeans and indigenous peoples as I suppose many Southerners can claim. They were not particularly well-to-do, except for the occasional exception in family history. I know too many Republicans these days who buy their hateful brand of populism spewed forth with seeming impugnity these days. I'm proud to say that my family were traditionally pro-Democratic since the Great Depression descended upon the globe and starving Americans felt first-hand the pain of strict laissez faire policies concerning the economy and the state of the American people.

Funny how Americans conveniently forget that the "American Century's" relatively flourishing post-WW II economy has been funded primarily by the positive influx of government dollars. I know personally many families in my home area of Arkansas who bought their first tracts of land that made fortunes for their families and others whose fathers and mothers joined the middle class, upper middle class, and some ascended to greater financial heights because of the influx of spending by our government on the training and success of scores of new American professionals along with the aid of government defense spending on the wider manufacturing economy throughout the "glorious" Cold War days. Government investment in America can't be all bad. Hillary Clinton's latest health care proposals are not receiving the same harsh attacks as in 1993 because opinions of the American people and American industry might be merging on the healthcare issue. Companies cannot sustain the enormous healthcare costs promised to millions of American retirees and current employees. Government is the only entity capable of providing for these enormous costs that could drive American industry completely outside our borders. Doug Thompson wrote in the Free Weekly that Hillary's recent healthcare remarks was a shrewd move in light of UAW-GM's relatively quick settlement of what could have been a damaging strike to the American econmoy on top of the bankrupting Bush administration 's reckless "policies"(if raping the economy willy-nilly can be described in such lofty terms). Let's hope the American people will wake up and wonder why the government is trustworthy in prosecuting wars, but completely inept in preserving and promoting prosperity as it did during the post-WW II boom of higher wage earning Americans. I can understand distrusting Republicans with such a responsibility because of their history of corrrupt, inept leadership in the late 19th century and the antebellum years 1920-1932 (and since 1994)when the global economy collapsed under their leadership following the fateful GOP attack on the Versailles Treaty and America's participation and membership in the League of Nations. Of course, there are no guarantees that America's membership in League of Nations would have led to real intervention against the Nazis, or the Fascists of Spain, Italy, and Japan, but membership would have put the possibility on the table. Now, American Republicans cheer an endless war with Islam which seems to rally more cynical, murderous minions to slay Americans and all westerners and those of different sects within the Islamic faith by our invasion of Iraq. We can't get a sensible middle-path philosophical bent among GOP faithful in any period of American history when they dominate government(Eisenhower and occasional exception , except for the meddling Dulles brothers and their disatrous actions while working for State and CIA). All-or-none cynical responses are common from so-called "conservatives" in America.

I am saddened by the venom spewed in the name of God by ALL the BIG 3 Faiths that arose from the Fertile Crescent. I am hoping Americans come together to stop the self-inflicted "blood-letting" occuring in America these days, as well as the international hot war variety of blood-leeting fomenting in war zones across the globe. Americans should stop trying to destroy this gift from God we call Constitutional Democracy that so many well-meaning, highly enlightened founders who likely wouldn't qualify as Christians among the devout Christian "Right" these days, despite revisionist efforts to portray Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and Madison as like-minded believers in step with their small-minded, half-baked schematics. Let's hope we don't blow this opportunity in 2008 to remove the hateful dogma of the "conservative revolution" with a pragmatic thinker who wants government to promote the health and prosperity of America instead of stripping it bare, as the GOP have done since ascending to power in 1994.

My grandparents were diehard Democrats because under Democratic leadership, they were at least capable of sustaining themselves. Under Hoover, they remember losing everything and no relief was forthcoming until FDR swept the cynics from office. Hell, one of my grandfathers had to move back to his mom's home area in Chickasaw areas of Oklahoma, while hundreds of thousands of Okies streamed away from Oklahoma as the Depression raged. His mother moved back home from Arkansas to be near family. Needless to say, he had a bleak first-hand impression of Republican economic principles. Sure, some fancy economist call talk a lot of numbers gibberish no middle-of-the-road American can understand on how great Republican policies are for the economy. Americans understand the language of hardship, uncertainty, and misery, when self-deluded so-called American conservatives discovered the horror of those emotions after 1929 the hard way. Let's hope a calamity is not required at this point in history to turn it all around, until the next time rank-and-file Americans delude themselves into a "conservative" mindset concerning politics and cause another crisis of confidence in government.

West Fayetteville growth annoys some

2007-07-21T13:04:00.000-05:00

The Fayetteville public hearings menu frequently includes much business concerning west Fayetteville. From Wedington Avenue four-laning to the city limit along west Highway 16 towards Lake Wedington to Planned Zoning Districts like Woodstock development, the region has begun to explode in terms of growth. Woodstock and the Lindsey development at the NE corner of Rupple and Wedington are moving along in the approval process with objections from Cross Keys Property Owners Association at a recent subdivision committee meeting according the the NWA Times, in a July 13 article. Fieldstone POA president expressed a displeasure at the prospect of "a new Dickson Street." The project includes 100,000 sf of commercial space and 382 residences along Wedington from 46th St. to Broyles Avenue, near the construction site of the new wastewater treatment facility built just to the south of the proposed development, according to the Morning News in a July 21 front-page article. The Lindsey development including a golf course and, I assume, the patented Lindsey fountain certain to contain a green coloring for the water, will include 604 apartment units, and a community park.

New businesses recently welcomed to the area are Hunan Manor and their wonderful new dish, Crab Rangoon (offered to expand the menu for the new building). The building is certainly a nice addition to the west side of 540 along Wedington. Over the past few years, Harps has opened a store, Penguin Ed's, at the interesection of Double Springs and Wedington after the Boar's Nest, owned by proprietors of Willy D's on Dickson, Picasso's, and Taco Bell across from Sonic on Colorado. Banks have found their way en masse to the area, with Bank of the Ozarks located near the Arkansas National Bank and the Arvest Bank. Bank of Fayetteville has a branch and Metropolitan National Bank on the SE corner of Rupple and Wedington seems poise to open very soon. Ozarks Electirc seems to be planning an expansion on their lot, asking for approval of a rezoning of 44.36 acres from RA/RO to I-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial status. New streets in some of the new subdivisions are bizarre at best, with an area along Meadowlands named after Englis-language poets such as Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Keats. Just to the west of that development is a subdivision with golf-themed names for its streets, though the closest golf courses are in Farmington and along Deane Solomon, but Lindsey's development hopes to remedy that problem. Mulligan, Flagstick, and Wedge are some of those street names.

The northwest quadrant is certainly experiencing its share of growth near the Deane Solomon course to all sides. Sam's Club is to be relocated this fall to Garland Ave./Highway 112 across from Fayetteville Auto Park and talk of building a new high school for Fayetteville school district would certainly stamp that part of the city as the champion of growth in the city limit and all of Sam's tax revenues will be for the Fayetteville schools, unlike the area of the NWA Mall. Construction from the Mall of an improved Van Asche cutting all the way to 112 from Gregg Ave. is certainly going to open the flood gates of growth in the area.

The vicinity near Clabber Creek has a new trail section and plenty of its own growing pains as developers try to open heretofore dead-end streets for use by their new developments, thus bringing much despised high traffic counts to the neighborhood. The new Owl Creek elementary caused a fire-storm of opposition by community elementary school proponents in Fayetteville, and the possible relocation of the high school to the NW quadrant of the city has heated the same opposition. The city chimed in that it would like to see the high school to remain near the UA campus. School boards are free of city constraint, however, so not much can be done by the city council.

As growth seems to slow down statistically, not much evidence of that is to be found in west Fayetteville, though there are still many unsold new structures in the area and new starts on residential construction are certainly slowed. The Rupple Row development across from the Boys and Girls Club seems to be progressing steadily. The development from the west side of Rupple Road to the north of Wedington to the end of Patrick St. has only a few new constructions behind Plum Tree Ave. homes.

West Fayetteville is set to explode within ten years and no one will recognize the place. I hope we can do a better job of managing the sprawl than cities of the past who experienced similar growing pains . New connections to Farmington from Wedington to Highway 62 will change the complexion of the are particularly if Mountain Ranch development ever gets fully off the ground. I hope we're all happy with the result, but past anecdotes of this sort of change are rarely all good.

Spring, early summer report

2007-07-04T15:06:00.000-05:00

This spring and early summer to date, my yard has hosted all sorts of bird life. I serve my bird friends sunflower seeds year-round, since my home in western Fayetteville seems to be getting a bit more crowded by development. My bird friends have increasingly lost habitat the past decade since I moved here. Mockingbirds, cardinals, robins, grackles, mourning doves, and wrens have all nested in my yard so far this season. For the first time since I've lived here, I have seen 2 turtle doves, distinctive by their larger size than mourning doves and lighter coloration along with a black stripe across the nape of the neck. It's been nice to see those beautiful creatures visit my yard. The only tragic occurrence this season was the unfortunate hawk attack on the first mockingbird nest in the seedling juniper. One mockingbird chick was taken away to become hawk dinner. The hawk thanked me by shitting a huge mess all over my patio door.

The mockingbirds moved their nest to the larger juniper from which the seedling arose. I spotted two mockingbird juveniles in the yard, so some life survived the nesting. Juvenile cardinals and robins spent time in the yard. A robin mother and her brood of four robin chicks each took a turn charging the aggressive mockingbird after it attacked them at the bird bath as they foraged and watered before darkness. Was a sight to see four robin chicks challenging a mockingbird just like they saw their mother. The rain has wreaked havoc on some varieties of tomatoes I've planted this spring, but my patio varieties seem to be thriving. This much rainfall has not been seen in NW Arkansas since about 6 years ago, a season I remember for all the miles of kayaking I enjoyed so late in the season for 3-5 years consecutively before the 6 year drought in June/July. On my last trip, Frog Bayou and the ample surfing opportunities afforded along the 12 mile stretch I once frequented was rolling quite nicely that day. I endured a severe sunburn on my face and the pigshit farmers in the region dump on their fields attracted gnat-like insects for much of the trip, but the water was perfect. Crawford County has one nice jewel in Frog Bayou, particularly during the winter when it seems to hold water rather well and is a pleasant January paddle trip.

Arkansas is one of the great places in America to enjoy the outdoors, whether outside your back door in the city, or floating Hailstone/Extreme upper Buffalo in the middle of the Buffalo River wilderness near Fallsville (where the Rainbow are gathering this past week) to Boxley on one of the most gorgeous stretches of river in this great state. I miss my free time I once enjoyed that allowed me the time to plan and actually go on kayaking trips. These days I spend more time running and riding my bike for outdoor leisure and additional exercise. Arkansans who opt not to enjoy the natural outdoor opportunities are missing out on the most important aspects of being an Arkansan. I grew up in a traditional Arkansas family where hunting and fishing was a favorite diversion. I knew few kids when I was growing up who didn't enjoy the Arkansas outdoors in some way. I glad I've been fortunate enough to survive long enough to truly experience the outdoor life of the Ozarks. The land and the woods are the stage for our lives and few of us slow down to ponder how important the outdoors has been to the life of our species over the years.

In my hometown, Clovis(arrived circa 12,500 years BP) sites of some of the earliest inhabitants in Arkansas have been surveyed and unearthed. Nearby were unearthed remains of Confederate war dead in a foolish frontal attack on many well-placed batteries and a Yankee gunboat. Some of my relatives live very close to these sites. I have walked these sites of the various batteries built by Federal engineers and laboring soldiers. Our state is alive with the past and folks who are born to this state or who have relocated to this state should make themselves aware of the significance of many areas of the state. Unfortunately, NW Arkansas seems not to care much about the rest of the state and that is a pity. We have a rich history and traditions which should be observed by citizens from all corners of Arkansas. We are a small, relatively poor state with need of cohesion and single-minded devotion to improving our home.

Ancient Arkansas was teeming with wildlife and chert sources for indigenous peoples and frog-hunting the St. Francis River, or Big Creek I was surrounded by ancient hunting villages and burned char pits where fires were kept millennia ago. You can close your eyes and briefly connect to those hunter-gatherers who survived by the slimmest of margins. We're not much different these days it seems.

Further proof: "Rosy" slide show definitive

2007-02-16T11:15:00.000-06:00

If ever there were a clinching bit of proof that the Iraq War from conception to the present, 4 years later, has been an opportunity for the Bush administration and his favored generals under command of Moron-in-Chief Bush, official lapdog for Pres. Cheney the Cynic to fumble, bumble, and stumble. After a FOIA request, prewar slides have been exposed which presumed that by now, merely 5,000 US troops would be necessary to preserve peace in Iraq. Also, Paul Bremer has been exposed as a complete moron for disbanding the Iraqi army, not that Pres. Cheney didn't order it personally. Real genius allowing trained military personnel in a country teeming with weapons after a long history of militancy and proliferation of arms, including poisonous gases used originally by the Iraqis while allied with the U.S. in the war on the ayatollahs, to merely go home and then attacking the dispossessed after they begged for some kind of relief and a paycheck. Al-Qaeda and unaffiliated outside sources from throughout the Islamic world, not just Iran, have funneled money within Iraq to pay for American and Iraqi deaths and there's plenty more where that came from awaiting delivery. If Bush wants to launch yet another disastrous war, why not attack our "allies" to the south in Saudi Arabia. That should certainly bring all of Islam out to fight, then we can listen to that familiar "bring 'em on" manic genius Bush back to his old cocky, Texas self. Woo Hoo!!!!! BRING 'EM ON !!! Woo Hoo!!!! Visual: Black and White film, riding a rocket waving the cowboy hat all the way to hell and all the moronic Americans who voted for him and many more who didn't all the way to hell with him! In the name of Jesus, certainly, as John Hagee and his millennialist nutjob consorts would have Bush praise god for all his brilliant decisions I'm sure he'd like to blame on God at this point. Hagee wants the U.S. to invade Iran and now all that "proof" from the beginning of the week that Iran is directly complicit. Hell, they see themselves as the Pakistan of this superpower/Islamic clash. Maybe resisiting the Soviets in Afghanistan in hindsight wasn't such a brilliant maneuver by Carter and Reagan. The folks we trained and aided in ousting the Soviets are now proving equally willing and capable to use on us. I was against this Iraq War from the beginning and I'm saddened to see that some things I expected have occurred. All I needed to do was remember Beirut and Lebanon on tv every day as I grew up and the length of these sorts of wars in southern Asia. Fulbright was right about avoiding Asian land wars. He would have certainly thought the Afghan intervention necessary, but now according to recent polls, only 52% of Americans think that invasion was worthwhile. That's a terrible development. The Afghan intervention is VITAL to the prospects for achieving relative peace and calm in the future and Bush has squandered that bit of capital as well. Bush is all capitaled out at this point and should order Pres. Cheney arrested for complete failure of leadership and then Dubya should step down in disgrace and move to whatever Caribbean island he voted to move Helton's corporate office to avoid American taxation and government scrutiny while on the Helton board of directors. Sorry to ramble, but I had many things to say and little time to type it. Forgive all errors please. Wow!!!! Whoda thunk 10 years ago our nation would be brought to such avoidable peril. The Iraq War was COMPLETELY avoidable except for the fact that a man whose family has been in the war profiteering business since 1917 selling arms to the Nazis until 1942 duped America into electing yet another of that particular family to the White House and then we had the attack by Saudi Arabia on America and a golden opportunity to invade our old nemesis of HW and beat-down dictator in 2003 and get that armaments industry some more bidnet. Sorry to seem quite skeptical of any GOP or Bush/Cheney action these days. Democrats NEVER failed so miserably so quickly. Our globe is in more peril in 2007 than it was in 1967, 1968, 1973 or 1979, years China and USSR could have originated more serious global conflicts than they experienced and also could have dragged NATO and the U.S. foursquare into some seriously more bloody conflicts than Vietnam. In 1973, the Israelis reportedly were dangerously close to employing nuclear weapons in the Middle East and that wouldn't have been fun. If things don't change for the better soon including a warmer reception from NATO and the U.N. for supporting and engaging in combat in Afghanistan to repel the Taliban. Next, in Iraq we need some more creative thought in how to minimize the ill-effects before the world is war. I believed garrisoning troops in remote bases must be part of the "new" plan for Iraq. I do not agree with my fellow Dems that complete removal is vital. NO!!!!!! Bush broke it, we all bought it, just as Colin Powell predicted. Our troops need a better commander-in-chief who doesn't eschew creativity. It seems we'll have to cozy to one party or other and at this point, it looks as if we should use the Sunnis against the Shiites as a legitimate check on their power as the British did in 1920 if al-Maliki doesn't grow his own balls instead of holding tight to al-Sadr's, who seems to have conveniently slipped over to Iran. The disbanding of a legitimate fighting force which could have provided at least an esprit de corps or loyalty to a secular force, instead of the secular and ethnic loyalties inflamed today. This Iraqi "army" and police "force" unfortunately seems not to be a seamless connection. These agencies are riddled with ethnic and religious fault lines and everyone knows not to trust the other merely to survive. Bremer took away a golden opportunity to hold the fault lines together and achieve that secular loyalty. Imagine if Christian sects still killed each other in Europe? Would a Huguenot be able to trust Catholic police? In Northern Ireland, could Protestants trust Catholic police precincts or vice versa to serve their needs. Shared religious sympathies seemed to have been bona fide qualifications for serving others. Protestant cops killed and allowed the killing of countless Catholics and vice-versa. Perhaps that example further proves that an esprit de corps was impossible anyway, so maybe Bremer's personal defense is on-target. Slowly, Northern Ireland is trying to combine Catholic and Protestants in the police force, but there hasn't been much sectarian killing since the Mitchell deal. In Iraq, it would be a miracle to stop the killing. A much smaller Northern Ireland was embroiled in killings for 30 years before any real talk of peace and conciliation. Iraq is a taller order. OK, I'm done.

Phase II: Uncovering the Bush/Cheney plot to misinform America

2007-01-27T13:21:00.000-06:00

From ContraCosta Times:

Rockefeller: Cheney applied 'constant' pressure to stall investigation on flawed Iraq intelligence
By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
Chuck Kennedy/MCT
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, speaks to reporters.
Cheney increasingly on the defensive
Durbin calls Cheney 'delusional'
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney exerted "constant" pressure on the Republican former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stall an investigation into the Bush administration's use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, the panel's Democratic chairman charged Thursday.
In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia also accused President Bush of running an illegal program by ordering eavesdropping on Americans' international e-mails and telephone communications without court-issued warrants.
In the 45-minute interview, Rockefeller said that it was "not hearsay" that Cheney, a leading proponent of invading Iraq, pushed Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to drag out the probe of the administration's use of prewar intelligence.
"It was just constant," Rockefeller said of Cheney's alleged interference. He added that he knew that the vice president attended regular policy meetings in which he conveyed White House directions to Republican staffers.
Republicans "just had to go along with the administration," he said.
In an e-mail response to Rockefeller's comments, Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea McBride, said: "The vice president believes Senator Roberts was a good chairman of the Intelligence Committee."
Roberts' chief of staff, Jackie Cottrell, blamed the Democrats for the investigation remaining incomplete more than two years after it began.
"Senator Rockefeller's allegations are patently untrue," she said in an e-mail statement. "The delays came from the Democrats' insistence that they expand the scope of the inquiry to make it a more political document going into the 2006 elections. Chairman Roberts did everything he could to accommodate their requests for further information without allowing them to distort the facts."
"I'm not aware of any effort by the vice president, his staff or anyone in the administration to influence the speed at which the committee did its work," said Bill Duhnke, who was Roberts' staff director.
Rockefeller's comments were among the most forceful he's made about why the committee failed to complete the inquiry under Roberts. Roberts chaired the intelligence committee from January 2003 until the Democrats took over Congress this month.
The panel released a report in July 2004 that lambasted the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for erroneously concluding that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was concealing biological, chemical and nuclear warfare programs. It then began examining how senior Bush administration officials used faulty intelligence to justify the March 2003 invasion.
Robert promised to quickly complete what became known as the Phase II investigation. After more than two years, however, the panel published only two of five Phase II reports amid serious rifts between Republican and Democratic members and their staffs.
Rockefeller recalled that in November 2005, the then-minority Democrats employed a rarely used parliamentary procedure to force the Senate into a closed session to pressure Roberts to complete Phase II.
"That was the reason we closed the session. To force him" to complete the investigation, he said.
The most potentially controversial of the three Phase II reports being worked on will compare what Bush and his top lieutenants said publicly about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorists with what was contained in top-secret intelligence reports.
In the two reports released in September, the panel said that the administration's claims of ties between Saddam and al-Qaida were false and found that administration officials distributed exaggerated and bogus claims provided by an Iraqi exile group with close ties to some senior administration officials.
Rockefeller said it was important to complete the Phase II inquiry.
"The looking backward creates tension, but it's necessary tension because the administration needs to be held accountable and the country . . . needs to know," he said.
Rockefeller said that he and the senior Republican member of the committee, Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., have put the frictions behind them and agree that the committee should press the administration for documents it's withholding on its domestic eavesdropping program and detainee programs.
Under the eavesdropping program, the National Security Agency monitored Americans' international telephone calls and e-mails without court warrants if one party was a suspected member or supporter of al-Qaida or another terrorist group.
Rockefeller charged that Bush had violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain permission to eavesdrop on Americans from a secret national security court.
"For five years he's (Bush) has been operating an illegal program," he said, adding that the committee wants the administration to provide the classified documents that set out its legal argument that Bush has the power to wiretap Americans without warrants.
Rockefeller is among a handful of lawmakers who were kept briefed on the program after it started following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he told Cheney in a handwritten note in July 2003 that he was deeply concerned about its legality.
In the interview, Rockefeller said the committee needs more details about how the program worked before it considers amending the eavesdropping act to give the administration the flexibility it says it requires to be able to track terrorists.
"How do we draw something up if we have no idea about what the president sent out in the way of orders to the NSA? What about the interpretation of the Department of Justice?" he asked. "Americans . . . should want us to discern what the facts are, what the truth is."

I remember blogging about the Plame affair last year and some hack supporting Pat Roberts rose to the Administration's defense. Well, it seems like Sen. Roberts could have some problems along with Bush/Cheney about this phony "evidence" for war with Iraq. Time for an accounting by the GOP for the past 5 years of lies and cover-ups. I KNOW the Clinton blowjob cover-up wasn't nearly as evil as this war the Bush/Cheney racket dragged the American people into. The Bush family business, war-profiteering ,oil, and intelligence is a more substantial reason for war in Iraq than weapons Saddam might have possessed.

Love them frog legs!

2007-01-27T12:16:00.000-06:00

From Brummet's blog:
-->
January 24, 2007
"Frog leg-filled room
On the matter raised here that Beebe might put Paul Suskie on the Public Service Commission, I am reliably advised that Beebe asked Dustin McDaniel if that would be all right with him, and McDaniel said sure. Suskie fought McDaniel hard in the Democratic runoff for attorney general, you might recall. It was civil. Winners can be magnanimous, though I doubt McDaniel would sign off on Beebe's naming Gunner DeLay to anything, not that Beebe would. Someone pointed out that, if he names Suskie, and apparently that's not for sure, Beebe will be giving a second major appointment to a North Little Rockian, after Cliff Hoofman to the Highway Commission. It happens that I last recall seeing Hoofman and Suskie together wearing aprons and funny hats cooking and serving frog legs for Beebe's big fund-raiser at Alltel Arena late last summer. The ticket to appointment in this administration may be frog legs."

Maybe not just the frog legs, but Suskie should be given a place at the table of AR government to see if he has the wherewithal to make a favorable impression with voters who weren't familiar with him last November. For the record, I LOVE FROG LEGS! And no, they don't taste like chicken, although, having grown up in the Delta harvesting frogs from farm canals, and creeks along farmers cotton/soybean/milo fields, they may have had more of a DDT flavor. Farm-raised frogs aren't nearly as tasty, since no risk of bear attack (saw fresh tracks along shore one night near the White River Refuge) or water mocassin attack while dragging our boat through logjams, or crashing shore to catch the frog before he jumped and put him in the "toad" sack for later cleaning, or any of a number of creatures and nutcase crankheads cooking in the woods makes one appreciate God's bounty more.

I have no particular problem with Hoofman's appointment, despite Wonkette's fun had in this Highway Commission appointment for a drunk driver who forgot his native tongue one night in the late Nineties. Live and learn. Perhaps Cliff committed a "youthful indiscretion" as former Congressman Hyde of Illinois, whose long-time "love affair" with a woman who wasn't his wife while in his Fifties and Sixties was described as such. I suppose Hyde will live to 200 years old. Hyde was one of the chief accusers of Pres. Clinton for a sexual encounter he chose not to reveal as Henry would have preferred concerning his own "youthful" fling. Hoofman wasn't a bad legislator and highways was indeed an issue of concern while serving. So far, so good with Beebe's administration. Wonkette is based in DC, where forgiveness of public/private stupidity has attracted headlines each time crackhead Marion Barry(not to be confused with OUR Marion Berry, Congressman) wins another election. Hoofman wasn't exactly smokin' crack with a prostitute, though his crime was still serious.

I'm liking what I'm seeing so far from the Legislature, although some of the familiar nutty bills still seem to find their way onto committee dockets and pass. A good source is Brummett's blog or the new Delphi blog. The next item I'm curious to see is Arkansas' reaction to the universal healthcare initiatives similar to ARKids First, but extended to all ages. It would be nice to stick one in the eye of the holyites who preach "Christian" values, but NEVER show the least bit of concern for the underpriveleged. The Holtinistas preach compassion, but would vote to deny infant children of immigrants the basic necessities of life. They preach their "pro-life" rhetoric of preventing all abortions, but once the child is born, we get Holt propoasals to cut off innocent children from pre or post-natal care. Shameless bastards! I don't remember hearing that self-righteous, petty, cruel behavior towards fellow humans is godly in nature. Government sponsored pre- or post-natal care is Soviet, according to the Holtinistas. Universal care is slowly becoming an economic stimulus issue instead of a mere moral issue. Big business only cares about morality when millions of dollars in lawsuits to correct immoral action are on the line.

On one hand, GM and Ford claim they move manufacturing lines to Canada because they aren't weighed down with the reponsibility to provide healthcare to current and retired employees, thus they make more per car produced in Canada than the U.S. On the other hand, GM and Ford fight tooth and nail against any universal healthcare for fellow Americans. Let's get into the patriotic argument at this juncture. What's patriotic about telling your fellow Americans to fuck off and moving manufacturing to Canada where universal healthcare is a moral concern primarily which has become an economic stimulus issue that attracts good paying automotive jobs. Can Arkansas possibly have the imagination to attract manufacturing industry by taking some of the healthcare responsibility off potential industrial interests who might locate in Arkansas. Could we attract the Hino plant in Marion if such a proposal were offered? Probaly not enough time to concoct a sound bill. How many states would feel the pinch of a dwindling capacity to compete for new manufacturers and follow Arkansas' example? Toyota makes a lot more profit than American auto manufacturers because Japan also has a universal healthcare plan. Actually, ALL industrialized western nations offer universal healthcare, except the U.S. There we go again knowing more than everyone else in our global community. More Americans fall into the ranks of the uninsured while the "cultural warrios" of the Christian Wrong battle for the moral soul of America, yet universally vote to keep their own fellow citizens in poor health and poverty. Our unisured citizens usually wait until their health concerns become crises and shortens their lifespan. Do the Christian wackos(not ALL Christians, but the more politically active right-wingers do hold some dangerous, wacko ideas) ever show the slightest concern for the massive plight of the un- and under-insured in America? Hell, no!

These are dangerous times for America internationally, but among the states of the union, some exciting new currents in legislation are sure to follow.

Nice commentary about Nutt's intention in hiring David Lee

2007-01-20T19:02:00.000-06:00

Imagine a Texas newspaper having some sense to appreciate what Nutt might have had in mind in hiring David Lee. Is it my imagination or has David Lee been a help to Mitch Mustain in the past? Alex Wood seemed to have no impact in improving our qbs and Nutt held Wood, the qb coach, responsible. I wanted Nutt fired at halftime of the UNLV game in LR a few years ago with the miracle comeback. So, I don't much care for Nutt. Danny Nutt has got to be one of the best assistants in the SEC, if success of players he coaches is any indication. Where's Danny's Broyles Award nomination?? Either way, Malzahn will benefit from coaching a school where the stakes aren't as high as for Nutt this year (remember, everyone wanted him gone after consecutive 4-7 seasons including me) and he can tinker to his heart's delight if his new boss allows. Our o-line should be good again, but will be hard-pressed to replace Anderson. Williams specializes in dropping potential td catches, so we won't miss that about him and Mitch just seemed lost several times this season and maybe should have redshirted, except Nutt was on the hot seat and had no choice but try him. He was a vast improvement over the NEVER accurate RoJo. Mustain's accuracy throwing can be precise at times. Dick is not quite as bad as RoJo, but he's not MUCH better. I have to admit I've never thought much of David Lee since I played on the same team as a transfer student-athlete to my small college team who practiced some bizarre methods he swears he learned from Hog assistant David Lee under Ken Hatfield. I have to hand it to David, Romo's certainly had a good coach grooming him for an opportunity to shine. Great season for Romo with ONE particular exception (ah-hem). Just needed ONE!

Ripped from DemGaz:
COMMENTARY : Hogs snag Romo’s coach, friend, confidant
BY RANDY GALLOWAY FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2007
Email this story Printer-friendly version
A guy named David Lee left Valley Ranch this week. To you, that may not mean much. But to Tony Romo ?
And Romo’s psyche is the only thing that counts at the moment in Cowboy Nation.
Every quarterback needs one, or at least from personal observation, every quarterback needs a friend, a confidant, even a private shoulder to cry on or whine on.
It’s a lonely position. It’s you against the world. The credit is immense when there’s success. The blame is bloody when there’s failure.
Observing the Hall of Fame career of Troy Aikman from start to finish was a good education for most of us in the local media.
As a kid off the UCLA streets in 1989, there could not have been a better quarterbacking specimen. Immense confidence combined with immense talent.
But as an NFL rookie, Aikman was also on a collision course with reality. In other words, instant failure.
Talking to Aikman that year, it didn’t take long to understand just how important quarterback coach Jerry Rhome had quickly become in Aikman’s confused football life.
Rhome was his friend, his confidant, his private shoulder.
To this day, Aikman will tell you he might not have made it at Valley Ranch without Rhome being there in the early days. Babe Laufenberg, a backup quarterback at the time, and Aikman’s friend, also will testify as an expert witness in this case.
When Rhome was suddenly gone after that first year, Aikman took it personally. He had lost a friend and a mentor. A year later, however, good mojo struck again. Norv Turner showed up as Jimmy Johnson’s offensive coordinator.
There was an instant Aikman-Turner bonding. The rest would become Cowboys and NFL history.
But what I’m saying is if a cool-hand gunner like Aikman still needed one of those special people to boost his confidence and his career, it seems to be a safe bet that most successful quarterbacks are the same.
Just because Romo doesn’t have Aikman’s physical gifts, or just because David Lee doesn’t have Turner’s reputation as an offensive guru, that doesn’t mean this week’s departure shouldn’t be viewed with some skepticism.
But also don’t get carried away with sinister grassy-knoll thoughts.
Lee parted on excellent terms with Bill Parcells, who wanted to keep him but still couldn’t guarantee who would be next season’s head coach of the Cowboys.
Is it that hard ?
So this is not a crime scene. There is nothing to see here, folks. Move along, please.
Lee had previous coaching ties to the University of Arkansas, and Houston Nutt up there is currently involved in a mess. Nutt needed an offensive coordinator who would bring instant credibility. Big money was being offered to Lee. Actually, the biggest money of his coaching life.
With his contract up, and with Parcells remaining uncertain, Lee did what he had to do. He rejoined the Pig People, with the blessing of Parcells, who advised Lee it would be in his best interests to take the job.
Romo, however, lost his man. And the Cowboys lost, at least according to several Valley Ranch employees, “the best quarterback technician” they’d ever worked with.
The two coaches most responsible for developing Romo over the previous three seasons — Sean Payton and Lee — now have left the building.
Lee was first noticed here in 2003. It was Parcells’ first season, and one of his staff hires as quarterback coach was David Lee, which meant little to most of us at the time.
Not until Quincy Carter suddenly resembled a real quarterback, which was a total change from previous seasons.
How, I asked, did the Q become fundamentally sound with his delivery ? OK, maybe he wasn’t perfect, but he was so much better.
The answer at Valley Ranch kept coming back, “David Lee.”
What none of us knew, however, is at the same time Lee was spending endless hours with another transformation project. He was also totally rebuilding the passing fundamentals of one Tony Romo.
“What I found in Tony was a good pupil, a willing pupil with a great attitude,” Lee said this week. He also admitted to taking frequent night-time phone calls from Romo, who wanted to go find an open spot of ground to throw.
“I still have the bruises on my hands from catching all those passes,” Lee laughed.
But he was doing all this for a thirdstring quarterback whose career, if you could call it a career, was hanging by a thread.
“We totally changed everything about Tony once he got here, “ Lee said. “ To do that involves muscle memory. Muscle memory requires like 10, 000 throws. And the more Tony wanted to throw on his own, the more I was willing to be his receiver.”
As Romo improved, he gradually became a guy Parcells was keeping his eye on for the future.
Then a strange thing happened last off-season. Parcells demoted Lee from quarterback coach to something called offensive quality control coach. The new hire at quarterbacks coach was Chris Palmer, a Parcells crony from previous stops.
Palmer, no doubt, was a Drew Bledsoe guy. He was Bledsoe’s quarterbacks coach with the New England Patriots. What that hire said, at least to me, was that Bledsoe was the quarterback for the 2006 season. The Romo bandwagon would not be rolling. With the high expectations around Valley Ranch at the time, I didn’t find the Palmer hire to be unusual, except it was unfair to Lee.
Now, however, we know different about what 2006 would mean for Romo. And in December, when Romo’s mechanics seemed to get out of whack, the same mechanics he’d had drilled in his head for three years by one coach, well, Lee was not coaching the position any longer. Parcells needed Romo’s guy, the guy he had demoted.
Lee, however, doesn’t dwell on that. He is a total Parcells disciple.
Lee and his wife will be Romo’s guests in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. That’s a “thank you” from Romo.
Cow fandom would be wise to offer a “thank you” of its own.

"Blackhawk Down's" nefarious Aideed clan back in charge, thanks to the Bush administration

2007-01-10T10:21:00.000-06:00

Gen. Mohamed Farah Aideed, late warlord who was the focus of the American raid depicted in the movie "Blackhawk Down", now has his former associates, including financial backer Osman Hassan Ali Atto and Aideed's son and successor, Hussein Farah Aideed in power as part of the "official" government of Somalia lately triumphing over an Islamic faction, al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (Islamic Unity), with Ethiopian and American aid and arms, and troops supporting the sweep from Baidoa to Mogadishu southward. In other words, any American whose blood boiled witnessing the bodies of slain American pilots dragged through the streets, now have lived to see the Republican disaster known as the Younger Bush administration and son of Elder Bush who first commited American troops to Somalia after his defeat in a reelection bid in 1992(losing to AR fav son Bill Clinton) has aided the Aideed clan in regaining "respectability" in the eyes of US policy-makers. Approximately 20 Americans died, including 18 Rangers and possibly as many as 1,000 Aideed loyalists and bystanders perished on the bloody urban battleground.

I'm not saying that I'm outraged, Aideed, who went by the name Hussein Farah(Prime Minister of Somalian unity government is Hassan Abshir Farah) while a serving member of the USMC in Somalia prior to the bloody showdown/ambush/whatever you want to call it(the young Farah Aideed fled to California to avoid the bloodlet in Somalia) . He took over for his father, slain in a battle in 1996, as head of the clan. Aideed the Younger hasn't publicly chastised his clan for the incident. Perhaps he believes 1,000 lives is a worthy trade; dunno about his predilection. Politically, he must preserve the sacred memory of that clan of their desecration of American corpses following the battle or he might be ousted and killed as clan leader. Aideed can be very useful to Unocal and Conoco, and other oil interests salivating over the chance to drill for Somali oil,i.e., the executive branch of the US government. I wonder how many Americans who would seek vengeance on that clan for the desecrations of the American dead know their "war hero" Bush is responsible for the Ethiopian push into Somalia and the employment of American airpower to place the Farahs and Aideeds back into power in Somalia? Politically, there's not a lot of choice, unless one buys the necessity argument for ousting al-Ittihad while far more dangerous terror groups operate freely and independently of the Islamic courts.

I know this particular phase of the conflict has oil at the essence of this push. Somalia has oil discovered a generation ago, but left unsevered because of the oil glut of supply in the early 80s. A friendly, secular government in Somalia is welcome, but the underlying reasons will always include oil. $200 barrels of oil would cripple our nation and possibly lead to more dangerous conflicts of national survival, so I don't truly dismiss oil availability as a valid excuse for warmaking, speaking strategically, but I am irked by this disastrous decision to invade Iraq. If oil was the primary impetus for this invasion and somehow this notion is proved, Bush should be impeached and heads should roll. SOMALIA IS NOT IRAQ! Somalia(as was Vietnam, actually) is a backwater that can only produce a barely negligible effect on the world situation. Iraq is in the epicenter of some very dangerous circumstances that can lead to horrifying consequences with diplomatic and military missteps.

The plot continues to thicken....

Estimated death toll in Iraq, number of homicides in U.S. not far apart

2007-01-08T11:19:00.000-06:00

In an article on Raw Story, the Iraqi death toll for 2006 is estimated to be 23,000. The estimated 2006 population of Iraq was 27 million, so 1 percent of the population was killed and I have no idea if there's a scientific ratio for every death, how many leave. The US suffered approximately 16,500 homicides per year since 2001, which is a dramatic improvement from the bloody, early nineties when 20,000+ were killed for a 5 year period. The US population is now estimated at 300 million, so it's much less than 1 percent. Perhaps that's why we tolerate the highest murder rate in the industrialized world.

To me, it's sad to have the numbers of homicides in this nation and seemingly nothing, with some glowing exceptions, such as NYC, where rates have been dramatically reduced after the initiative to get tough with petty crimes in order to curb violent crimes, such as turnstile jumpers in the subway who have no reason to pay, since they're seeking a robbery (or worse) victim, has been done to further reduce homicides. The numbers have dropped and held from the high numbers in the early nineties and the late 70s record heights. There have been a number of theories posited as to why the rate has dropped including the controversial Freakonomics theory that population controls on teenage pregnancy in the UK would be the first part of a solution to a future potential crime problem. Some argue that the Clinton administrations' crime bill that provided funding for approximately 100,000 additional officers in the streets and creative initiatives such as the "exile" program for those who engage in illegal drug transactions while armed with a handgun, particularly, where the perpetrator would be subject to Federal justice and possibly be shipped far from home, thereby "exiling" him to a future of a minimum 5 years in the system with no hope for parole and few visits from relatives who likely can't leave Richmond, VA for a federal prison 300+ miles away for instance, had a profound impact.

Nevertheless, it's sad to have such similar numbers in homicide numbers, despite the fact that our population dwarfs that of Iraq. Were 20,000 people killed in the Irish Troubles from 1969 to 2006 in Northern Ireland? Not even close to one year in "peaceful" America. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. Approximately 3,600 died in the Troubles in 37 years. Granted, it wasn't an outright conflict, but was a terror campaign by Catholics and Protestant paramilitarists alike(in addition to the government's police and troops. Iraq would welcome such quiet these days.

No hope for greater civility in the near future, not even amongst our own countrymen. Not to forget that the Bush administration has defunded the highly successful initiatives for anti-gang projects in the beleaguered cities of America.

Hogs lose another bowl game

2007-01-01T15:38:00.000-06:00

As Houston Nutt's last decent season, 1998, he ends his season with consecutive losses. The weak link this year, alleged special teams "coach", James Shibest and a fat, unathletic excuse for a kicker, Jeremy Davis. Jeremy, I believe Missouri Southern needs someone to miss chip-shot field goals and extra points. Is Hendrix College still considering fielding a football team? I believe Davis would fail to make the cut if he tried out. Davis has missed 6 of his last 8 field goals for the season. Three consecutive losses because of special teams miscues including the facemask penalty on Goode that practically sealed the Hogs fate after pinning the Badgers inside their own 15 late in the game are inexcusable. James Shibest should be reassigned on the Hogs staff or fired. He has been a failure at coaching his position and he should be treated accordingly.

Let's all hope the Hogs find a qb next season. I have no hope for Casey "Just Short Every Time on the Long Passes" Dick. Every deep ball he throws short or he throws it 10 yards past the receiver. Mustain MUST put it together this spring and fall or we'll have three talking heads in the booth talking about "what if" the Hogs had a real qb all next season. I'm certain Frank Broyles would find Shibest responsible for the past three losses sealed by sloppy special teams disasters and fire him. Nutt has to pull the plug on Shibest and find a legitimate special teams coach. Is Ken Turner still available? Last I heard, Ken lives in Arkadelphia, Houston. Ken Hatfield was an excellent special teams coach when he was an assistant and I hear he's moving back to NW AR, so give him a call, Houston.

Wisconsin's defensive strategy was not to outmaneuver themselves against speedsters Jones and McFadden and they held their positions and rarely overpursued the football. Also, the field conditions took away the most effective tool of our great backs, the cutback. They slipped and slid all day and Jones still managed to gain 150+ yards and McFadden gained a "meager" 90+ yards rushing. The Badgers defense refused to help the Arkansas rush attack as so many opponents have done this season. Herring made some crucial adjustments after the Badgers tweaked their offense in the first half and scored all their points. The Badgers were hapless offensively except for Arkansas penalties that accounted for at least 130 yards and took away a great roll of the punt late and some tenacious man-to-man defense in the 2nd half.

There's a lot of upside to this Hog team, but I'm tired of losing bowl games. Oh well, even the GREAT Notre Dame has lost 8 consecutive bowl games, largely because their revenue generation value has had them placed in bowl games in which they simply didn't deserve to play. That's not quite the story for Nutt's tenure, but severe weaknesses at qb and in the special teams, specifically the field goal and extra point game, has been his Achilles'. I hope the entire staff except for weak link James Shibest returns next season and another qb prospect in recruiting would be nice to put some pressure on both Dick and Mustain. Dick just doesn't posess the passing accuracy of Mustain. He needs to get to work to maintain ANY chance of starting in the future as anything but the "DeBerg" qb, i.e., the marginal qb(no offense to DeBerg, who had a great late career run with the Chiefs, but he was NO Joe Montana--who supplanted Steve with the Niners and Chiefs) who holds down the position until the "franchise" qb progresses to starter or a real qb arrives.

Matt Jones was never a real qb, but his wheels and instincts gave the Hogs their best chance to win. It is time for Nutt to find a true answer at starting qb and he, Malzahn, and Wood have got to get through to these qbs in the off season and make them assets instead of obvious liabilities. Paul MacGuire stated several times during the Cap One broadcast that "if only" the Hogs had a qb, they'd be much more fun to watch today and D-Mc might have had more yardage as well as Jones.

The only thing that bothers me about next year is the lack of non-conference opponent that will help with the BCS ratings. We've got to win them all to get a shot, even then, we will need help from opponents of the media darlings such as ND, Michigan, USC, and OH State. Speaking of USC, it would have been nice to have had a legitimate starting qb against them this year. That way, the score could have been 38-21 SC, but at least that's not 50-14. Let's hope to pick up some more great athletes this recruiting season. I'm happy with the commitments all ready in the bag(assuming no one 'de-commits'). We need some bigger asses for both lines and another legitimate qb prospect. With Danny Nutt coaching running backs, I suspect we'll add yet another great back for the stable next year. Smith could be more important next year and a healthy Hillis would be welcome. Mitchell and Anderson will anchor a fine d-line returning next year, as long as we find someone else to man the middle like Jackson. Keith Jackson Jr. really turned up his intensity this year after a slow start and will need to be replaced with a taller, quicker specimen who is also 300 pounds plus (ah, dream a dream of bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter d -linemen--not that I see any morons on this year's d-line--I've witnessed great instincts and excellent prep in the film room and practice field for this bunch, particularly when early in the game Herring was spotted yelling at his kids to get the hands high, like a great b-ball coach would adjure all game long and we started batting down balls and Jackson got the int).

OK, Stan, all eyes on the Hogs. Let's never lose to Bucknell again, who lost last week to UCA(that's right, Central Arkansas from Conway beat the team the put us out last season). Granted, last year's Bucknell is better than this season's, but a good coach would have beaten Bucknell with our kids last year. I'm glad Heath earned another season because I'd have hated to see yet another b-ball coaching change. However, I see in Heath a coach who just can't quite get through to his kids who was hapless to help his kids adjust against Mizzou or Tx Tech. Mizzou employed a very recognizable defensive strategy with which Heath seemed unfamiliar. My God, Nolan Richardson's teams dominated the airwaves through most of his career with UA and he SHOULD have recognized the fact that Nolan's and now Anderson's kids will trail the ball handler down the floor and wait to snag the ball away when it's put on the floor or a pass is attempted. Heath NEVER adjusted and kept Gary "Turnover Waiting to Happen" Ervan in the game to make certain he lost by 20.

Saddam executed

2006-12-30T10:59:00.000-06:00

Finally, at long last, a troublesome Islamic head of state has been executed by those who toppled him. What has changed? Likely, not much has changed as the violence has continued to steadily escalate and costs the lives of scores of Iraqis and Americans alike each month. The Iraqis, obviously, are suffering the worst of the bloodshed and in a land of long memories, that cannot be good for those of us who have nearly reached middle age who would like to see a more peaceful world emerge. Unfortunately, total peace will never be achieved by less-than-supernatural means, nor will it be achieved by Armageddon-esque religious frenzy and a neurotic reliance on what one has learned in Sunday school for divining the future and acting to insure such an outcome.

Hurrah! Americans finally have the head of the man so many decided would make a great scapegoat for all the world's problems after the unimaginable disaster suffered in 2001. Saddam was no saint, but he wasn't a religious fanatic. He was a power fanatic who threatened the region's stability, but the old stability is certainly preferable to the ulcerative crisis we now have on our hands. Watching the video footage of the last moments of Saddam's life weren't the least bit satisfying for all the harm caused by his past invasions of his neighbors and resulting disastrous neo-con idea to invade. All I saw was a man going to an imminent death whilst the executioners casually prepared his neck for the break. The Islamic way has certainly prevailed upon Saddam, hated and beloved for allowing the U.S. an opportunity to rationalize an all-out invasion and the pitiful attempt at defending Iraq from the American force; beloved by many Sunnis as the symbol of the last days of their faction's control of the military and the government. Perhaps more violence will result from Saddam's death, but at least he's easily forgettable, since he failed to defend his nation diplomatically or militarily and thus suffered the failure's accustomed fate in Islamic politics.

As Joseph Campbell described the cultural and religious dynamic of "vegetative" societies, such as jungle culture's human sacrifice bloodlust: More death equals more life. Where a carcass decomposes, a new plant life springs forth. Sad analogy, but certainly the only possible connection to make. Unfortunately, no one seems to have complete control of what springs forth from the fertilization provided by that carcass. A more dangerous, less rational life might spring forth and ravage the land. A more vindictive, more organized, more capable, more ruthless leader might emerge from this Iraq fiasco. So far, the only possible outcome with the current circumstances is for the emergence of yet another ruthless strongman with more ambitious subordinates as Saddam when appointed vice president to Pres. al-Bakr. Al-Bakr likely was killed by Saddam in 1982. Saddam was killed by al-Maliki's, the Shiite "leader" of Iraq, government propped up by American forces. Good riddance, Saddam. I hope your ouster, capture, conviction, and death don't raise yet another martyr for the Islamic world to rally round.

The world will never sicken at the image of a human death. With all the talk I've heard from other ordinary Americans who really pay attention to the world's events, I have to believe we get the murderous society we deserve because deep down, we don't really care about other people in our own nation, much less the murderous suffering of the poor folks in Iraq who are being kidnapped, blown to bits, beheaded, shot, or sliced and diced in the disarray that plagues Iraq. The U.S. is THE MOST DANGEROUS society in the industrialized West. Our murder rate is comparable to South Africa's 2o,000 homicides per year. We should be embarrased by our lack of civility. Perhaps a move toward more civility in government in the middle east will someday emerge from folks who are downright tired of random and concerted murder and mayhem. I see that sort of sentiment also encouraging a more brutal dicatatorship akin to the Taliban emerging in places we'd never believe could descend into such a radical existence and folks gladly retreat into the shadows to acquiesce to such a government because it manages to impose a sense of order on the chaos, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan with help from ISI and Pakistani troops. Is a nation so incapable of solving its own social ills capable of providing comfort and stability for the ordinary Iraqis whose minds must be swayed to cease taking part and acquiescing to the violence before anything will change. Diminishing a will to fight can't be achieved exclusively through force of arms. Changing minds is crucial.

Let's hope a bloodier wave of violence doesn't result from this execution.

Don Elkins leaving NW AR

2006-12-26T12:53:00.000-06:00

A word about the departure of Don Elkins for greener pastures on the east coast. Don arrived in this market to anchor the new newscast on the NBC affiliate in town and he brought with him an air of dignity in a market offering Craig Cannon and Bur Edson as anchors for the ABC and CBS affiliates. I was really eager to see if another competitor could shake up the broadcast news in the area. I have remained as a normal watcher of the KNWA newscast despite the decidedly unprofessional turn witnessed of late with the sports jock takeover of practically the entire newscast. Granted, KNWA never did shake up the market, but Don Elkins did manage to shake up the way NW AR was represented politically in the blogosphere. The blogosphere in the area still predominately is polluted by right wing hacks and wackos, but Arkansas Tonight was a beacon in the stultifying "conservative" worldview shared by a majority of voters in the area as Holt's embarassingly large margin of victory proves for Benton County especially.

Elkins was unafraid to label himself moderate and looking at his links, he's harbored a more liberal viewpoint as well on his Arkansas Tonight radio show and blog. NW AR needed that kind of fortification for those of us who are now full-fledged Democrats who previously had voted for Republican candidates until 1992, when I voted third party until the 2000 election when I latched on to Gore's campaign and decided to call myself a Democrat and campaign for Democratic causes from that cycle forward. I would like to personally thank Don for his work to increase the level of debate as opposed to amping the level of demagoguery which so often drowns out reasonable arguments and queries about real issues and the reality of the candidate's capacity to serve well. He will not be replaced any time soon, as we will lose the brevity of reason on KFAY before they turn the keys over to the RNC hatchet opinionists for 20+ hours each day. The moderate and left-leaning folks in our community will be losing a leader in the community and a voice of reason within the media community of this region which is decidedly pro-GOP.

Good luck to Don and his family as they leave one of the most wonderful regions in the nation to live. You've done some good things for our community and I don't believe we'll realize how important you were until you're gone. KNWA produces a terrible newscast without you and I fear that KFAY and the NW AR blogosphere will be so much worse without your presence in this community. God bless.

End of year/holiday season ramble

2006-12-16T11:19:00.000-06:00

The end of 2006 is ahead. Certainly the year has been both memorable and forgettable. Personally, the latter half of 2006 has been very good to me from a professional perspective, but the year in the political realm has been very forgettable for the upsets that seem to loom larger by the hour, yet the elections of 2006 were satisfactory. Unfortunately, the Democratic sweep was precipitated by dire, unfortunate circumstances for America and the world body politic. A generation of destructive warfare of varying degrees has been unleashed by 9/11, the Afghan War, and the ill-conceived Iraq invasion and rapidly deteriorating expectations for the occupation. What is to become of this world if some things don't start working in favor of relative peace and calm? I really don't care to ponder such disasters as seem to loom over the horizon if great leaders don't soon emerge who can lead us through these crises with satisfactory endings.

Needless to say, Boy George is NOT that leader. Dubya is so far out of his element, it actually hurts to watch the so-called "leader of the free world[what's left of it]" stumble and bumble so horribly. It's embarassing as an American to believe that my fellow countrymen elected this man twice. Fortunately, we ARE fellow countrymen who know better than to destroy our nation over political/ethnic/religious disagreements that usually get no worse than some hurt feelings or a bloody nose instead of carbombs at a shopping center, department store, or any other gathering place. I am thankful we Americans can set a high standard for political discourse within our borders (except, of course, for our violent society--most violent in the "free world") while making such poor decisions on how to conduct the "war on terror" internationally. The U.S. has more often been on the "winning" side of some of the bloodier wars of the past 100 or so years because we quickly surmised the need to fight the battles with guns AND diplomacy. The Cold War would have been a failed enterprise had the U.S. not begun the post-WW II global intervention with the Marshall Plan and MacArthur's brilliant command of the Japanese occupation that provided us a valued ally for peace and prosperity for generations. Bravo to American policy makers for reaching out to Vietnam, a possible valued ally to check China's ambitions. Vietnam couldn't possibly withstand a full-fledged invasion force with ample reserves if China were to ever feel the need to cross into Vietnam as its half-hearted invasion of 1979 merely to prove a point to the Kremlin and newly its unified ally Vietnam. Yet, Vietnam could become another friendly presence in eastern Asia for the U.S. The only downside is there's yet another Asian country with subsistence wages to undermine American manufacturing. What's going to happen when Chinese companies enriched by the efficacy of Wal Mart to bully its suppliers to manufacture in China decide to make bids for companies like, God forbid, Wal Mart itself? What happens if China pulls the plug on financing of the American debt that most certainly includes the war effort? How did we put ourselves in such a pitiful position?
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2007 must be better than 2006 or else we're in for a global catastrophe the likes of which we've never endured at any point in history, since atomic weapons that seem to be so easily acquired these days by practically any country including an impoverished militarist nation like Pakistan. It's not healthy to dwell too much on troubling political futures. The holidays and the end of the year have always been a time when I find myself remembering the past and those who have died who had a part in my life. The older one gets, the more folks to remember in that way each year. Besides, we're all born dying and nothing about that will ever change. When I was a child, my family would gather for my father's family a week or two before Christmas and my mom's family on Christmas Day. Thanksgiving Day was always my mom's family who hosted the gathering we attended. Today, I have very little to do with extended family because it's not a good idea, plus I didn't care for too many of my cousins, aunts, or uncles. It's difficult enough to deal with my own family and I rarely attend holiday gatherings because I live rather far away and I have a busy life. I live a private life and I don't care for too much intrusion from family members.
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Over the past 5 years, I've learned of the deaths of some of my closest friends from the grades. I long ago left my hometown as thousands over the past 2o+ years have fled the Arkansas Delta region. Life in the Mississippi River valley just cannot be as satisfying as living on the Ozark plateau and I plan to never return to my home county. Folks must learn to live well. Only get one chance at it. I work long hours with intense pressure at times, but I've learned to enjoy life at least in the Sisyphean sense(push rock up hill, rock rolls back down hill, Sisyphus pushes rock up hill again endlessly; yet he's still able to smile--Camus). Albert Camus posits that the fundamental question humans all must answer is whether to commit suicide. Life is worthy, in his view, of living because to believe or act otherwise would be complicit with the worst evil of humanity, death. Life is a struggle against death and essentially, we should all act in accord with a love for life affirming life, not defiling it. Death is efficient enough to do its own bidding-it doesn't need humanity contributing to death of fellow humans. These days, the so-called pro-life, pro-gun, pro-war faction has done more to defile life than affirm it in our nation and across the globe. I'm not the type of person who wants to curb gun rights any more than the next guy or who doesn't our enemies to be stopped militarily if at all possible, but trying to bring about the end of the world by preaching a political doctrine of war as some sort of religious observance is the height of insanity. Americans should know better and believe better than al-Qaeda or Taliban sympathizers or the neurotic mahdi-expecting Shiites of Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Americans are better than violent theocrats in the Islamic world. Let's keep it that way.

America's new leadership of next year or the end of Dubya's failed presidency must seek real diplomatic solutions as well as the use of force to succeed. Merely continuing a fight in Iraq without seeking opportunities to lower the desire to fight amongst the folks whom we are killing and those who are killing our people and the people of Iraq is a fool's choice. Dubya sought to improve or cement his father's stature for posterity by running for president and boy has he succeeded. HW looks a whole lot better about his decision not to push toward Baghdad in 1991, which turned out to be the wisest decision by an American president in many years. Hopefully, the sinister figure of Bush's Florida "victory" in 2000, James Baker, can take control of the Dubya White House and stir the boy dunce to pull his head out of his posterior and allow smarter people(or at least less cavalier) than Rove, Cheney, or Rumsfeld to run his White House. I really think James Baker is an easily reviled figure, but he certainly has a decent track record despite some of the dirty dealing of HW over the years and his dirty family past.
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Houston Nutt saved his job as Razorbacks head coach by riding the back of McFadden and some imaginative input by high school coaching whiz Gus Malzahn. Hopefully, Damien Williams decided to leave because he wants to explore other areas of the country and not because he didn't get the ball enough. Unfortunately, I believe it's merely the latter and that makes him a selfish kid who can't be happy for his team's success and his blocking prowess which made him rather important to our offense. Damien dropped his share of crucial passes, so it's not as if he wasn't given chances to have a bigger impact and get more throws his way. He's a 19 year-old freshman, so he's entitled his mistakes whether the mistake was decommitting to Florida and opting for Arkansas or leaving the Hogs for another team is to be determined. If he plays on another SEC team, I hope a Hog defender gives him a proper greeting several times, but I wish him no injury or ill and I hope he finds what he believes will make him happy.

Congrats Coach Nutt. You did a fine job this year. I hope an improved Mustain who has uncanny accuracy throwing the football will take the job from a woefully inadequate Casey Dick. Dick's accuracy is just a shade better than Robert Johnson and that's not good enough for consistent SEC success. McFadden is a special player and he deserves an effort from his team to earn him another chance at the Heisman next year. These Hogs are tough-minded kids and I would like to see them finally break through and win the SEC championship game next year. Mustain shouldn't get so upset about the future. He wasn't ready for a 12+ game schedule among some of the stiffest defenses in America. If Dick had not been injured in summer and fall, he would have started every game this year. Mustain has had a taste of big-time football and he'll build on that for next year. These children might be incredible physical specimens, but they're still children learning to live successfully in society, so upsets and mistakes will occur.
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Underwood whine: Letter to the editor from a supporter

2006-11-25T10:10:00.000-06:00

The continuing saga of Bill Underwood and his disdain for 300,000 potential customers milling around Dickson Street finally has another citizen speaking out publicly in favor of forcing Bikes Blues and BarBQ out of downtown Fayetteville. Rob Kennedy (dunno who he is) wrote a letter to the editor today in support of his "lifelong" friend Bill Underwood in the NW AR Times.

The body of Kennedy's letter is as follows:

"The truth is that moving the event to another location, one that doesn’t block off Dickson Street for four days, will not harm anyone in any way like Mack tries to say. He claims that the poor little bars on Dickson Street make all their money in the fall and then scrape by for the rest of the year like retailers do with Christmas sales. I live a block away from Dickson Street and see it packed winter, summer, spring and fall. If a place isn’t making any money it’s not because there aren’t enough customers; it’s because they aren’t competitive. Beer tents, food vendors, live music, motorcycle shows, etc. aren’t held in any of the bars or restaurants, save Jose’s and other sanctioned venue’s[sic]."

The italicized sentence does more to offend rather than help the cause of his friendUnderwood. Maybe Underwood should spend more time inventing ways to take advantage of 300,000 potential customers milling around downtown rather than whining about 300,000 potential customers on Dickson. Maybe Bill needs to devise a way to be competitive for 4 days in September. I am astounded that one weekend out of the year has such a dramatic impact on a friggin jewelry store. The Underwood jewels have been included in schwag bags in Hollywood; a jeweler of Underwood's "stature" shouldn't be so dependent on one weekend in September.

Jeweler's ads have been some of the real "gems" of television and radio in this region such as David Justus' 34 hour trip to Antwerp to save the jewelry customers of NW AR and beyond(which is another plus for Underwood one might believe in establishing a clientele beyond NW AR who might return each Septmeber to the lovely building along Dickson that houses his store) where he felt bad, he smelled bad, he just wanted to get some sleep...til he saw the DIAMONDS! Classic. And Underwood's famed "no leaky diamonds" campaign of yore or his new "beauty grade"-o-meter which will "prove" to you what a beautiful diamond you'll be purchasing. What is Underwood looking for here...a payoff? Does he want to share in any proceeds of BBB? What does he seek to gain by shooing away a 4 day event held within a 365(6) day period each year? I'm not convinced he's not looking for some kind of financial benefit other than attracting 300,000 potential customers to Dickson Street he seems to have no idea of how to attract to his store to make a purchase. Today's Harley riders are hardly the infamous crowd of Harley riders of yesterday who were afoul of the law and basically poor and unable to afford an "Underwood" diamond. Many well-off folks are the only folks who can afford a Harley these days. In other words, these folks have disposable income that could be used to purchase luxury items like Underwood's jewelry.

It's time to call Underwood's hand and ask him what it is he really hopes to gain by forcing BBB to (God forbid) Drake Field or wherever he believes it will continue to grow. The BB King concert I attended there could have turned into a drunken riot had the citizens who attended not displayed a great deal of patience exiting the one gate for all to enter or exit. Such great planning. Where else will this event be held in Fayetteville? BBB has farmed out venues to Randall Tyson Track complex, the NW AR Mall, and Drake Field . If the festival grows more, it will naturally spread to the whole city, but still must remain centered in downtown Fayetteville including Dickson Street to Underwood's chagrin. Underwood's complaint is getting such ink because he is a major advertiser in the region for media interests and this region's news outlets are not going to step on his toes and cause him to drop all ads for one outlet or other. His level of ad spending does betray how tough the business is, but he needs to level with everyone and truly EXPLAIN the damage to his business because it sounds like a big joke for him to whine about a 4 day period where Dickson Street is innundated with humanity and motor bikes.

All I've heard from Underwood and his supporter is noise. Time to hear the true aim of Underwood. It would be nice to hear some his private conversations about the subject which might betray other reasons for his disdain for the festival. He makes a dollars argument because it might engender more public sympathy for his private position which might have nothing to do with dollars.

Would hanging Saddam be yet another unwise decision by this failed administration

2006-11-04T10:34:00.000-06:00

From AP:
AP Top News at 11:25 a.m. EST
Baghdad on Alert Awaiting Saddam Verdict
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. and Iraqi forces drastically tightened security across Baghdad on Saturday in advance of the expected guilty verdict against Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqi prime minister said he hoped the ousted dictator will "get what he deserves." Saddam has been on trial for murder and crimes against humanity and, if convicted, could be sentenced to death by hanging. Violence is already running high, with police finding the bodies of 87 torture victims throughout the capital between 6 a.m. Thursday and 6 p.m. Friday. Across Iraq, at least 16 people were killed or found dead on Saturday.

What in the hell is going to happen if Saddam gets hanged? Our troops have just endured one of the worst months for casualties and have recently abandoned a Shiite community to Muqtada al- Sadr, chief "architect"(among others) of the Shiite campaign to finally break the back of Sunni power ethnically cleansing areas under his control or influence of Sunni faithful. Since the U.S. unwisely took control of the war effort against Viet Minh forces for the bloody, inept French administrators, our nation has committed a series of blunders including the Iraq invasion. The second major Bush blunder is the acquiescence of the Israeli destruction of an emerging democratic government in Lebanon fresh off the incredible victory achieved after the Syrians murdered beloved Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafiki Hariri, who had planned a political comeback and hopes for curbing the influence of Syrian interests, and Syrian troops forced to leave in April 2005 after waves of protests against the assassination. The third major Bush blunder is practically abandoning Afghanistan to a reemerging Taliban. We could certainly have used more than 15-20,00 troops there after the fall of the Taliban in 2002 instead of committing our assets to a needless invasion of Iraq which seems to have been something this adminsitration desired PRIOR to the attacks on Manhattan. The fourth major blunder is the ineptitude of the Bush administration in dealing with N. Korea when DubyaDick pulled the plug on Powell's hope to continue negotiations begun in the Clinton administration seeking to curb Kim Jong-Il's plans for building nuclear armaments.

My view in this case is that if the Bush administration doesn't try to postpone execution of Saddam when he's found guilty of ordering the murders of Shiites, they should outright refuse to allow it. Shiites all want Saddam dead, but Sunnis will likely intensify their attacks forcing Shiites to murder still more Sunnis causing one hell of a conflagration, as if our troops need any more of that sort of violence. Iraq is unlike Vietnam in that there was no civil war taking place under the firm, bloody hand of Saddam. After the American invasion, there is a bloody destabilizing civil war which has given every hateful character in the global saga of Islamic radicalism a chance to join in the fray fighting literally for influence much like Afghanistan encountered after the Soviets were finally ousted. The Bush administration have created history with bloody consequences for Americans just as Carter and Reagan unwittingly(perhaps) achieved by aiding Islamic fundamentalists who sought global revolts against western-sympathizing leaders of Islamic nations. The Soviets invaded Kabul in RESPONSE to the Islamic fundamentalist revolution in Iran and hoped to quell such movements before the U.S.S.R's heavily Islamic southern satellite states erupted in the same kind of violence. The Soviets correctly assessed the impact of Khomeini's victory over western interests in ousting the Shah. Yeltsin and Putin have had their hands tied in oil-rich Chechnya throughout their administrations and have unwisely committed terrible atrocities and have blundered militarily in painful fashion wasting lives of their young people needlessly (ever the case for Soviet or czarist leadership).

Saddam's death must threaten a number of scary scenarios for actual war planners who actually have experience in combat, unlike their civilian leadership in the White House. Cheney wasn't about to expose his ass to combat, nor was HW about to let little Dubya get smoked by the notorious commie SAMs in the skies of Viet Nam. Let Saddam rot peacefully, quietly in jail for the rest of his life if his death is going to increase the risks that Iraq will overflow with worse violence and spread throughout the middle east and southern Asia. Iran has already gained another veritable province where once their influence was limited by a ruthless dictator and al-Qaeda gained real influence in a nation where a ruthless dictator correctly feared they would kill him in an instant if he let down his guard. Iraq's instability can achieve millennialist American fundamentalist Christians' desire to witness a bloody global conflict centered in the middle east, as long as they or their children don't have to fight it. A war of Armageddon proportions could kill us all with all the nutcase fundamentalists of the Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu faiths gaining influence and capacity to make war on those who don't share their beliefs. Edshu the Trickster is succeeding in his mission these days.

New construction around Fayetteville not bad; Vote November 7 for Democrats--Save America from Ruin

2006-10-22T12:37:00.000-05:00

The past week, our regional version of high-rise building has been popping up throughout our city. The Lindsey Building on Joyce had their ceremonial opening last week and it looks good. It is one of those ugly all-glass buildings with a strudy skeleton-brick facade on the front that makes it all look good in the new "financial" district of north Fayetteville near the Mall and CMN development. Also, notorious civic whiner Bill Underwood unveiled plans for their Dickson Street property along with AMA Realty and it looks good. Underwood, some might remember, tried to ruin Mt. Sequoyah by building a road over it conventiently allowing his Cliffs dwellers to have a pleasant route to their apartment that bypassed the (whisper:) south side of Fayetteville from downtown more easily than following Lafayette to Mission to Crossover to the Cliffs. Underwood also hates Bikes, Blues, and BBQ and can't seem to put his imaginative powers to work to produce stuff that those overweight yuppie Harley(and other brands) riders might want to spend their money for. Razorback and biker jewelry could be some quick-cash answers for Underwood's "lost weekend" in the jewelry business on BBBBQ weekend he could sell along the street in front of his centrally loacted store front(a nice looking builidng also).

Lindsey and Underwood deserve credit for their latest projects in Fayetteville where our aesthetic charm should be dove-tailed as they both seem to have done this time. More condos will offer a present base of potential consumers to save our downtown from the fate of other small cities which grew to become blighted larger cities throughout America with boarded-up, dangerous downtowns. Rupple Row also opened in west Fayetteville and offers yet another solution to check a potential for explosive, unnatural sprwal by promoting housing within the areas where utilities already exist. 1,900 sq. ft. townhomes on a road which might only have had a limited selection of uses that may have inclued duplex or apartment building. Thankfully, some local developers chose to test a new approach and I hope it's a beginning for that type of development in the future.

Fayetteville is doing a good job managing growth at this point in its civic history. Another pig-headed GOP follower like Ben Israel is also engaged in some nice projects to enhance the look of Fayetteville's cash-cow northern "financial" district. Kudos to all, except your overt support for Asa(!) like at Israel's Tuscan development touting his fav for guv at all Dixie properties. Growth is inevitable; flawed oversight of growth in Fayetteville IS NOT!
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VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS

Remember to vote Nov. 7 or absentee for two weeks prior. Let's send Lindsley Smith back to the ARLeg. The, let's send Boozman to the defense lobbying business, Asa(!) to the Homeland security lobbyist business, Holt back to the White Citizens Council he chaired in a previous life, Lagrone back to the pulpit, and Delay back to a hunter's ed course so he can own a license to hunt (or is he old enough to have been grandfathered and no longer forced to go through the hunter's ed course) for the first time to tickle the ears of his pro-gun, pro-hunt "allies" who actually hunt.

Vote for Smith(ARLeg), Beebe(Governor), Halter(Lt. Governor), McDaniel(AG), Daniels(Secy. of State --hold your nose while you vote), and little Woody Anderson(U.S. House) this November and let's begin to take back America from the self-righteous GOP morons who hold no regard for preserving our Constitution for another 220 years.

STEP system neglect, failure along Beaver Lake shore

2006-10-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I discussed the Spitzer-headlined development team seeking approval for their 25 story condo buildings along Beaver Lake off Highway 12 near Avoca. I believed then that STEP systems of that size on our water supply's shore is a bad idea. Turns out, we now have a recent example of what could go wrong with the decentralized septic systems. A public sewer line absolutely MUST be connected to the condo development if it ultimately happens. According to nwanews.com (a.k.a. the DoG),

"The trees and overgrown grass and weeds are growing in a sand filter, a gravel pit that is half of the decentralized sewer system at Sunset Bay, a subdivision east of Rogers. The system’s filters are supposed to be clear of vegetation so pumps can filter wastewater coming from Sunset Bay’s seven homes.
Five filters have been abandoned, leaving partially treated wastewater to drain into a nearby creek that runs south for 1, 000 feet before emptying directly into Beaver Lake.
“It’s essentially raw sewage,” said Allen, district manager for Benton County Water District No. 1. “This should have been mowed from day one.”
The water district isn’t responsible for the system because it doesn’t maintain the subdivision’s sewer system, Allen said. Sunset Bay’s property owners association was given that responsibility by developer Wesley Kent Neff, whose company, Summit One LLC, declared bankruptcy in September."

Not that Grandview Heights developers would ever declare bankruptcy and abandon the system's upkeep to the fates, but businesses fail each day across the globe and a business should NEVER be confused with a responsible government who answers to the public to the point of fatigue. A municipal sewer connection would always need to answer to the public and rarely file bankruptcy in comparison to scores of businesses. Our water supply and the clean disposal of waste should be a municipal responsibility. ADEQ blames county authorities for the lack of true oversight of STEP systems for subdivisions out of city limits and county officials blame ADEQ. That political hot-potato-passing should NEVER happen when it comes to preserving our safe drinking water supply. Raw sewage in Beaver Lake can in no way be spun to seem safe to promote a privatized overseer who could say "to hell with this upkeep bill, we'll pass the buck to the ethers...let the market take care of it." Fortunately for anti-government demagogues, their darling Pres. Bush is not held up to a business standard for whether he gets to keep his job. If Bush were a CEO, he would have been out on his assssss with his golden parachute to the sublime life of a retired wealthy CEO in Florida, the Bahamas, and the multiple other homes he or she has accumulated over the years.

Benton County should take charge of the issue and make certain this devlopment doesn't threaten our ciritcal water supply. It's time for a true Beaver Lake Water Authority to have government powers over building and development of every type within a certain distance from Beaver Lake. The creek is 1,000 feet from the lake that has been failing at Sunset Bay with 11 homes.

Jesus Camp: Christian equivalent to al-Aqsa, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, et al.

2006-09-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

I must comment on the Jesus Camp documentary because it confirms what I've believed about fundamentalist Christianity for years. Fundamentalist Christianity can't possibly co-exist with our representatvie democracy, which has so far survived for 220 years(since ratification of the Constitution), particularly if the nutjobs like"Pastor" Becky Fischer whose camp is the subject of the documentary begin to dominate the "faith". The excerpts I've seen explain it all. An associate of Fischer, who is unashamed to admit that she wishes she lived in the deadly middle east, since she cited examples from Palestinian and Pakistani madrasas(where future suicide bombers receive invaluable instruction preparing them to strap on a bomb, or receive further training in an Islamic terror camp)and the Israeli state as her inspiration for the "boot camp", urged the children to pray over a life-sized cutout of George W. Disaster and some children lay prostrate before the cutout. When I attended a fundamentalist church, the congregation would have agreed that such foolishness is tantamount to idolatry, considered a sin so important as to have been included in the Ten Commandments. The camp is called "Kids on Fire"located in, of all places on earth, Devil's Lake, ND. I believe the brainwash camp is most certainly a machination of the devil. If folks who agree with the teachings of the camp continue to steamroll America with its prescription for global mass suicide, everyone will know personally how demonic these people really are. Parents who subject their children to such abuse should be beaten because they have slipped beyond the aid of a good, stern talkin'-to, so a good Humean "bloody nose" might convey the message more properly.

Interesting to me is the fact that these fundamentalist wackos who want to see a catastrophic Asian land war, which our great Senator Fulbright tried to prevent, which has already begun to smolder awaiting the great spark for which bin-Laden would be priveleged to take credit with a repeat of his Twin Towers mass murder. The region from the fringe of the Mediterranean throughout the old Soviet steppe provinces into India and beginning to rumble through southeast Asia to the fringe of the Pacific Ocean threatens to begin a mindboggling cycle of warfare and fundamentalist Christians seem overjoyed by the developments. If the fundamentalists love to send American troops needlessly into harm's way, why don't they host "Enlistment Sundays" to complement their fav "Justice Sundays" designed to take over the Supreme Court for big business lawyers, who talk the right lingo about "Christianity" and "morality", to gain approval by the Senate. Enlistment Sunday can host recruiters from the Marines, Army, and National Guard ( sorry guys, the Air Force and Navy have plenty of personnel for this particular phase of the conflict---I say "phase" because Bush's disaster may inevitably spiral into the most spectacular blunder in American history since the American people decided he needed four MORE years to complete his demonic mission to destroy the earth) to sign up all those little Christian militant children eligible for delayed entry or immediate induction and their parents to fight the Iraq War and the growing threat of Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan looming as they teach their new adherents the lessons learned from the needless Iraq War. It is IMPOSSIBLE to kill every terrorist because they have an endless supply of theocratically abused peoples under theocratic, repressive governments who are quite taken by militant Islamic leaders who would destroy any Islamic government friendly to the west. The messianic militantism movement within all three of the dominant faiths is a disturbing feature of their faiths which must be tempored by reason and diplomacy.

The "all-or-none" approach to the world advocated by militantly dogmatic religious zealots offers a natural case study for what can happen when a group or a dictator proposes that he/she/they have ALL the right answers for how to "fix" what ails the earth's inhabitants. These enities know ALL the truth and we are all going to discover those truths one way or other. Dissent will be met with harsh consequences ranging from a bit of a physical "roughing up" to imprisonment to execution because they are callously "unenlightened" and show no proof that they'll ever be capable of learning their truths. The 20th Century is one giant roadmap for the ascension of such philosophical positions and their results. WW II is a great example of the pitfalls of the intolerant "all-or-none" dogmas (read The Rebel by Albert Camus for some further enlightenment), which feed on fear and instability, much like George Dubya's administration's exploitation of the American people after one of the most terrible events in American history. The aftermath of WW I and the Great Depression were easily exploited by untrustworthy people who unleashed a deadly demon for nearly a decade on the inhabitants of earth. Enough already!!!!!

Fat man in a yellow coat: John Hagee

2006-09-12T20:29:00.000-05:00

Flipping channels on a dull day, I happened upon a fat preacher in a yellow coat (see previous blog--obesity and religion, particularly fundamentalist sects) preaching war from the pulpit of his Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Hagee is now pushing for war with Iran to save America from destruction by Islam. Geez, Charles "the Hammer" Martel must be proud from his 1,100 year-old grave(not that Hagee would know, but Martel saved France and possibly all of western Europe from Islamic invaders based in Iberia in 732 A.D., not to be confused with pansies like Tom "the Hammer" DeLay. DeLay(aka Hottub Tom to his Christian party enthusiasts) is not exactly the picture of masculinity, much like the fat, yellow coat wearing proponent of "muscular" foreign policy radicalism Hagee.

There is a family photo of the Hagee family at his website and none of his youthful children and in-laws were donning military uniforms because someone else's children must die in these initial phases of his long anticipated battle of Armageddon cataclysmic orgy of death and destruction fundamentalists have believed in at least for the past 170 years(Counterpunch). Hagee is yet another chicken hawk bound and determined to get poor children killed in the middle east, while his children get into the "godly" business of raising a fortune for their financial well-being while they MUST still live on this earth awainting "rapture".

Hagee has been criticized in rational circles, beloved in fundamentalist "Christian Zionist" circles for his support for Israel with his group, Christians United For Israel . Now, Iran is on the Hagee radar and with his "godly" el presidente Bush in command of the nation's military assets, who knows if the notion of invasion is so far-fetched, along with Hagee's neocon cohorts like Bill Kristol (former adviser to Dan QUAYLE of all things---there's your first clue of who you're dealing with) rattling the sabers for more dead Americans whose names are NOT Kristol or Hagee. Not much has changed for chicken hawks throughout history who urge war and destruction without the first shred of circumspection or realistic assessments of what could go wrong. Chicken hawks urge war, then hide themselves and their beloved family members from serving as they'd have fellow countrymen serve.

In conclusion this afternoon of fat man in the yellow coat , Hagee sounded the alarm against Islamic folks migrating to America and the west in order to destroy it. I wonder how many imams over the years sounded the same alarm as western interests used the Islamic world's assets as personal possessions, particularly with Iran's experience with current day British Petroleum (known as Anglo-persian, then Anglo-Iranian Oil) who exploited Iran's oil wealth and paid almost nothing for the privilege, then got booted out of Iran by democratically elected Prime Minister Mussadiq and used Winston Churchill to ask the Eisenhower administration to help unseat Mussadiq and install the famously brutal and pusillanimous Shah of Iran in full control of the country.

Hagee is another "Christian Zionist" who believes all Jewish folks who don't believe Jesus to be the Messiah are bound for hell. Israeli PM Olmert doesn't really care that one of Israel's best "friends" in America believes he's going to hell unless he accepts Hagee's faith as long as America continues to provide $20 billion every five years for security assets. Hagee wants Israeli children to die in droves in order to satisfy his "godly" bloodlust and fulfil his neurotic "prophetic" worldview, which will usher in the Messiah and spare Hagee an actual physical death(you have to be a fundamentalist at one point in your life to understand what that means). It's all about fear with these "Christian" warriors. They don't fear much as long as someone else's kids are expected to fight this war for "national survival". Let's dump Hagee's fellow Texas Republicans(and national followers of their hateful brand of destructive politics) on the trashheap of history this November, then dump them from the presidency in 2008 for the very survival of our Constitutional government, saving it from Christian Reconstructionists who would be proud to serve Bush and dump all democratic elements forever and impose an Iranian-style(ironic, isn't it?) fundamentalist religious government.

Study: Being religious and being obese linked

2006-09-09T17:28:00.000-05:00

From ADG, this morning.
"Christian couch potatoes
On the way to the church picnic, some Christians may not be sidestepping one of the seven deadly sins: gluttony.
A new study surmises that among Christians in the United States — particularly Baptists, Pentecostals and Catholics — there is a significant relationship between being religious and being obese.
The study tracked about 2, 800 religious Americans of various denominations for eight years. Baptists, according to the study, were most likely to be obese, followed by Pentecostals, Catholics, Methodists and members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Denominations that stress physical health, such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Seventh-day Adventists, show low levels of obesity, according to the study. There is also a very low percentage of obese Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists in the United States, the study found. Because religion is often associated with positive health factors, such as lower blood pressure, stronger immune systems and less depression, the results of the study were somewhat surprising, said Purdue University sociology professor Kenneth E. Ferraro, a leader of the research. The study found a significant correlation between obesity and people who use religious media, such as television, radio and magazines. These “couch potato saints,” as the study calls them, tend to be less active and often watch “lots of obese religious leaders on TV,” according to Ferraro.

No wonder fundamentalist Gov. Huckabee has been so proactive in trying to save the state's citizens, particularly school children from a lifetime of obesity and the ailments of the obese. Huckabee overcame his own ordeal with obesity and diabetes and has taken the lead in emphasizing proper nutrition and exercise. The sedentary lifestyle is on display on television, particularly channel 21(KF45EI), a Christian-oriented programming channel that has a show with an obese fellow who cracks corny jokes and emphasizes cornier doctrine and parades scores of really unhealthy, obese folks onstage and sips soda pop and sits on a chair on a prop country store porch. The host must be diabetic and likely is just waiting for that stroke or heart attack. Some of his guests are morbidly obese, like a fellow who appears to be playing a ukele, but I believe it's a guitar. He dwarfs the instrument with his rolls of fat. Thanks Governor Huckabee for that shining moment in your gubernatorial administration of Arkansas. That said, let's elect Mike Beebe to continue some of the same progressive leadership, but without the need to answer to Shiite Republicans(gotta love the ever quotable, Guv'nor Huck). AR Democrats are a lot more trustworthy with leadership of this state than the hatemongering national GOP spreading its yankee(no offense to ALL yankees--some are welcome) suburban hard-right populism to this state to destroy the public school system and to leach the public purse for narrow concerns that help maybe 1% of the people. The BMI/wellness issue in the schools is the work of a man who really wants to be considered moderate and compassionate as the state's top elected consititutional officer.

Secretary of State and the rest of the Bush gang shamefully desperate

2006-09-06T14:59:00.000-05:00

From Olbermann's "have you no sense of decency, Mr. President" echo of Murrow(directed at Sen. Joe McCarthy, typical Republican demagogue) concerning Rumsfeld and others' attempted linkage of tolerance of Hitler and the Holocaust to the tough questions posed by the media concerning the disastrous decision to invade Iraq and the much more disastrous prosecution(bungling "prosecution" is a better description) of the war and refusal to employ any sort of true diplomacy, it is obvious the boat is sinking for Bush. Condi Rice has just lost her friggin' mind, lately(as if she hadn't already---she doesn't care; she has an oiltanker named in her honor).

Rice stated:

"people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War (in this country) to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold."

"I'm sure that there were people who said, "why don't we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves."
"Just because things are difficult, it doesn't mean that they are wrong or that you turn back," Rice told the magazine(Essence), which has a large audience among African-Americans."

Geez, Keith, these people INDEED have no sense of decency. Particularly since the Democratic Party's championing of civil rights for black Americans in 1964 and 1965 legislation pushed by LBJ with the lament that the party might suffer ill effects for their bravery and compassion for a generation is responsible for Condi's rise to power. Well, actually TWO generations so far. Most of the old segregationists in the South have been voting for the GOP since that time and won't likely return until the economic calamity which seems imminent draws them back(if it's not too late at that time). If it hadn't been for the courage of LBJ to enrage white southern Democratic voters, Condi'd still be in Alabama teaching in a segregated school because educated black folks wouldn't have been invited to join a presidential cabinet as Secretary of State.

Condi is an absolute drone. I read a letter to the editor a few weeks back in the Morning News or NW AR Times (can't remember which) where some moron was proclaiming Condi as the rightful heir of the Bush presidency. What kind of "jesus juice" is that woman drinking (thanks to the ever quotable Huck for that term)? Oy vey!

Fayetteville cable channel 6 completely looney this new television season

2006-09-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

Looney toons television viewers who formerly tuned in to Channel 6 on Fayetteville cable have lost SafeTV, Carlos Padeiro's personal gig time for those who love to watch him play guitar in favor of Daystar network, which seems to air old-time snake-oil salesman Benny Hinn ministries several times a day (though I haven't used a counter to keep tally). Hinn, this weekend, has offered sensational love offerings for your collection to treasure for years to come. For $45 and for $25 look at the great gifts you will receive:

Temple Music Box
The Bible records how our Lord Jesus worshipped in the Temple during his life and ministry. This exquisite Temple Music Box, specially commissioned by Pastor Benny Hinn exclusively for our partners and ministry friends has been painstakingly crafted and molded from hand-sculpted artwork and plays the beloved song, “Alleluia.” No other song is more closely identified with Pastor Benny’s crusade ministry. Each time you hear this universally known melody, you will be reminded of the sweet presence of the Holy Spirit who gives comfort and hope in life’s every circumstance. Order your beautiful Temple Music Box today!
Item Code: M006
Item Price: $45.00 USD

$45 too expensive for your blood? The here's our love offering of the

Names of Jesus Writing Pen
Let this pen emblazoned with the names of Jesus—Messiah, Savior, Lord of Lords, Emmanuel, Jesus, Son of God, Resurrection & Life, Alpha & Omega, and The Way—be a beautiful reminder of the power of His mighty name! Uniquely crafted for Benny Hinn Ministries partners and friends, this distinctive writing instrument is perfect for witnessing as well as for gift giving. Order several today!
Item Code: M009
Item Price: $25.00 USD

Benny Hinn is one of the most powerful men of God I've ever encountered since I PERSONALLY saw him blow his breath on a woman on TV who then collapsed unto the floor-AH! Praise God-HA! Now that's some powerful breath in Brother Hinn's mouth g-LO-ry! Why the music box plays one of the most beloved hymns Alleluia. $45 to help provide for Brother Hinn's next limo,er, hospital bed for poor children dying from disease and starvation in deepest Africa--NO, DEEPER, where cameras and reporters never venture to check, er, report on the mass chaos from which we are saving them. And gain comfort from the the Names of God writing pen for the inexpensive love offering of $25, brothers and sisters-ah. Who wouldn't feel comfort during the day of toil to whip out a pen from your pocket and read the names of our Lord?

With godly men like Benny Hinn praying for the salvation of America, how could any of us feel trepidation in our hearts?

Bush: Opium growers(al-Qaeda faithful) choice for president-for-life Jan. 2009

2006-09-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

According to Fox(Faux) News(I'm providing a negative Fox report about their boss, George W.--not to be confused with Rupert Murdoch), opium cultivation has yielded plenty of heroin for the globe's numerous devotees to consume.

"KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.N. anti-drugs chief announced Saturday a "staggering" 60 percent rise in opium cultivation in Afghanistan this year, and demanded the government arrest scores of major traffickers and remove corrupt officials and police who are profiting from the trade.
The record crop yielded 6,100 tons of opium — enough to make 610 tons of heroin — outstripping the demand of the world's drug users by a third.
"The news is very bad. On the opium front today in some of the provinces of Afghanistan, we face a state of emergency," Antonio Maria Costa, chief of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told a news conference after presenting results of its crop survey to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"In the southern provinces, the situation is out of control."
The bulk of the increase was recorded in lawless Helmand province, where cultivation rose 162 percent and accounted for 42 percent of the Afghan crop. The province is currently wracked by an upsurge in attacks by Taliban-led militants that has sparked the deadliest fighting in Afghanistan in five years.
The rise comes despite an injection of hundreds of millions in foreign aid to fight the drug over the past two years. Costa criticized the international effort, and said foreign aid was "plagued by huge overhead costs."

The only problem for Bush is that synthetic heroin makers, the pharmaceutical industry, are dismayed at the stiffening competition. At this rate, popular synthetic heroin addicts, such as Jack Osbourne of The Osbournes Fame, might popularize the use of illegal street heroin instead of their products. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't like competition and have bankrolled GOP candidates with vigor in the past. In recent polling by the Islamic Polling Project of Dubai, 85% of all al-Qaeda faithful throughout the world rate Pres. Bush as the greatest president to ever serve in the office (no word if Zogby, the fav pollster of the AR GOP, has conducted a similar poll). The U.N. consider the development a state of emergency. Some success story for democracy Afghanistan has become, just like that wonderful success story in Lebanon after Hariri's assassination for the Bush administration. The Taliban have a source of cash to conduct their war against infidel sympathizers like Karzai and al-Qaeda and their sympathizers against the possibility of a new civilian government in Iraq capable of providing relative security and essential services citizens require. Today, I read a news crawler on the NBC Today show that the Kurds have begun to seek permanent seperation from Iraq. Partition has begun and our Turkish allies have to be dismayed at the news, since they have fought an intermittent war with Kurds that has cost the lives of 25,000+ in Turkey. The disasters and potential disasters continue to mount for this president. At this rate, it's beginning to look as if God is expressing his DISPLEASURE at Dubya's election by religious zealots who claim to speak in his name, according to their own beliefs about wars, rumors of wars, and natural disasters.

Apparently, activist warmongers are a hell of a lot more dangerous than the so-called "activist" judges of GOP lore who fuel their hate campaign against rank-and-file America with their consent at the ballot box (at least enough for GOP faithful to help steal elections ala Florida and Ohio for their party). Opium production thrives and the next generation of terrorists are receiving valuable training for the future as the Bush administration continues to bungle their responsibility to preserve the Constitution. $8 trillion dollars of debt to the like of China, Japan, Mexico, Israel, and scores of other countries not nearly as great as ours cannot possibly be considered as wise conservative policy. Read some of the quotes of likely voters across America as election coverage intensifies from this weekend until November and they whine that voting for a Dem challenger of their failed GOP representatives and senators is a vote for more "liberal" interests. Geez, if tolerance of an $8 trillion dollar national debt isn't akin to the mythology promoted by the GOP of "liberal" Democratic tendencies, I don't know what could possibly qualify as liberal policy on the economic front. It's time people were enlightened in the mechanics of the english language and learn what the words commonly used in political speech and commentary actually mean. According to M-W dictionary, the definition of conservatism is:

"Main Entry: con·ser·va·tism
Pronunciation: k&n-'s&r-v&-"ti-z&mFunction: noun1 capitalized a : the principles and policies of a Conservative party b : the Conservative party
2 a : disposition in politics to preserve what is established b : a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change 3 : the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change."

There has been a great change in the earning power of the former American "middle class" during conservative governance's reemergence after their failed time in office during the early years of the Great Depression. Preserving social institutions is not exactly what has happened in Iraq or Afghanistan the past W. years as overnight, the conservative peoples of those two lands were told to form a radical constitution with a reverence for rule of law and the ballot box. Free and fair elections in Iraq promote more instability in Iraq than stability as Iraqi men-in-the-street await the next strongman to take over the government and impose a reactionary plan of promoting order, much like Saddam accomplished. Many folks who live in the more chaotic zones where the Mahdi army doesn't provide security from Sunni terrorists yearn for the days of Saddam's brutal control over the nation compared to the Americans' callous response to the needs of ordinary Iraqis to have a nation where it's safe to actually venture into public without fear of murder by roving executioners or assorted preferred methods of mass murder by the nation's myriad terrorists and sympathizers.

What's so conservative about this GOP? Other than their hollow observance of the three Gs and their traditional he-man values on the use of military force (not that too many REALLY believe this conflict all that important since so few actually enlist to uphold their values on this disastrous conflict in Iraq), NOTHING! Maybe someday, Japan, who proclaimed its freedom from America in the early nineties in the book Japan Can Say No , will call in their loans along with China, Mexico, Israel(not likely after $20 billion in aid and taking foolish advice from Dubya on Lebanon policy that brought them into a hollow military showdown with Hezbollah and destroyed a country that truly seemed to be moderating toward MORE democracy, at least outside the Hezbollah/Iranian direct sphere of influence), and others will call in their notes and begin to say 'NO!' to providing more bond purchases. What an "abrupt" change that prospect could spark!

At least, if the nation descends into a deeper abyss, we can all forget our troubles and start using the widely available new street heroin that should be making it to our shores every hour from Helmand and other al-Qaeda controlled areas of Afghanistan. Congratulations Mr. Bush on five of the most reckless years of presidential administration in American history. A 162% increase in cultivation of practically any crop is phenomenal growth no matter what the crop.

Early voting for Fayetteville bond issue votes begins

2006-09-02T14:20:00.000-05:00

Early voting for the Fayetteville bond issues for road improvement, the planned sewer plant currently under construction along Broyles Road, and trail improvements begins Tuesday, September 5 at the county clerk office. It is obvious that Fayetteville will never be an industrial center. Our greatest asset is the wonderful town we live in that sets a backdrop of culture, architecture, and outdoor activities available in some form to all of us year-round that is the envy of our great state (as well as folks across America transferred to the area for one company or other and folks who move here because of the scores of national rankings in magazines through the years).

Fayetteville has, like it or not, become a bit of a bedroom community with the state's flagship university attracting a rather diverse crowd of proactive folks who don't want to see this gem of a hometown turning into the communally inhospitable towns and cities as exist across America. The trail system seeks to mimic areas annually rated as some of the best hometowns in America. The trail system will be an invitation for Fayetteville's citizens to strive for good health and provide an option for folks who would love to leave the automobile behind for some excursions around town. The trail system will be a shared amenity of living in one of the best small cities in America. Watching the city channel's taping of the Frisco Trail opening, the city foreman in charge of building this system commented on the parents riding along with all their children (one shot showed a mother and four children learning to ride---how could anyone be against a family value that seeks to promote lifelong wellness?).

Along with better access for pedestrian and cycling traffic is the issue of providing essential services like improved roads and an improved sewer system(some would argue these points are more important than trails, but I disagree). The capacity of the first sewer treatment facility has been exhausted, particularly since the west side of Fayetteville has attracted development and explosive growth. Also, Farmington and to its west Prairie Grove are growing and will require sewer treatment services that Fayetteville will be able to provide(Farmington would be a customer). Much of the growth that the potential street improvements will facilitate will be within the Fayetteville school district generating more property tax proceeds to provide for educating our children(some will be in Farmington district and Springdale). Near the mall, most of the property tax revenue goes to the Springdale school district. The new Sam's location along 112 and I-540 will be within our school district. Look throughout town at the signs hung by the city along roadways which will benefit from passage of the bond issues. Every part of town will benefit from passage.

This vote will be important to continuing the momentum of positive growth throughout our beloved hometown that 25 years from now, will be the envy of towns like Rogers, Bentonville, and Springdale for their inability to shift enough emphasis to quality of life issues like trails, parks, greenspace, and communitarian values, such as the city policy excluding gated "communities" from within our city limit, and the ability to build centers like the WAC(thanks to donors and community vision) and the new library(thanks to the voters). Let's keep up the good work of crafting a city of which everyone can be proud and take the credit for following the vision of decent city government through the Hanna and Coody years. I've met Mayor Coody and Mayor Hanna and I took away all positive vibes from the both of them who share reputations for short-tempers(Hanna while he was alive). Cursed by an incendiary demeanor myself, who cares? It takes tough people to tolerate all the furor this population is capable of unleashing. What's great about the supposed "difficulties" caused by our city for business interests is a lot of hooey! This town's "difficulties" are mild compared to many smaller cities around the state. A city this size that discusses city issues and rouses as much support pro or con for various issues and usually arriving at a good solution is a reason to take pride. We haven't been steered wrong on most occasions, except the incinerator issue ( I didn't live here when the issue first landed in court) and the cost overruns of the west side sewer treatment facility (follow the link to Morning News).

Everyone should be glad to continue the rather well-managed progress of growth within our city limit and growth area. Vote Tuesday, September 5 until Tuesday, September 12 FOR all the bond questions for the city of Fayetteville.

Sen. Allen: Sorry,...macaca!

2006-08-24T14:04:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't heard about Sen. Allen's (R, VA) racist remark describing a young American of Indian descent while the young man was observing his remarks as a volunteer for the Democratic challenger, below is an excerpt of an article at AP.
Aug 24, 9:45 AM EDT
Sen. Allen Apologizes for 'Macaca' Jibe

Sen. Allen Under Fire for Controversial Remark

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Sen. George Allen personally called an opponent's aide and apologized for singling the man out almost two weeks ago with an obscure comment that has cast a shadow over the senator's White House ambitions, his campaign said.
S.R. Sidarth, a Democratic volunteer of Indian descent, was videotaping an Allen campaign event when the senator pointed to him and twice called him "Macaca." Macaca is a genus of monkeys that includes macaques, and is also considered a racial slur in some parts of the world.
"This fellow over here with the yellow shirt - Macaca or whatever his name is - he's with my opponent," Allen said.

Interesting selection of slurs, macaca, to describe a dark-skinned human being. As if monkey hasn't been used as a pejorative for dark-skinned Americans before. Every effort should be expended to capitalize on this unguarded moment for the obviously racist Senator of, gasp, the Republican party. Hard to imagine such an important office as U.S. Senator occupied by a racist minion of the GOP. Certainly plenty of forgiveness will be directed Allen's way by fellow GOP ideologues since they share similar points of view on such the issue. At Republican functions, there's a lot of wink-wink action on race going on. I should know, I've been to some of those Republican meetings in the past. The damnable enemy, at least in the Southern manifestation of the New Republican movement, is always tinged with a racial undertone in the assumed nature of behavior and ideas the party officially hate. The premise that the nation has gone to hell since integration(and certainly the New Deal and Great Society legislation, which essentially saved the South from starvation and total ruin), for instance, and their desire to wreck ALL public schools the way white Mississippi residents did in response to forced integration by pulling their kids from public schools and setting up a remarkable private school system. These are some of the folks truly clamoring to push the voucher idea down our collective throats to the chagrin of the children of the rank-and- file. No way taking money out of a public educational system would spell doom for most kids, despite the alluring idea that ALL kids can easily pick up and attend the private school of their choice. I've heard such utopian talk before and there is no way the public will benefit from such a disastrous legal theft(tyrannous majority) of public funds.

In other words, white Republicans certainly have their own code-language as they accuse "politically correct-inistas". I'm no fan of the so-called "political correctness" movement. Allen's remark was highly inappropriate and it's too bad he didn't choose someone who would knock his block off for the insult. That's the way things are solved in the South, Senator. Or so I've heard from the GOP Congressional delegation who have pushed us headlong into this disastrous war who largely don't want THEIR children serving in combat(unless you count McCain's son's latest entry into the military). They don't want their top donors to experience loss, so no draft without exemptions for this war of "survival" for the U.S. If our survival were at stake, I would imagine every 20-something would be called to serve the nation in this time of crisis. The true crisis is the mismanagement of America and Sen. Allen is part of that syndicate of doom threatening the very survival of our Constitution. The Constitution has survived since 1787 and I want it to last another 220 years.

All I know is practically ALL rank-and-file Americans decided conservatism was a bankrupt, faulty movement after their lack of response to the Great Depression in saving Americans from the hopelessness and privation of people in those days. I hope it doesn't take yet another economic cataclysm for Americans to once again see conservative politics(apologies to George will, who would disagree that I'm lumping traditional conservatives into the morally flawed neo-conservative movement) for the serious flaws it has exhibited in history and learning yet another hard lesson. What do Republicans offer? Oh great, a tax cut for a nation $8 Trillion in debt fighting a bleeding ulcer of a war that could needlessly bleed America dry(homage to David Sanders, resident AR economic spinster). Most folks don't really understand that we are merely a temporal beacon of republican democracy if we don't take care to preserve our values and our Constitution while still effectively combating the forces of Islam who seek our destruction as well as that of western civilization. Bush and Allen's faction has placed us in a more precarious position than I remember in my lifetime(two generations) and arguably since WW II and its immediate aftermath. Since our erstwhile WW II ally and Cold War opponent USSR has dissolved as a nation, some Americans have decided that diplomacy was a failed art. I know for a fact that the Cold War was not won on a battlefield. Diplomacy and a wiser deployment of military assets than we have experienced with Rumsfeld/Bush's war the past 3 1/2 years ultimately won the Cold War, along with the fundamental flaw of a controlled economy. Also, the USSR was the last place Marx or Engels expected a Marxist revolution, since Russia was hardly an industrialized giant like UK and Germany. The Marxist model was meant for an industrialized nation, not an agrarian peasant nation.

I have a million reasons to believe another decade of Republican dominance will be quite capable of destroying our nation. I do not wish to see this brilliant form of government die by collective suicide. The stakes are too high for any of us to take our duty to participate in the republican democracy for granted. In terms of parliamentary government, the key is to oppose this reckless, self-serving horde and choose the opposition in this election cycle.

Bush AWOL again

2006-08-11T18:44:00.000-05:00

I couldn't find the video feed, but I just witnessed Andrea Mitchell of NBC News reporting that President Bush just called PM Olmert of Israel on the telephone after a month of conflict in Lebanon. Bush called off his vacation to the "Western" White House (such a ridiculous looking placard behind the lectern at the Crawford gym) after a record for fewest days on his August vacation (10 days). Since 2001, the U.S. have provided approximately $20 Billion dollars in military aid and Bush feels no need to actually have a talk with Olmert about repercussions of the decision to destroy a nation the Bush administration touted as a success story in democratic nation-building after they demanded the Syrian army and intelligence services vacate Lebanon after Hariri's assassination was determined to have been aided by Syrian agents? Ridiculous, isn't it?

Tacit approval for destroying the infrastructure and killing a large number of innocent civilians of a Lebanon success story in democracy is hardly the signal one wants to send to what moderates are left in Lebanon at this point. Hopefully, Lebanon can find its counterpart to a war weary Sadat back in 1978, but I doubt it at this point. Shiites throughout the new "Shia Crescent(courtesy George W. Bush's reckless decision to invade Iraq), a newly abused term by neo-con media hacks for the new state of affairs in the old Fertile Crescent where Shiites inhabit and now rule a swath of land from Iran, thru Iraq, into Syria and Lebanon(which excludes the Shiite enclaves along the eastern part of Saudi Arabia) since Sunni strongman and beat-down Middle East figure Saddam was removed from power allowing Iran to claim a 31st province. Iran is certainly driving its recipient of aid Hezbollah to launch the missiles and do stupid things like kidnap an Israeli soldier as goons from Gaza did a few days before.

Bush has shown no leadership in regard to our ally Israel and has obviously offered no personal perspective directly to Olmert. Certainly Secy. Rice has called on Olmert. Not good enough Dubya. Once again, you're AWOL when leadership is demanded much as he did on September 11 continuing a photo op at an elementary school in Florida instead of displaying immediate leadership. Crowing thru a bullhorn after you went into hiding in Louisiana and Nebraska didn't cut it Mr. President. Refusing to speak to an important figure like PM Olmert until a month of what could grow into a military disaster both for Israeli and American troops and which has already been a disaster for Lebanese civilians (who can hardly be blamed for accepting Hezbollah largess, since there are no service providers for the poor of Lebanon other than Hezbollah's de facto government in Lebanon).

Unfortunately, a Sadat figure will hardly be capable of emerging in this climate, particularly in Lebanon where no politician will dare speak out against Hezbollah both for fear of retribution from the terrorist organization or the voters who can keep that person in office in the next round of elections. Folks in Lebanon who may have had a more favorable view of America despite dislike and distrust of Israel are few and far between. The level of jeopardy our soliders face seems to increase by the hour as the Israeli conflict widens to the point that Israel threatened to raise 30,000 troops for the effort in Lebanon. Hopefully, the new U.N. deal can be effective, but I wouldn't hold my breath. According to reports, 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers will assist Lebanese troops in south Lebanon to take control when Israeli troops vacate their hard-fought ground.

One month of this conflict may have caused irreparable harm to prospects for a stabilization of the wider Middle East crisis. Iraq is still a bloody war for Iraqi civilians and American troops and is still a prime training ground for future murderers of westerners and rival Islamic faithful(for whomever the trained assassins do their dirty work of murder and mayhem). Iraq will be the great destabilizer in the region for years to come. Is there much of a difference from Saddam's heyday before the Gulf War of 1991 knocked him off his pedestal for good after Iran dealt him a massive blow in the eight year war that ended in 1988? The answer is the region is more unstable and more dangerous because of Dubya's decision to invade Iraq. Iran's major enemy has been deposed and is awaiting the end of his trial and subsequent execution. Things are mighty fine inTehran, you have to believe. They have influence in the region as never before. Congratulations Mr. President. You've managed to be AWOL for most of your 5 years in office. Why should we have expected any different approach to governance in dealing with our closest ally in the region (who by the way was responsible for 25 American NSA personnel deaths on the Liberty in 1967 as they listened to a massacre of Egyptian troops over the airwaves at the time of the 6 Day War--sorry, I love to remind Christian Zionists of who they're dealing with)? Don't get me wrong. Having a European country in the Levant can be a wonderful asset, so I don't begrudge all the near $20 Billion dollars in aid since 2001. I do begrudge a world leader who is too goddamned lazy to pick up a telephone and talk to one of his nation's strongest allies about a potential disaster unfolding over 30 days.

Israel should not have destroyed Lebanon like it has. Hezbollah should not have fired hundreds of missiles into northern Israel or kidnapped the soldier, but two wrongs don't make a right. Since Israeli officials and defense wonks all seemed to agree that little good was done from the air to disable Hezbollah's capacity to fires missiles into Israel I hardly see why they should have continued to bomb the hell out of much of Lebanon(not just the south) and create more radical enemies of the U.S. and Israel. Oy vey!

Free speech: Republican jackass style

2006-08-11T15:08:00.000-05:00

Dana D. Kelley, Republican idiot columnist from Jonesboro, hired as a counter to ol' right wing pal from Lyon College in Batesville Bradley Gitz(must be one of those D. James Kennedy hard right fundamentalist Presbyterians, assuming he shares the faith of his employer). Kelley and Gitz are fellow right wing opinionists for what has become of the once highly esteemed AR Gazette since the Democrat, long an outlet of the right wing agenda to destroy America for Americans, bought it out during the news wars years ago. Leave it to Kelley to choose the one time to champion free speech in championing the cause of the Ku Klux Klan and its event held in support of anti-immigration policies. Warwick Sabin commented on his AR Times blog and it's really no shock to see Kelley defending the right of the Klan to deliver a "message" to (WHITE) America about immigration in Amarillo, TX(of all places---GEE!):

"Here in America, we usually aspire to not shoot the messenger when hard truths have to be tackled. It’s worrisome that now, in the depths of the chasm into which civility and Voltairean stateliness have sunk, it’s becoming acceptable to kill the message. "

Despite the fact that we've heard the Klan's view on keeping immigrants out of America, why shouldn't counter protesters attempt to drown out the same old "message" we've heard from the Klan before? I suppose the difference between Gitz and Kelley respectively are now hard right nutjob and harder right wing nutjob. Congratulations Dana Kelley. What a frickin' moron! Give us a White Power chant for old times sake, Dana. "White Power!!!!!! " The Democrat(don't let the name fool ya--it was a GOP rag long ago) has really turned the civil rights work of the Gazette on its head. Faubus would be damned proud to hear the old racial passions stirred in AR again. Is Kelley considering a run for the AR Legislature? He's following the Faubus Formula, tried and true from 1954-1966. Geez Kelley. Another GOP opportunist who hides behind a civil rights argument just to gain a measure of revenge over civil rights legislation or poverty net programs or any of a number of New Deal reforms that have survived to this day and were correctly implemented. The fact that wages haven't increased much in 36 years doesn't seem to phase the increasingly more reactionary American voter(I'll believe polling of the level of fatigue of Americans with the GOP assault on ordinary Americans when the bastards are put back on the street to return from whence they derived their venomous hatred of America's brand of freedom).

Amazing!

Lieberman blowback in AR?

2006-08-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

What does the Lieberman loss in the Democratic primary in Connecticut do for Arkansas? Not much. Lincoln and Pryor are still formidable Dems for the GOP to defeat, though a Huckabee/Pryor match-up could prove intriguing, except Pryor seems adept at controlling the debate in his previous campaigns. As the disaster of the Bush administration finally registers with a majority of actual voters, Pryor will be able to hang Huckabee with his Bush rope, though lately, Huckabee seems intent to place some distance between himself and the national GOP(guvs association news today) so he can posture as an anti-beltway Republican. He wants very little to do with their disastrous policies except to continue the encouraging words for the war on "terror"(or the war to create as many suicidal terrorists as possible to kill westerners). The Lieberman "blowback" in Arkansas will be barely negligible, since a Democrat who prevailingly voted with fellow Dems, except for his unapologetic support for neo-con fiascoes,in a moderate state has lost so not much will change with Lamont, except he will unapologetically reject neo-con foreign policy theoretics.

Nationally, it would seem that the Lieberman blowback could be an issue to follow this fall and in the '08 election cycle. What effect his loss in a generally moderate to liberal state is hard to judge in the heartland or the Sun Belt(sorry to quote Kevin Phillips, but he wrote the book on the Southern (and Western) strategy for the Nixonites). Only when an anti-war advocate wins a major race in states like Ohio, Florida, Texas, or Missouri, i.e., states away from the middle Atlantic and New England coastal shelf will a definitive blowback be discernible by moderate (to right) Dems and right-wing GOP candidates. Dems shouldn't get too excited just yet; a lot of work is yet to be accomplished before we can rest in our labor to retake America and perhaps grant us a reprieve from total collapse that seems to loom larger by the day. If Americans fail to reject GOP governance this fall, our Constitutional democracy might not survive another 219 years.

Gen. Pace waxes Pollyannic(sort of)

2006-08-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

Times Online: "General John Abizaid, the head of US forces in the Middle East, told the Senate committee that the sectarian violence was “probably as bad as I have seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war”.
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Peter Pace, backed him up. “We do have the possibility of that developing into civil war.” He went on to say: “Shi’ite and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other.”
If there was any doubt about the enduring nature of the conflict, Pace came up with the very same phrase that Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel, used in frustration about the attitude of “the Arabs” towards her young nation. That was in 1957 and, as the fighting in Lebanon demonstrates, there is still no peace in the Middle East.
The statistics in Iraq tell their own grim story. Over the course of the year, the number of violent killings of civilians has risen from 1,178 in January to 3,149 in June, the latest period for which figures are available. "

In the spirit of the self-described "manly" political phrasing by the GOP, Gen. Pace sounds downright pinko, commie, leftist, tree-hugger, since the muscular militarist approach has completely failed and have cost the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans(it's actually 2600, but pay attention by the end of summer--it'll be 3,000). Pace reflects an Israeli prime minister of the 60s and 70s to describe the state of affairs in the Islamic world and he acts as if it was a surprise. The only surprise here is how incapable the Bush White House has proven its capacity to anticipate obvious problems with their whole Middle East strategy(speak of "liberal" use of the word strategy). It's as if the GOP foreign policy and military wonks were dropped from the sky one day in 2000 when they likely planned this whole disaster(certainly earlier) and disregarded practically the entire history of Middle East relations. Not to forget that the major wars of Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973 were fought by Islamic armies that had little support from Iran, since the American puppet Shah was in charge after an American coup against Mussadiq, an elected prime minister of Iran in 1953. Now, virtually every Islamic government provides some sort of aid and comfort to our terrorist enemies, including old stalwart friend and peace partner of Camp David, Egypt. Mubarak plays both sides of the fence, encouraging radicals on one hand and preventing them from inclusion in the governance of Egypt on the other. Saudi Arabia definitely supports the populist radical Islamic tide as our other great friend UAE and their exploitation of the American effort in Iraq to effect a pan-Islamic rapprochement between Shiites and Sunnis as exemplified by the Lebanese crisis and Sunni and Christian acceptance of Hezbollah as a legitmate political, humanitarian, and armed force through the widespread Islamic media outlet financed by the emir.

Armageddonists don't get to claim that a global cataclysm which could certainly result from the misguided invasion of Iraq as a prophetic event since they deliberately took the reins of the American ship of state and forced the issue. Self-fulfilling prophecies hardly qualify as legitimate Biblical prophetic events. Maybe some more of our millennialist, armageddon-worshipping jackasses can send their sons and daughters to the recruiting stations to sign up for this war. If you get killed, you have God's blessing. You shouldn't be afraid to die, since you have such good relations with the man upstairs. Tim LaHaye for secretary of state and Pat Robertson as defense minister. Pat's first act: Planning the rescue of good friend and notorious war-criminal Charles Taylor from a Dutch jail. Second act: a full-scale invasion of every Middle Eastern nation we haven't invaded. We could certainly have a lot to watch on the 24 hour cable channels with all that bloodshed to report.

About Paul Eells....

2006-08-01T19:08:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to have met Paul Eells years ago when he was a speaker at an athletic banquet I attended in Little Rock back in the late eighties and I must admit I will miss hearing his voice on Razorbacks broadcasts. He was a first rate gentleman, a rarity these days, and the fans of the Razorback program are never going to see the likes of such a gentleman again. At the banquet, Paul told some of his trademark "corny" jokes, but I never heard the group of 17 and 18 year old young men say a disparaging word about our speaker. He's an original and I hope his family and the family of Billie Jo Burton of Dover, who also seems to have been a beloved member of her community and her young athletic charges on her softball teams she's coached over the years, will be able to overcome these difficult losses of two fine human beings.

Hitler and Mel: Brothers in Arms

2006-08-01T18:42:00.000-05:00

"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"
Adolf Hitler - January 30, 1939

Does this speech sound a bit familiar? Hitler blamed the Jews for their loss in WW I. The "back-stabbed" theory was the bill of goods he sold his nation after their bitter loss in the cataclysmic First World War and they needed a scapegoat that could be isolated as not quite German. Gibson's contention with the deputy along PCH that Jews cause all wars certainly doesn't differ much from Hitler's infamous "Final Solution" speech. Jews had "caused" the First World War and naturally they have begun all wars, as Gibson and Hitler seem to have similarly contended. Sound reasoning is something Gibson lacks and likely will ever be his undoing. Try reading Mein Kampf and a history book about WW II to discover Hitler's inability to reason soundly. Mel's career should end for his neurotic drunken rant at an officer who clocked him at 87 mph in a 45 mph zone. He's lucky he didn't get a baton against his self-righteous skull if it's true he tried to flee. I wouldn't have been a recipient of such weighted treatment, particularly with revelations that Mel has had similar run-ins under similar circumstances of alcohol use and high speed along PCH near his home in Malibu.

Mel Gibson is a jackass and deserves to fade from view. I rather doubt his career is over, but I hope he takes a beating from which he never fully recovers in the public sphere. His reckless unfounded beliefs should be granted no quarter among decent human beings.

Zell Miller helps enlist 3,000 Harding University/GOP faithful to serve in Iraq

2006-05-01T11:29:00.000-05:00

Zell Miller, noted defector from the Democratic party, spoke at Harding University last week. Miller extolled the virtue of self-sacrifice his mother taught him, when an eruption of self-sacrificial feeling urged all the GOP faithful in the audience to immediately walk up the aisle to the commit themselves publicly to the cause of self-sacrifice in fighting this crucial war in Iraq. Most of the 3,000 GOP proselytes re-dedicated themselves to the commitment to fight in Iraq and in the name of Jesus, all joined the military and will likely see combat a few weeks after advanced infantry training. Godspeed young, self-sacrificing GOP faithful!!!!

In case you haven't caught on, I'm joking about the part where all the "heart of iron, feet of clay" conservative wannabe warmongers of GOP University walked down the aisle to publicly commit to service in Iraq. For such an important war in the struggle for the hegemony of our Christian God and America, there seem to be a tiny handful of Americans dedicating themselves to the successful completion of American involvement in Iraq by actually becoming soldiers to put their money where their mouth is. If you see a conservative Republican 20-something today who has never donned the uniform of freedom, make sure and congratulate them on their enlistment in the armed services to aid the effort. Then, act surprised that they haven't felt the need to serve this great nation in combat and possibly sacrifice a limb or a life(absolutley no offense intended for those who have decided to serve their nation proudly, despite the reckless nature of this invasion and the possible resulting pan-Islamic war that won't be good for the future of the world or the future of oil prices). 3,000 Harding University students joining the military would be a great start. Then Liberty U., Bob Jones U. and other conservative bastions of narrow thought and religious extremism could follow suit and enlist hundreds more young Americans to fight this war in similar Zell Miller events.

Here are some samples of Harding student reaction:

Carrie Bradon, a graduate student in education from Hazen, was among those who applauded Miller.
“His message that nothing requires sacrifice more than freedom is something we need to understand today,” she said.
Troy Marrs, a sophomore public relations major from Payson, Ga., said he was impressed by Miller’s exhortation to be persistent.
“His message to never give up really resonated because he himself had a tough time growing up,” Marrs said.

There are two cowards who made no mention of their own personal self-sacrifice for the goal of preserving "fragile" liberty. I hate to say such things, but I'm rather fatigued by the talk of GOP faithful that is never accompanied with action.

NWA Times editorial disgrace

2006-05-01T11:08:00.000-05:00

I find it quite interesting that the NW Arkansas Times decided to lobby for the renaming of the new school on Rupple Road in Fayetteville after Sen. Fulbright. In 2004, the Times threw their support to Bush's reelection effort. Fulbright and his mother, who founded the predecessor of the Times, the Fayetteville Democrat, had to be rolling over in their graves. Bush had proven his incapacity to reason his way through problematic issues, particularly the decision to take advantage of America's misery of 9/11 and the jingoistic media surge to invade a nation that HAD NO CONNECTION TO AL-QAEDA IN ANY WAY. THE AL-QAEDA CAMPS WERE LOCATED OUTSIDE SADDAM'S CONTROL BECAUSE SADDAM SAW THEM AS A THREAT TO HIS RULE. THE TWO AL-QAEDA CAMPS WITH WHICH I AM FAMILIAR WERE IN THE AMERICAN-PROTECTED KURDISH ZONE. ARCH-NEMESIS ZARQAWI WAS IN KURDISH AREAS OF IRAQ PRIOR TO THE INVASION. I felt the need to employ all caps for the moronic GOP faithful who occasionally read this blog and comment.

Times, please quit besmirching the memory of a man whose grasp of international political affiars far exceeds(present tense because a dead Sen. Fulbright could still do a better job of running our international affairs than the BILLIONAIRE'S Party of God) most of the Bush team put together because he refused to latch onto a dogma in regard to his perception of the global situation of the day and how the U.S. should react. The GOP's smoke and mirrors politics relies heavily on dogma and dogma gets people killed needlessly throughout history. I agree that Fulbright's name on a local school would be a fitting tribute. I am very disappointed in the Times' support for Bush, though I understand their need to pander to the majority of morons who live in the region.

Nice column by George Will

2006-05-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

It was nice to see George Will's comments about former Navy secretary James Webb's run for the Democratic nomination in Virginia to unseat the supreme ass, George Allen, who is informally seeking the GOP nomination to succeed another GOP supreme ass, George W. Bush. Will is a traditional conservative, which means he hates FDR and reveres the folly of GOP governance in the early 20th century until the failure of their ideology forced the American people to pull their heads out of their collective asses to unseat the callous laissez faire GOP conservative government , which proved to be a failure in times of economic emergency as experienced during the Great Depression.

No way I could ever claim to despise Will because there are times when he's the sole reasonable voice of the bankrupt conservative movement. Former Secy. Webb came to my attention when he first ascended to the secy. post, then when he resigned in protest over reductions in the navy(and I'm certain somehow or other, Bill Clinton's responsible for Reagan's missteps--Webb's perspective). Webb saw the folly of the conservative view that an invasion of Iraq was comparable to Japan, Germany, and Korea in terms of possibility for success in American nation-building, but Will describes the differences between the nations. Japan was a success because we didn't have to invade the Japanese main island and the emperor surrendered. It helps that Japan is a largely homogeneous population, like Germany, and Korea. Korea is a different case of success because the U.S. supported anti-democratic elements for decades until the Soviet fall in the early 90s. ROK has only been a true democracy since the 90s(I felt the need to reiterate that point for those of you who accidentally read this blog and have no actual historical knowledge, like 90% of all self-described conservative Republicans).

Webb's Scots-Irish heritage is similar to mine, except I have a bit of native American blood, so I appreciate his feisty, combative nature. He voted for John Kerry in 2004, though, as Will recounts, Webb would never shake his hand 20 years previously over Kerry's VVAW days protesting the war in Vietnam. Webb fought in Vietnam in the Corps and was wounded, as Kerry was wounded fighting with the navy. Conservatism and supreme failure in governance are synonymous after Bush's disastrous 5 years as president. I have to appreciate Will's intellectual honesty. Regardless of some of the hard-headed dumb things he says on Sunday morning, he's a good man and worthy of a read each time you stumble across one of his columns.

Dickson Street and the World with Greg and Hoyt

2006-04-23T14:25:00.000-05:00

Two excellent editorials in the Times this morning. Greg Harton's column "Is 10 a Win?" describing the compromise Barber Group extended for its Divinity project cutting the height from 15 stories to 10. I have to agree that the new design looks a lot better than the original sketches at 15. The new hotel insures Dickson street businesses and the Square will have folks downtown to spend their money (or at least that's how the theory goes). I would like to see the current proposal approved by the city. Our downtown is worthy of preservation and projects of this sort will enhance its chances of sustaining the revival that has followed the construction of the WAC in the early 90s.

On the global front, HoytPurvis waxes nostalgic over the legacy Fulbright left the nation and the world when former President Clinton accepted the Fulbright award recently. With the swirling devils nipping at the heels of the recklessly inept Bush administration, a determined Fulbright as head of the SFRC would have been a valuable asset(assuming Bush's idiots would be as capable of pragmatism as Nixon or Kissinger regarding the total global picture) as our nation struggles to find its way through the current global crisis without causing a wider conflict to erupt and cost many hundreds of thousands more their lives needlessly. Though Fulbrights' dogged determination to end the Vietnam conflict before much greater damage was inflicted on our nation failed to succeed for nearly a decade (the U.S. withdrew in spring 1975, but began reducing its assets by 1970) as Fulbright's senatorial career ended abruptly(Bumpers defeated Fulbright for the Senate seat).

Clinton at the ceremony:

"In his remarks at the Fulbright Prize event, Clinton referred to his work with former President Bush, at the request of the current president, in the Tsunami relief effort. He noted that in Indonesia, as a result of U.S. assistance after the tsunami, public opinion in that Islamic country has changed dramatically. Approval of the United States went from 36 to 60 percent while approval of Bin Laden went from 58 to 28 percent. They saw the U.S. military "dropping food instead of bombs" and many Americans involved in the relief effort. "

Clearly, the U.S. must maintain the best possible defense within its means, but the judicious use of military resources must be the rule rather than the exception. Weakening our nation needlessly in a misguided military effort that seems more capable of widening into a pan-Arab war that leaves the entire free world in jeopardy of losing their ways of life for years to come is no useful prescription. Fulbright was pro-troops and anti-war when the truth about the circumstances surrounding the Gulf of Tonkin incident were exposed and the historic reality of the civil war which had raged since the end of WW II causing Pres. Eisenhower to send advisers to Vietnam in 1954. The historic reality of the Iraq region was also ignored for an idealistic goal(I have my doubts about any potential ideology other than control of natural resources globally employing our government and its troops in a deadly chess game that threatens the well-being of most of the troops and families of those serving, suffering, and dying in the conflict). Iraq has become a useless slaughter that could have left the maniacally cruel Saddam in power with the only actual offense against the region was to give $400 to Palestinian bombers and killing his own people(in smaller numbers and without a religious fanatic oligarchy controlling the nation ala Iran) to maintain his grip on power. The modern political history of Iraq was quite similar to the former Yugoslavia, where strongman Tito's iron fist held the nation together until the Soviet empire crumbled in the late 1980s(Tito had already died). 10% of the population in Kosovo and Bosnia were NATO/UN troops. That figure has not been remotely approached in Iraq and order has not been preserved and seemingly hundreds die on a monthly basis throughout the nation.

The wielding of our brute force in Iraq may cause a greater blowback than the Soviet-Afghan War aided by U.S. money, arms, and expertise as well as the backing of Arab oil money and Pakistan's ISI and actual ground troops during the Soviet conflict and the ensuing civil war. All that weaponry, death, and destruction, Afghanistan had no chance of successfully building a nation. The fact that our better nature has been displayed in Indonesia with no strings attached and no danger to their way of life has stemmed the tide of approval for Bin Laden in that largely Wahhabi Sunni Muslim(same as Bin Laden and Saudi Arabia) nation. We dropped food, medicine, hospitals, and other aid and two former presidents, Clinton and George H. W. , aided the war for hearts and minds in the Arab world, at least in the SE Asian archipeligo region where war had raged for some time between insurgents and the Indonesian government. Fulbright, Clinton, and Hoyt's approach to winning the wider war sparked on September 11 by the Afghan blowback is a prescription we can all live with(not that any option will work seamlessly). Peace should ever be preferable to war when there most certainly is a better option available. Our options were decidedly curtailed when Bush ordered troops across the Iraqi border in Spring 2003 when a better way to wage a war on terror was still a possibility.

Hopefully, we can begin stemming the tide in other Islamic nations before we have another demagogic president that comes along to exploit a national tragedy to fight a needless war in an important region of the world. More efforts like the disaster relief presented our nation during the tsunami should be a lesson for our policy-makers. Is there a way to prove our humanitarian good side still exists without a tragic event occurring for once? We should promote our best intentions without a nudge from a September 11th or tsunami disaster that might lead to a foolish decision that causes a wider conflict to erupt. We'll be holding our collective breath as a nation for decades just like the Cold War days. Reckless ineptitude in Iraq threatens to destroy the necessary war still being waged in Afghanistan, where all the Saudi money was sent to finance al-Qaeda's global jihadists and the Taliban's new henchmen for the Muslim Utopia.

Trouble at the Chessboard

2006-04-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

Here is Seymour Hersh's article from the New Yorker about the latest developments in the life-sized game of Risk the NeoCon warlovers(who largely have no actual combat experience,but this is all a game to them so who cares?) have dragged the American people into. China must be very happy to see the U.S. conservative community drag the nation into a cataclysmic war they could exploit for their benefit. China mirrors the Nazi model about as closely as any nation has since WW II. Granted, much of this chessboard play with American military prowess is part of a new superpower confrontation on the make between the U.S. and China(as well as India, not a traditional ally of the U.S. since independence) for control of the world's oil supply. An attack on Iran could certainly cause some discomfort for American troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, as if they don't feel the weight of millions who'd sooner see them all dead.

Shiites rule Syria, Iran, and Iraq(thanks to short-sighted neocon policy-makers who rule the Bush asylum), and pockets of Shiites live in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. A Shiite version of the Clarion Call to arms to slaughter Christians could definitely make it impossible for the U.S. to operate this war with an all-volunteer military. Iran could easily stop all oil shipments abroad and give us the $5/gallon gasoline Americans fear, not to mention the fact that our troops could be smack in the middle of the realization every lunatic fundamentalist's dream to witness Armageddon and offer their children for sacrifice(well, maybe the poor folks--not many Congressional and executive children or big business management's progeny serving in combat in this "vital" preemptive war). Sunnis and Shiites will be killing each other in Iraq until the next strongman emerges to force consensus and harmony with intimidation, torture, and murder. The new super-embassy compound is being built in Baghdad along the Tigris next to the Iraqi government complex on 110 acres. Our troops will be in harm's way for decades if our troops are able to survive(dependent upon George II's next disastrous decision) the civil war raging in Iraq as Bush seeks to allay fears with the same doses of lies he's fed the American public all along. If Lebanon's travails are any indication, Americans will definitely be in the region for 25 years. Amor fati!

THE IRAN PLANS
Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2006-04-17Posted 2006-04-08
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.
American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.
There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”
The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush. “So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely,” Clawson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. “The key issue, therefore, is: How long will the present Iranian regime last?”
When I spoke to Clawson, he emphasized that “this Administration is putting a lot of effort into diplomacy.” However, he added, Iran had no choice other than to accede to America’s demands or face a military attack. Clawson said that he fears that Ahmadinejad “sees the West as wimps and thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.” Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as “industrial accidents.” But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, “given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.”
One military planner told me that White House criticisms of Iran and the high tempo of planning and clandestine activities amount to a campaign of “coercion” aimed at Iran. “You have to be ready to go, and we’ll see how they respond,” the officer said. “You have to really show a threat in order to get Ahmadinejad to back down.” He added, “People think Bush has been focussed on Saddam Hussein since 9/11,” but, “in my view, if you had to name one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran.” (In response to detailed requests for comment, the White House said that it would not comment on military planning but added, “As the President has indicated, we are pursuing a diplomatic solution”; the Defense Department also said that Iran was being dealt with through “diplomatic channels” but wouldn’t elaborate on that; the C.I.A. said that there were “inaccuracies” in this account but would not specify them.)
“This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”
A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.” A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: “Hezbollah comes into play,” the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world’s most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. “And here comes Al Qaeda.”
In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been “no formal briefings,” because “they’re reluctant to brief the minority. They’re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.”
The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”
Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.
Last month, in a paper given at a conference on Middle East security in Berlin, Colonel Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National War College before retiring from the Air Force, in 1987, provided an estimate of what would be needed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Working from satellite photographs of the known facilities, Gardiner estimated that at least four hundred targets would have to be hit. He added:
I don’t think a U.S. military planner would want to stop there. Iran probably has two chemical-production plants. We would hit those. We would want to hit the medium-range ballistic missiles that have just recently been moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen airfields with sheltered aircraft. . . . We’d want to get rid of that threat. We would want to hit the assets that could be used to threaten Gulf shipping. That means targeting the cruise-missile sites and the Iranian diesel submarines. . . . Some of the facilities may be too difficult to target even with penetrating weapons. The U.S. will have to use Special Operations units.
One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year. (Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.
There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground facility was designed for “continuity of government”—for the political and military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet facility still exists, and much of what the U.S. knows about it remains classified. “The ‘tell’ ”—the giveaway—“was the ventilator shafts, some of which were disguised,” the former senior intelligence official told me. At the time, he said, it was determined that “only nukes” could destroy the bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. “We see a similarity of design,” specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said.
A former high-level Defense Department official told me that, in his view, even limited bombing would allow the U.S. to “go in there and do enough damage to slow down the nuclear infrastructure—it’s feasible.” The former defense official said, “The Iranians don’t have friends, and we can tell them that, if necessary, we’ll keep knocking back their infrastructure. The United States should act like we’re ready to go.” He added, “We don’t have to knock down all of their air defenses. Our stealth bombers and standoff missiles really work, and we can blow fixed things up. We can do things on the ground, too, but it’s difficult and very dangerous—put bad stuff in ventilator shafts and put them to sleep.”
But those who are familiar with the Soviet bunker, according to the former senior intelligence official, “say ‘No way.’ You’ve got to know what’s underneath—to know which ventilator feeds people, or diesel generators, or which are false. And there’s a lot that we don’t know.” The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”
The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”
The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”
The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.
The chairman of the Defense Science Board is William Schneider, Jr., an Under-Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration. In January, 2001, as President Bush prepared to take office, Schneider served on an ad-hoc panel on nuclear forces sponsored by the National Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. The panel’s report recommended treating tactical nuclear weapons as an essential part of the U.S. arsenal and noted their suitability “for those occasions when the certain and prompt destruction of high priority targets is essential and beyond the promise of conventional weapons.” Several signers of the report are now prominent members of the Bush Administration, including Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
The Pentagon adviser questioned the value of air strikes. “The Iranians have distributed their nuclear activity very well, and we have no clue where some of the key stuff is. It could even be out of the country,” he said. He warned, as did many others, that bombing Iran could provoke “a chain reaction” of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world: “What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?”
With or without the nuclear option, the list of targets may inevitably expand. One recently retired high-level Bush Administration official, who is also an expert on war planning, told me that he would have vigorously argued against an air attack on Iran, because “Iran is a much tougher target” than Iraq. But, he added, “If you’re going to do any bombing to stop the nukes, you might as well improve your lie across the board. Maybe hit some training camps, and clear up a lot of other problems.”
The Pentagon adviser said that, in the event of an attack, the Air Force intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran but that “ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who believe it’s the way to operate”—that the Administration can achieve its policy goals in Iran with a bombing campaign, an idea that has been supported by neoconservatives.
If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime.
The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.
“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”
The President’s deep distrust of Ahmadinejad has strengthened his determination to confront Iran. This view has been reinforced by allegations that Ahmadinejad, who joined a special-forces brigade of the Revolutionary Guards in 1986, may have been involved in terrorist activities in the late eighties. (There are gaps in Ahmadinejad’s official biography in this period.) Ahmadinejad has reportedly been connected to Imad Mughniyeh, a terrorist who has been implicated in the deadly bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in 1983. Mughniyeh was then the security chief of Hezbollah; he remains on the F.B.I.’s list of most-wanted terrorists.
Robert Baer, who was a C.I.A. officer in the Middle East and elsewhere for two decades, told me that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government “are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites. If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv and you believe they’ve got nukes and missiles—you’ve got to take them out. These guys are nuts, and there’s no reason to back off.”
Under Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their power base throughout the Iranian bureaucracy; by the end of January, they had replaced thousands of civil servants with their own members. One former senior United Nations official, who has extensive experience with Iran, depicted the turnover as “a white coup,” with ominous implications for the West. “Professionals in the Foreign Ministry are out; others are waiting to be kicked out,” he said. “We may be too late. These guys now believe that they are stronger than ever since the revolution.” He said that, particularly in consideration of China’s emergence as a superpower, Iran’s attitude was “To hell with the West. You can do as much as you like.”
Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is considered by many experts to be in a stronger position than Ahmadinejad. “Ahmadinejad is not in control,” one European diplomat told me. “Power is diffuse in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards are among the key backers of the nuclear program, but, ultimately, I don’t think they are in charge of it. The Supreme Leader has the casting vote on the nuclear program, and the Guards will not take action without his approval.”
The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said that “allowing Iran to have the bomb is not on the table. We cannot have nukes being sent downstream to a terror network. It’s just too dangerous.” He added, “The whole internal debate is on which way to go”—in terms of stopping the Iranian program. It is possible, the adviser said, that Iran will unilaterally renounce its nuclear plans—and forestall the American action. “God may smile on us, but I don’t think so. The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen.”
While almost no one disputes Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there is intense debate over how soon it could get the bomb, and what to do about that. Robert Gallucci, a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, told me, “Based on what I know, Iran could be eight to ten years away” from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon. Gallucci added, “If they had a covert nuclear program and we could prove it, and we could not stop it by negotiation, diplomacy, or the threat of sanctions, I’d be in favor of taking it out. But if you do it”—bomb Iran—“without being able to show there’s a secret program, you’re in trouble.”
Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, told the Knesset last December that “Iran is one to two years away, at the latest, from having enriched uranium. From that point, the completion of their nuclear weapon is simply a technical matter.” In a conversation with me, a senior Israeli intelligence official talked about what he said was Iran’s duplicity: “There are two parallel nuclear programs” inside Iran—the program declared to the I.A.E.A. and a separate operation, run by the military and the Revolutionary Guards. Israeli officials have repeatedly made this argument, but Israel has not produced public evidence to support it. Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term, told me, “I think Iran has a secret nuclear-weapons program—I believe it, but I don’t know it.”
In recent months, the Pakistani government has given the U.S. new access to A. Q. Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb. Khan, who is now living under house arrest in Islamabad, is accused of setting up a black market in nuclear materials; he made at least one clandestine visit to Tehran in the late nineteen-eighties. In the most recent interrogations, Khan has provided information on Iran’s weapons design and its time line for building a bomb. “The picture is of ‘unquestionable danger,’ ” the former senior intelligence official said. (The Pentagon adviser also confirmed that Khan has been “singing like a canary.”) The concern, the former senior official said, is that “Khan has credibility problems. He is suggestible, and he’s telling the neoconservatives what they want to hear”—or what might be useful to Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf, who is under pressure to assist Washington in the war on terror.
“I think Khan’s leading us on,” the former intelligence official said. “I don’t know anybody who says, ‘Here’s the smoking gun.’ But lights are beginning to blink. He’s feeding us information on the time line, and targeting information is coming in from our own sources— sensors and the covert teams. The C.I.A., which was so burned by Iraqi W.M.D., is going to the Pentagon and the Vice-President’s office saying, ‘It’s all new stuff.’ People in the Administration are saying, ‘We’ve got enough.’ ”
The Administration’s case against Iran is compromised by its history of promoting false intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In a recent essay on the Foreign Policy Web site, entitled “Fool Me Twice,” Joseph Cirincione, the director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote, “The unfolding administration strategy appears to be an effort to repeat its successful campaign for the Iraq war.” He noted several parallels:
The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. Secretary of State tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The Secretary of Defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism.
Cirincione called some of the Administration’s claims about Iran “questionable” or lacking in evidence. When I spoke to him, he asked, “What do we know? What is the threat? The question is: How urgent is all this?” The answer, he said, “is in the intelligence community and the I.A.E.A.” (In August, the Washington Post reported that the most recent comprehensive National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iran was a decade away from being a nuclear power.)
Last year, the Bush Administration briefed I.A.E.A. officials on what it said was new and alarming information about Iran’s weapons program which had been retrieved from an Iranian’s laptop. The new data included more than a thousand pages of technical drawings of weapons systems. The Washington Post reported that there were also designs for a small facility that could be used in the uranium-enrichment process. Leaks about the laptop became the focal point of stories in the Times and elsewhere. The stories were generally careful to note that the materials could have been fabricated, but also quoted senior American officials as saying that they appeared to be legitimate. The headline in the Times’ account read, “RELYING ON COMPUTER, U.S. SEEKS TO PROVE IRAN’S NUCLEAR AIMS.”
I was told in interviews with American and European intelligence officials, however, that the laptop was more suspect and less revelatory than it had been depicted. The Iranian who owned the laptop had initially been recruited by German and American intelligence operatives, working together. The Americans eventually lost interest in him. The Germans kept on, but the Iranian was seized by the Iranian counter-intelligence force. It is not known where he is today. Some family members managed to leave Iran with his laptop and handed it over at a U.S. embassy, apparently in Europe. It was a classic “walk-in.”
A European intelligence official said, “There was some hesitation on our side” about what the materials really proved, “and we are still not convinced.” The drawings were not meticulous, as newspaper accounts suggested, “but had the character of sketches,” the European official said. “It was not a slam-dunk smoking gun.”
The threat of American military action has created dismay at the headquarters of the I.A.E.A., in Vienna. The agency’s officials believe that Iran wants to be able to make a nuclear weapon, but “nobody has presented an inch of evidence of a parallel nuclear-weapons program in Iran,” the high-ranking diplomat told me. The I.A.E.A.’s best estimate is that the Iranians are five years away from building a nuclear bomb. “But, if the United States does anything militarily, they will make the development of a bomb a matter of Iranian national pride,” the diplomat said. “The whole issue is America’s risk assessment of Iran’s future intentions, and they don’t trust the regime. Iran is a menace to American policy.”
In Vienna, I was told of an exceedingly testy meeting earlier this year between Mohamed ElBaradei, the I.A.E.A.’s director-general, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control. Joseph’s message was blunt, one diplomat recalled: “We cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran. Iran is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and our allies, and we will not tolerate it. We want you to give us an understanding that you will not say anything publicly that will undermine us. ”
Joseph’s heavy-handedness was unnecessary, the diplomat said, since the I.A.E.A. already had been inclined to take a hard stand against Iran. “All of the inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think the Iranian leadership are nutcases—one hundred per cent totally certified nuts,” the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders “want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side”—in Washington. “At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians.”
The central question—whether Iran will be able to proceed with its plans to enrich uranium—is now before the United Nations, with the Russians and the Chinese reluctant to impose sanctions on Tehran. A discouraged former I.A.E.A. official told me in late March that, at this point, “there’s nothing the Iranians could do that would result in a positive outcome. American diplomacy does not allow for it. Even if they announce a stoppage of enrichment, nobody will believe them. It’s a dead end.”
Another diplomat in Vienna asked me, “Why would the West take the risk of going to war against that kind of target without giving it to the I.A.E.A. to verify? We’re low-cost, and we can create a program that will force Iran to put its cards on the table.” A Western Ambassador in Vienna expressed similar distress at the White House’s dismissal of the I.A.E.A. He said, “If you don’t believe that the I.A.E.A. can establish an inspection system—if you don’t trust them—you can only bomb.”
There is little sympathy for the I.A.E.A. in the Bush Administration or among its European allies. “We’re quite frustrated with the director-general,” the European diplomat told me. “His basic approach has been to describe this as a dispute between two sides with equal weight. It’s not. We’re the good guys! ElBaradei has been pushing the idea of letting Iran have a small nuclear-enrichment program, which is ludicrous. It’s not his job to push ideas that pose a serious proliferation risk.”
The Europeans are rattled, however, by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change. “Everyone is on the same page about the Iranian bomb, but the United States wants regime change,” a European diplomatic adviser told me. He added, “The Europeans have a role to play as long as they don’t have to choose between going along with the Russians and the Chinese or going along with Washington on something they don’t want. Their policy is to keep the Americans engaged in something the Europeans can live with. It may be untenable.”
“The Brits think this is a very bad idea,” Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council staff member who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, told me, “but they’re really worried we’re going to do it.” The European diplomatic adviser acknowledged that the British Foreign Office was aware of war planning in Washington but that, “short of a smoking gun, it’s going to be very difficult to line up the Europeans on Iran.” He said that the British “are jumpy about the Americans going full bore on the Iranians, with no compromise.”
The European diplomat said that he was skeptical that Iran, given its record, had admitted to everything it was doing, but “to the best of our knowledge the Iranian capability is not at the point where they could successfully run centrifuges” to enrich uranium in quantity. One reason for pursuing diplomacy was, he said, Iran’s essential pragmatism. “The regime acts in its best interests,” he said. Iran’s leaders “take a hard-line approach on the nuclear issue and they want to call the American bluff,” believing that “the tougher they are the more likely the West will fold.” But, he said, “From what we’ve seen with Iran, they will appear superconfident until the moment they back off.”
The diplomat went on, “You never reward bad behavior, and this is not the time to offer concessions. We need to find ways to impose sufficient costs to bring the regime to its senses. It’s going to be a close call, but I think if there is unity in opposition and the price imposed”—in sanctions—“is sufficient, they may back down. It’s too early to give up on the U.N. route.” He added, “If the diplomatic process doesn’t work, there is no military ‘solution.’ There may be a military option, but the impact could be catastrophic.”
Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was George Bush’s most dependable ally in the year leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he and his party have been racked by a series of financial scandals, and his popularity is at a low point. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said last year that military action against Iran was “inconceivable.” Blair has been more circumspect, saying publicly that one should never take options off the table.
Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. “The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically,” the European intelligence official told me. “He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse.” An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the U.S. “Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to U.S. movies and books, and they love it,” he said. “If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run.”
Another European official told me that he was aware that many in Washington wanted action. “It’s always the same guys,” he said, with a resigned shrug. “There is a belief that diplomacy is doomed to fail. The timetable is short.”
A key ally with an important voice in the debate is Israel, whose leadership has warned for years that it viewed any attempt by Iran to begin enriching uranium as a point of no return. I was told by several officials that the White House’s interest in preventing an Israeli attack on a Muslim country, which would provoke a backlash across the region, was a factor in its decision to begin the current operational planning. In a speech in Cleveland on March 20th, President Bush depicted Ahmadinejad’s hostility toward Israel as a “serious threat. It’s a threat to world peace.” He added, “I made it clear, I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.”
Any American bombing attack, Richard Armitage told me, would have to consider the following questions: “What will happen in the other Islamic countries? What ability does Iran have to reach us and touch us globally—that is, terrorism? Will Syria and Lebanon up the pressure on Israel? What does the attack do to our already diminished international standing? And what does this mean for Russia, China, and the U.N. Security Council?”
Iran, which now produces nearly four million barrels of oil a day, would not have to cut off production to disrupt the world’s oil markets. It could blockade or mine the Strait of Hormuz, the thirty-four-mile-wide passage through which Middle Eastern oil reaches the Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, the recently retired defense official dismissed the strategic consequences of such actions. He told me that the U.S. Navy could keep shipping open by conducting salvage missions and putting mine- sweepers to work. “It’s impossible to block passage,” he said. The government consultant with ties to the Pentagon also said he believed that the oil problem could be managed, pointing out that the U.S. has enough in its strategic reserves to keep America running for sixty days. However, those in the oil business I spoke to were less optimistic; one industry expert estimated that the price per barrel would immediately spike, to anywhere from ninety to a hundred dollars per barrel, and could go higher, depending on the duration and scope of the conflict.
Michel Samaha, a veteran Lebanese Christian politician and former cabinet minister in Beirut, told me that the Iranian retaliation might be focussed on exposed oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. “They would be at risk,” he said, “and this could begin the real jihad of Iran versus the West. You will have a messy world.”
Iran could also initiate a wave of terror attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, with the help of Hezbollah. On April 2nd, the Washington Post reported that the planning to counter such attacks “is consuming a lot of time” at U.S. intelligence agencies. “The best terror network in the world has remained neutral in the terror war for the past several years,” the Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said of Hezbollah. “This will mobilize them and put us up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon. If we move against Iran, Hezbollah will not sit on the sidelines. Unless the Israelis take them out, they will mobilize against us.” (When I asked the government consultant about that possibility, he said that, if Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, “Israel and the new Lebanese government will finish them off.”)
The adviser went on, “If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle.” The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.”
“If you attack,” the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, “Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians.”
The diplomat went on, “There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking.” He added, “The window of opportunity is now.”

Book review of revisionist history

2006-03-25T15:47:00.001-06:00

I was searching for another book to read about Woodrow Wilson and I stumbled over a book review of a Cato Institute crony about Wilson titled Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II. Catchy title, hungh? What a load. The review is as follows:

"'Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II

Kirkus Reviews
If Woodrow Wilson hadn't entangled the US in WWI, there wouldn't have been a Hitler. Hitler, of course, said that the humiliation at Versailles-mostly at the hands of France and England-made it necessary for him to come to power, but he didn't stop to single out Wilson personally. Never mind: for Cato Institute denizen Powell (The Triumph of Liberty, 2000, etc.), Wilson was the architect of the 20th-century's worst political disasters, and therefore "surely ranks as the worst president in American history." By Powell's account, this is not merely because Wilson dragged America into WWI (as, the right wing once sniffed, FDR dragged America into WWII) for his own selfish and misguided reasons, but also because-that most mortal of sins among libertarians-he turned away from laissez-faire policies, which means more government and more tax. And why? Because Wilson "had dreams of glory, telling other people what to do at the peace settlement." And to get a place at the peace table, Wilson had to get us into the war: ergo Versailles, and thence Hitler, and Lenin, eased into power because Wilson "utterly misunderstood what was going on in Russia," and Stalin, because without Lenin there could be no Stalin, and so on. Of course, Waterloo would have turned out differently if Napoleon had only had a few helicopters: this is a book in which post hoc is definitely propter hoc, and never mind the factual niceties, and in which history hinges on single men rather than-as most historians would suggest-a combination of social and economic forces and people in the right place. The upshot is up-to-the-minute: lest we create a few more Stalins down the line, Powell insists, the US must become isolationist rather than interventionist ("American blood and treasure should be reserved for safeguarding Americans"), and thus lessen the reach of that pesky thing, government. Powell uses up a lot of vitriol, supported by mere assertion, to get to that payoff. None of it is convincing. "

I thought it would be nice to provide a sample of how the conservative demagogues who have proven the past 10 years how unworthy they are to ever hold high office, if any, in America, are fighting hard to revise American history to craft their own special destruction of our democratic republic. They've been trying to discredit and destroy New Deal inspired programs since the Depression, when conservative government in the U.S. fiddled while America starved until FDR radically changed the response to the devastating economic cataclysm of 1929 when Democratic nominee FDR routed Hoover in 1932. In fact, the same author of this particular hatchet-job on Wilson, utilizing the shakiest rationale I've ever encountered, wrote a fine revisionist piece on FDR's New Deal legacy. America was suffering an economic emergency the likes of which had never been encountered since English colonists landed on these shores and began their conquest of North America. Hoover saved the children of Belgium from starving in the aftermath of WW I and helped aid poor black Mississippi River valley inhabitants who were flooded from their homes in 1927, but didn't do a damned thing to help his fellow Americans survive their desperate conditions. Perhaps it takes hard lessons for Americans to remember the harsh essence of Republican rule's effect on the nation.

Right-wing populism represses liberty, in the name of moral principle or rescuing Americans from themselves, leading to socially disastrous results or reactions to their heavy-handed imposition of self-righteous moral practice on other Americans. Not to forget their jingoistic propagandic drag on Americans to needlessly send troops into harm's way. The Iraq War is a needless war, particularly since the war no one disagrees with, the Afghan War, is incomplete and the nation-building may never be completed since most of our military assets are in use in Iraq, a nation that had no involvement in the 9-11 attacks and had no stockpiles of WMD. The Europeans must succeed where Americans have failed. The latest nut-job call by fundamentalists in Afghanistan to murder a man who converted to Christianity because sharia demands it is proof that we have no idea how maniacally primitive these cultures are and now we have an involvement in a middle eastern powderkeg which grows in intensity by the hour.

Sure one could argue that Americans should never have intervened on behalf of two democratic nations in WW I who had become cozy American allies after a bloody history fighting for European and global hegemony. Germany wanted to expand its empire and to succeed it had to defeat the two current European players who controlled the seas and important African and Asian outposts, in addition to America's latest attempt at building empire which was forced by a Republican administration with the help of a jingoistic, powerful press, led by Hearst, a jingoistic, conservative enterprise determined to use American military power for all the wrong reasons with little evidence for the necessity of the conflict with the two target nations, the Spanish Empire and Iraq. Hearst's nationalistic itch for American service in combat is certainly a predecessor of Fox News' recent revival of the "yellow press." I cannot blame Wilson for secretly providing financing and war materiel prior to the sinking of the Lusitania in 1916, which precipitated our involvement in the war. What conservative wouldn't deliver aid to their favored participant in a conflict or attack a nation which sank a ship with Americans aboard as Wilson declared war on Germany for having killed Americans traveling as "tourists" to merry old England with some secret stash of artillery shells in the cargo hold, etc, etc. ? Granted, this author is a libertarian, but they've since merged with the GOP, so he's certainly to be lumped in with Bush's supporters.

More fallacious reason by Republicans and their sympathizers.

Lindsley Smith announces for reelection to AR Legislature

2006-03-06T19:58:00.000-06:00

Lindsley Smith (D, Fayetteville) has announced her candidacy for reelection to the AR Legislature representing House District 92. She was unopposed in her last election bid. Her list of accomplishments and more information about her are available at her campaign website. Let's wish Lindsley the best and, if you have time, offer to help her campaign for a voice of reason in the Legislature. Our Legislature is a bit heavy with right-wing jackasses, so any dissenting voice is a desperate requirement.

Henry A. Wallace: The Danger of American Fascism

2006-03-06T19:38:00.000-06:00

In an age of "hyper-security" and the remonopolization of American business and a decidely weighted climate in favor of business interests, Henry A. Wallace had a few reflections concerning fascism in a 1944 guest column for the NY Times. The usurpation of the American government by "conservative" elements is cause for alarm. It hasn't been too many years ago since conservatism was a dirty word, particularly its effect on 19th century European (thus, global) political affairs and its cause of WW I, WW II, and the Cold War. The conservative reaction to American liberalism(the original founding of the U.S. was NO CONSERVATIVE movement folks, it ousted a crowned head---a radical development in the eyes of most European governments at the time, though one of the most conservative crowned heads of Europe helped the Americans in their war with Britain to gain an edge on their rival during a global conflict that had sporadically taken place for the entire 18th century) and French radicalism that led to a continental conflict that changed the face of warfare forever(which means it became MORE deadly--tough to fathom with the 30 years war's impact on European life). The conservative reaction(Concert of Europe) to the French Revolution turned out to be far worse than Napoleon's destructive ramble across Europe.

The following essay by Wallace resonates more by the day in this nation. Let's hope his fears don't fall on deaf ears.

The Danger of American Fascism
Henry A. Wallace
An article in the New York Times, April 9, 1944.From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 259.
"On returning from my trip to the West in February, I received a request from The New York Times to write a piece answering the following questions:
What is a fascist?
How many fascists have we?
How dangerous are they?
A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.
The perfect type of fascist throughout recent centuries has been the Prussian Junker, who developed such hatred for other races and such allegiance to a military clique as to make him willing at all times to engage in any degree of deceit and violence necessary to place his culture and race astride the world. In every big nation of the world are at least a few people who have the fascist temperament. Every Jew-baiter, every Catholic hater, is a fascist at heart. The hoodlums who have been desecrating churches, cathedrals and synagogues in some of our larger cities are ripe material for fascist leadership.
The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this even in those cases where they hope to have profitable connections with German chemical firms after the war ends. They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.
American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.
The European brand of fascism will probably present its most serious postwar threat to us via Latin America. The effect of the war has been to raise the cost of living in most Latin American countries much faster than the wages of labor. The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives. Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the United States. Following this war, technology will have reached such a point that it will be possible for Germans, using South America as a base, to cause us much more difficulty in World War III than they did in World War II. The military and landowning cliques in many South American countries will find it attractive financially to work with German fascist concerns as well as expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics.
Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.
Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the present unpleasantness" ceases:
The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups. Likewise, many people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler's game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.
The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
Several leaders of industry in this country who have gained a new vision of the meaning of opportunity through co-operation with government have warned the public openly that there are some selfish groups in industry who are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage. We all know the part that the cartels played in bringing Hitler to power, and the rule the giant German trusts have played in Nazi conquests. Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.
It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship. What we must understand is that the industries, processes, and inventions created by modern science can be used either to subjugate or liberate. The choice is up to us. The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. It was Mussolini's vaunted claim that he "made the trains run on time." In the end, however, he brought to the Italian people impoverishment and defeat. It was Hitler's claim that he eliminated all unemployment in Germany. Neither is there unemployment in a prison camp.
Democracy to crush fascism internally must demonstrate its capacity to "make the trains run on time." It must develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. As long as scientific research and inventive ingenuity outran our ability to devise social mechanisms to raise the living standards of the people, we may expect the liberal potential of the United States to increase. If this liberal potential is properly channeled, we may expect the area of freedom of the United States to increase. The problem is to spend up our rate of social invention in the service of the welfare of all the people.
The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan. Democracy can win the peace only if it does two things:
Speeds up the rate of political and economic inventions so that both production and, especially, distribution can match in their power and practical effect on the daily life of the common man the immense and growing volume of scientific research, mechanical invention and management technique.
Vivifies with the greatest intensity the spiritual processes which are both the foundation and the very essence of democracy.
The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and international relationships have a practical bearing which so-called practical men deny. This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.
Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.
It should also be evident that exhibitions of the native brand of fascism are not confined to any single section, class or religion. Happily, it can be said that as yet fascism has not captured a predominant place in the outlook of any American section, class or religion. It may be encountered in Wall Street, Main Street or Tobacco Road. Some even suspect that they can detect incipient traces of it along the Potomac. It is an infectious disease, and we must all be on our guard against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction. But if we put our trust in the common sense of common men and "with malice toward none and charity for all" go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail. "

AR Dem Gaz addresses Helena Blues fest

2006-03-04T16:51:00.000-06:00

Nice editorial about the change of name of the former King Biscuit Blues Fest of Helena(-W. Helena) in the DemGaz. The festival has been renamed the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival and the annual festival may be in jeopardy of folding. The owners of the King Biscuit Flour name decided to request $20,000 from festival organizers. The festival is free to the public and many folks I know from all corners of AR attend the fest because of it. The town where the festival is held is in the AR Delta and has the economy to reflect it, thus all the folks they draw to town are relied upon for a yearly economic jolt. My view is that the fest should be named the Sonny Boy Williamson Blues Festival and the art of harmonica should be showcased, since Sonny Boy played the harmonica brilliantly. The casino across the bridge in Lula, MS has been a salvation for the fest by its sponsorship. Too bad the King Biscuit name has been moved to touristy Beale Street in Memphis. Each year, a competition and recording opportunity should be afforded the new harmonica contest winner in honor of Sonny Boy.

Hopefully, the battered, bruised, embarassed town can salvage some of what's been good for the community in light of recent political and school district disasters there. Certainly, the KBBF didn't attract the greatest names in Blues(though many of the greats of Blues whose names aren't as recognizable to most folks who claim an interest and love for Blues, but really don't know anything about the history and the less-known greats), but it's a free festival and the likes of B.B. King, Etta James, Robert Cray, and other headliners just cannot be attracted. It's a pity those folks haven't felt compelled to appear at least once in the past 20 years to pay homage to Helena's role in the history of the Blues and their ode to one of the great legends of the Blues. It's not like there are that many places of historic interest in the story of the Blues. Let's see, um, Memphis, Chicago, New Orleans, Greenville, MS, and Helena, AR seem to be must-visit sites for Blues enthusiasts.

Time for those who have benefited from their performance of the Blues to step up and raise some money to keep the festival alive and perhaps recover the King Biscuit name for the fest. Not going to happen, I suspect. The festival is worthy of preservation, like many old homes and buildings in the dying town. The entire state of AR who actually understand the importance of the uniquely American artform should rise to save this festival from possible death.

Cheney's economic "pep talk"

2006-03-03T13:38:00.000-06:00

From the AR Dem Gazette: "Cheney to Americans: Save for future WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney urged Americans on Thursday to do a better job of saving and challenged policymakers to strengthen pensions and Social Security to help Americans heading toward retirement. “The American dream begins with saving money and that should begin on the very first day of work,” Cheney told a conference in Washington exploring how to encourage people to boost savings and be better prepared for retirement. Too often, workers are living paycheck to paycheck and are not saving sufficiently, Cheney said. Last year, Americans’ personal savings rate dropped to its lowest point since the Great Depression. The dismal state of savings comes as a big wave of baby boomers will soon start retiring, straining Social Security as fewer workers are available to help bankroll the retirement program. The vice president also called on Congress to complete action on legislation that would strengthen the nation’s troubled pension system. Separate House and Senate bills are aimed at shoring up traditional, employer-based defined-benefit pension plans, which are underfunded by a collective $450 billion. "

It's great to know that Cheney now has reached an understanding that Americans aren't doing so well in the savings race. Our economy is spiraling into uncharted waters with the ancient conservative governance by the Bush/Cheney hydra controlling the agenda, there will be no end to the loss of high-paying jobs that were so vital to the health of the nation's economy in times past and their pension and insurance benefits. Americans are "living paycheck to paycheck and not saving sufficiently," says the Power Beneath the Waves(Cheney--courtesy Joseph Campbell) of discontent that is boiling over among the general population with the worst administration ever to hold the title of President continuing to extoll the "virtue" of "outsourcing" American jobs to India and Bush's encouragement of the practice. When fewer Americans have a degree of security, as have been enjoyed by millions of Americans after the post-WW II economic boom, fueled to a large degree by defense spending during the ensuing Cold War with the Soviet Union, what future do we Americans have before our ways of life all change for the worst forever? It seems our future is murky at best if the electorate don't wake up and demand accountability from the government, which happens to be infected by a GOP majority, we are all in grave danger, unless you're one of the lucky ones who will always be adequately employed and covered by a health plan(at least until retirement, no certainty that retirement to grave healthcare will be around when you retire) and increasingly more companies are dumping pensions from their offerings for employees.

As the postmortem on the causes of the American Revolution reveals, i.e., the idea that the French and Indian War of the late 1750s and early 1760s precipitated the Revolution because the last serious external threat from the likes of a continental European power had been precluded from further conquest in North America, so the stage was set to throw off the imperial head of their colonies and avoid control by any force and set up a strictly North American government. The loss of our great enemy of the 20th century from 1917 to 1991, the U.S.S.R, has allowed the hawkish members of the military/industrial elite to promote a war which should never have reached this conclusion, at least not based on the downside of removing a dictator, not quite as bad as Saddam was Tito of Yugoslavia who kept a lid on age-old racial, religious, and ethnic tensions by ruling rather harshly(just like Saddam, but maybe not quite as brutal of sadistic). Who is to say after the history of the Balkans post-Cold War that Tito's regime wasn't the best possible arrangement to avoid tragic chaos. The Serbs dominated the military establishment, though the "nation" Yugoslavia was a hodge-podge of various groups. The Austro-Hungarian empire had existed ruling a much larger territory than Tito, so imagine their difficulties and possible reasons for why the old empire was so weak.

It's nice to see Cheney admit that things are not working out so well among the general population of Americans. People are living "paycheck to paycheck," as Cheney observed because income has taken a dive and what income is earned is choked by the rising costs of living in our nation. The voodoo economists of the Bush administration suffer the same insensitivity of the elder Bush, who didn't "get it", as the sloganeers emblazoned on the brain of the voting public, because he didn't relate to the ordinary American (his background precludes that possibility) and really didn't seem to care about the spiraling economy during his adminstration of the U.S. government and its negative effect on ordinary Americans. And to slap us all in the face and tell us all that "outsourcing" formerly high-paying, adequate employment opportunities to India is "GOOD" for Americans; the Bushie hegemons have some nerve.

Again: "Last year, Americans’ personal savings rate dropped to its lowest point since the Great Depression." The GREAT DEPRESSION?! If this Bush cartel doesn't espouse the pre-Depression values of the GOP, I have no idea how to describe them. Hoover was a brilliant man, unlike Bush, but he was old-line GOP and they aspire to the conservatism that pushed the world into the global catastrophe remembered as WW-I. Conservatism was a dirty concept because they largely were monarchial forces pledged to join in alliance militarily to oust any government in Europe which had it's monarchial head overthrown, as the French Revolution had achieved. The crowned heads felt much safer keeping their aristocratic cousins(usually literally) on their respective thrones and drown all talk of another mimic of the American Revolution(though, thankfully, the good ol' American people didn't have many aristocrats to behead, as our French allies from the American revolution). Needless to say, monarchial squabbles turned into nationalistic warfare, which has been largely responsible for some of the worst mass bloodshed in human history. I don't want to repeat such cavalier incompetence, thus I eschew all conservative values because I don't think rank and file Americans who view themselves as conservative Republicans had that kind of conservatism in mind when they voted for the most incompetent president in recent memory.

Time to end the GOP majority over this nation; hopefully 2006 is the year to rid the American polity of their bumbling administration of the government. I believe the American people can survive nicely without any more encouragement from Cheney's soulless void described as a human person. Americans can't possibly believe they are better off than 5 years ago when Dubya ascended to the throne his father promised him. For moderates like me, this nation is getting to be a rather ugly place, which isn't quite so foreign to most Americans with the evils and our nation's history during the 20th century. I fear a repeat of the political climate of the 60s which might tear us all apart irreconcilably this time around. Why do Americans always have to learn their lessons the hard way? Dogma is the blinding force responsible and when dogma enters political discourse, nothing but trouble can possibly ensue. Beware of dogma!(stolen from a paraplegic cartoonist, forgot his name).

Anatomy of a Masterson Column

2006-02-17T14:57:00.000-06:00

This analysis of Mike Masterson's weekly column by MSB00 titled "How to Write a Mike Masterson Column" is hilarious. Check the link.

Birt Hume "Interviews" Cheney over Shooting

2006-02-16T14:52:00.000-06:00

Hume, one of the most partisan hacks in the news biz interviewed Cheney in the wake of his shooting of fellow Republican and friend days after the incident. Jack Cafferty compares Hume's interview of Cheney as akin to Bonnie interviewing Clyde.

Also: "He(JC) insisted, however, that "running over there to the Fox network" was "seeking a safe haven" because Cheney will not "get any high, hard ones from anybody at the F-word network."

Humorous guy.

Is it my imagination or does Cheney have a heart problem which likely requires powerful meds that should NEVER be mixed with alcohol. Will we ever learn the truth about the incident?

Great vid

2006-02-10T15:22:00.000-06:00

Here's a video montage of the wonderful years of reign of King George II (Bush, you might have guessed) link courtesy Blondesense blog. The video can be found at the filmstripinternational website. Succinct, accurate summation of the Bush years.

More Disaster Mismanagement

2006-02-10T13:43:00.000-06:00

The moronic administration of the New Orleans disaster continues to produce more embarassment for our nation. Hundreds of mobile homes stocked at the municipal airport of Hope, AR were gathered there for distribution among the survivors of the Katrina disaster. All are brand new and fully furnished, according to Congressman Mike Ross (a graduate of Hope High) during a tour of the site. 6 parishes in Louisiana are willing to take the trailers, according to an LA Times article. Would anyone like to give a good effort at a reason why? Folks in the parishes don't want the mobile homes or the probable inhabitants to have any chance of relocating to THEIR parishes. I hate to see race injected in every argument, but that's why only 6 parishes allowed the mobiles relocated within their boundaries. To summarize:

"It's amazing that every state in the union embraced Katrina evacuees except the folks in Louisiana," FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said. "

Maybe FEMA's not to blame for THIS particular fiasco. More of that good ol' Bible Belt Christian love and compassion. Not that religious groups, fundamentalist and sane, didn't work their hearts out for the benefit of those poor folks along the Gulf coast. Louisianans' apparent disdain for fellow Louisianans is appalling. I hope I never live to see Arkansans turning their backs on fellow Arkansans. We would need to be very ashamed. I wonder if David Duke's old stomping grounds where he found political success in N. Louisiana allowed any of the trailers or very many of the refugees? Sad.

Names of victims and possible victims of alleged Canadian serial killer

2006-01-30T16:08:00.001-06:00

Da Spook had a link to the beginning of the trial of Robert Pickton, a pig farmer who may have chopped some of the bodies into his homemade sausage, ala Motel Hell, a 70s horror flick. I thought it would be good to present a list of possible victims of Pickton's Vancouver Eastside rampage, preying on sex workers in the Canadian Pacific coast city.

"Pickton is charged in the murders of the following women:

Mona Wilson, 26 when she was last seen in November 2001.
Sereena Abotsway, 29 when she disappeared in August 2001.
Jacqueline McDonell, 23 when she was last seen in January 1999.
Diane Rock, 34 when last seen in October 2001.
Heather Bottomley, 25 when she disappeared in April 2001.
Andrea Joesbury, 22 when last seen in June 2001.
Brenda Wolfe, 32 when last seen in February 1999.
Georgina Papin, last seen in 1999.
Jennifer Furminger, last seen in 1999.
Helen Hallmark, last seen in 1997.
Patricia Johnson, last seen in March 2001.
Heather Chinnock, 30 when last seen in April 2001.
Tanya Holyk, 23 when last seen in October 1996.
Sherry Irving, 24 when last seen in 1997.
Inga Hall, 46 when last seen in February 1998.
Marnie Frey, last seen August 1997
Tiffany Drew, last seen December 1999
Sarah Devries, last seen April 1998
Cynthia Feliks, last seen in December 1997
Angela Jardine, last seen in November 1998
Diana Melnick, last seen in December 1995
Debra Jones, last seen in December 2000
Wendy Crawford, last seen in December 1999
Kerry Koski, last seen in January 1998
Andrea Borhaven, last seen in March 1997
Cara Ellis, last seen in January 1997
Jane Doe (remains found but not identified)
Pickton is implicated in the murders of the following women, but charges have not as yet been laid (incomplete list):
Yvonne Marie Boen, reported missing in March 2001
Dawn Teresa Crey, reported missing in December 2000
Unidentified woman 1
Unidentified woman 2 "

This list was compiled by a Wikipedia contributor from CBC news where a pictures list is compiled of 69 missing women with the images darkended of the women suspected to have been victims of Pickton. According to the report, sex workers began to disappear in significant numbers as early as 1978 and not until 2001 did police "hint" at their view a serial killer might have been active. A new Canadian import for TV, "Da Vinci's Inquest" has obviously ripped this scenario from the headlines. Da Vinci is a coroner in Vancouver who is crusading for his idea of a "red-light" district where sex workers could work in relative safety in a district where they could stay and work without fear of arrest. In other words, no pig farmer can come to town and take an unsuspecting prostitute away in his truck to murder her because she has nowhere safe to do her business. Not that I'm an advocate of such a proposal, but when you have 70 women murdered on your streets, a city like Vancouver should think outside the box on how to protect these women, largely addicted to hard drugs. Some of the prostitutes Pickton brought from Vancouver were part of his raves at his "Piggy Palace Good Times Society" as "entertainment," so not all would have been saved by a "red-light" district idea.

Hopefully, the families of these women will see a degree of justice meted for Mr. Pickton at the end of this trial. Nothing will bring their loved ones home to them when it's ended.

Masterson the Bonehead and Other Fundie News

2006-01-21T12:22:00.000-06:00

Mike Masterson strikes again! He's becoming quite embarassing for a supposed "reporter" In his column this morning in the ADG,(registration r'qred) "Our God Paradox", Mike refuses to research his own ideas. " Our national pledge professes “one nation under God.” Let's review that statement. Between 1924 and 1954, the pledge read: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands; one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." The McCarthyist "witchhunts" of the 1950s precipitated a change in the pledge, in order to weed out "godless" commies in America(who MOST certainly would not pledge allegiance under God--as-if naively believing that they could catch commies who supposed could NEVER lie and say the pledge despite reference to God--sheesh what an imbecile!); the change was added "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands; one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Mike either wants to avoid that bit of trivia because his presumptive premise that America was once a more "godly" nation who included the phrase "under God" in all forms of patriotic endeavor. WRONG, MIKE!

He quoted serial emailer and Realtor:"Frances Langham recently sent an e-mail my way that recited excerpts which specifically honor God’s role from 50 state constitutions." Mike read the preambles of the "most liberal" states: "

Arkansas preamble: “We, the people of the state of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government. . . .” Minnesota preamble: “We, the people of the state of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty. . . .” California preamble: “We, the people of the state of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom. . . .” Massachusetts preamble: “[A]cknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise. . . and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design. . . .”

Do these facts practically disprove his entire argument that God is being pushed from the public forum? Not to mention that serial emailer Langham has urged email recipients to fight against impact fees and for those, like her, who believe that God himself has commanded that smokers be able to smoke and endanger the health of restaurant workers and the non-smoking public with their meals to vote against the Fayetteville smoking ban. Some source you have there, Mike!

In other fundamentalist news, in the religion pages of the Times and the Morning News, an AP article by Rachel Zoll, the "crusading" hatemongers who ousted the "moderates and liberals" from the Southern Baptist Convention have directed their efforts to oust all who don't follow the religious correctness, which has infected the SBC for decades has been directed at "fellow conservatives" who believe in that tongue-talkin' stuff. The Crusades of the middle ages and early Renaissance managed to kill their share of fellow Christians in attacks on Irish Christians, Albigensian Christians, and Orthodox Christians. A cautionary tale for the hateful folks of the SBC who would purge everyone, except the biggest donors to SBC churches. Says a critic of the conservative takeover of the SBC:

"The Rev. Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest Divinity School in North Carolina and a critic of the conservative takeover, said the Southern Baptists are burdened by competing goals: attracting new members, while creating strict boundaries between the convention and other Christians that end up making them appear "mean.""The Southern Baptist leadership is so ideologically driven that it's almost impossible for them not to continually draw lines and narrow the boundaries," he said. "In the early stages, this was publicly evident with the moderates and liberals. Now, when the convention meets annually in June, you wonder who they're going to throw out this year. There's always somebody."

What a "caring, compassionate" church the SBC is molding. As I reported in an earlier blog, the whole issue stems from an attack on Rev. Wade Burleson. Burleson was an object of an effort to oust him from a membership on the Southern Baptist International Mission Board(successfully), an arm of the SBC because he believes in a "gift of the Spirit" speaking in tongues or, as the SBC crusaders describe as "'a private prayer language'", a concept that is sweeping folks targeted by missions efforts worldwide. Burleson runs a blog at kerussocharis.blogspot.com and stated:

"Sadly, the Southern Baptist Convention is now moving toward a time when everyone must look the same, talk the same, act the same, believe the same on the nonessentials of the faith -- or else you will be removed as 'not one of us,'" he wrote in a Dec. 10 entry."

This "crusade" persists at time of a recrafting of the SBC image, as Zoll states:

"Southern Baptists are trying to reverse several years of stagnation in membership growth, partly through an ad campaign called "Caring People" that is meant to soften their image. Complaints of hardball church politics would undermine that effort."

Good luck recruiting fellow hard-right politicos to foster your ideological agenda against our democratic republic, SBC! These are fearful times, which usually precipitate such populist religious furors. Burleson shouldn't whine too much; he played a part in the purge of "liberals and moderates" from the SBC in years past.

Times blisters KNWA

2006-01-20T11:21:00.000-06:00

Nice editorial from the NW AR Times this morning concerning KNWA's decision to ban a program deemed offensive by the First Baptist Church of Springdale. Here's a sample of the editorial:

"Viewers didn’t demand cancellation of "The Book of Daniel" because it promotes sex and violence — both of which there is certainly too much of on the public airwaves. In this case, residents of Northwest Arkansas had a problem with the ideas the show espoused. And ideas, after all, are dangerous. Ideas make us think. As the popularity of reality TV shows us, the American people are a lot happier when they don’t have to think at all."

Let's have a big "AMEN!" for the Times. NW AR whiners want a right to NEVER have their ideas or beliefs challenged. If your ideas don't withstand a rational challenge, how credible are your ideas? Not exactly the type of citizenship conducive to the survival of our democratic republic. Watch your mindless television without challenge, like "American Idol" and other mushbrain selections.

Larry McMurtry not the only talented McMurtry

2006-01-19T16:25:00.000-06:00

Here's a link to James McMurtry's website. McMurtry is one of the finest artists performing music today. It's a pity he's never performed in Fayetteville since I've lived here. Since Larry has raised such a buzz with "Brokeback", it seems proper to point out James' success as a singer-songwriter. Plus, James doesn't much care for President Cheney.

Mind-boggling defense spending

2006-01-19T12:27:00.000-06:00

An article by Winslow Wheeler at counterpunch about the incredible amount of tax dollars spent on defense. How can our nation sustain these expenditures? Our nation is hemorrhaging from this unilateral war in Iraq. Any fool who recites the list of nations "allied" with the U.S. in this expedition should recite how much money those countries have spent on the war effort. Is Kuwait going to repay us for our expenditures this time? Ha!

Reagan Secy. Webb defends fellow Marine Murtha

2006-01-19T12:15:00.000-06:00

From Hullabaloo, a link to Webb's op-ed for NYT. An interesting take from a gung-ho(characterizations I remember when he took the Secy. position) Navy secretary from the Reagan administration. The Bush administration bullies all dissent from critics with unquestionable military credentials. Any decorated vet should EXPECT an assault on their patriotism or their war records if they dare question the imperial presidency's policies. Sounds like McCarthy from the 50s when he accused the military of harboring communists. How could anyone be proud of this president and his attacks on those who actually served in combat in defense of our nation?

NOLA update: Children are their future

2006-01-19T11:57:00.000-06:00

The old adage "children are our future" has a sterling example for the city of New Orleans. College students returning to NOLA en masse have raised the population by 20% according to the CS Monitor. Surviving college campuses can serve the same function as a small city, plus, contribute to the need for businesses lacking employees. Now, perhaps the city can dump Nagin and start from scratch with leadership capable of reviving the destroyed city. Nagin should resign and allow someone with a rational demeanor instead of the bonehead "roust-em-up " demagogue (chocolate city!) performance exhibited at the MLK holiday commemoration Monday.

"Daniel" update

2006-01-17T22:22:00.000-06:00

The "Book of Daniel" can be seen on the UPN affiliate in NW AR, reports the AR Times blog this evening (Mon. Jan. 17). Ar Times declares it a defeat for censorship. Woo Hoo! It's not the greatest show, but it is an interesting show with some excellent talent on-screen.

Book of Daniel banned from KNWA Friday lineup

2006-01-17T12:41:00.000-06:00

KNWA announced Monday it would no longer air "The Book of Daniel" due to complaints of God's righteous warriors who inhabit NW AR who fight the "Darkside", like the Cajun God-warrior of Fox's Trading Spouses . I suppose if the Christ was depicted stoning the entire cast of characters, it would have been worthy of airing. Folks in NW AR want a vengeful Christ, not the Christ of the Beatitudes.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdon of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
Matthew 5:3-10
(Return to Fr. Groeschel's article) "

The fundamentalist "wackos"(as described by superlobbyist Jack Abramoff) have been editing all the unholy talk about mercy and peacemaking for nearly 50 years from the word of God, so it's no surprise that a depiction of a merciful Christ who tries to help his priest friend on the show thru some of the lows of his life and his growing addiction to vicodin to cope just won't work for the "holiness or hell" crowd who predominate NW AR. The only "pure in heart" Christians are those who vote for neo-con Republicans hell bent on the self-fulfillment of right-wing Christendom's manic desire to see Armageddon break out in their lifetime. I remember as a teen in a So. Baptist congregation when Billy Graham urged Reagan in his dialogue with the Soviets to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons costing him some of his faithful in my church. Now, Franklin intends to countenance the Billy Graham who was a budding right-wing hack who saw NO EVIL in Nixon until he heard the tapes and saw the Watergate scandal unfold for all the world to see the corruption of the GOP's favorite holy warrior.

I suppose if the Christ was a lawyer, a detective, a homicide investigator, or a stock character coroner who stores his cold cut sandwich with organs or body fluids in his refrigerator or eats it over a dissected corpse would be more to taste for the "holiness or hell Christians" or if he hosted a show where pig innards are swallowed whole, there would be no whining. I suppose the good pastor of the show is not pure enough in heart to warrant a vision of Christ, much less a continuing conversation. Maybe if the Christ character drove the lenders from the temple...oops!...if that happened, half the fundamentalist congregations would have to empty the churches because churches are wonderful places for salesmen and lenders to network for business.

If ever there was a reason to fear the present climate in America, I would have to say that corporate ownership of news services and their inability to stand for free expression and to stand up to the worst Congress and President in the past 85 years and failed to temper the jingoism that led to the Iraq War is reason to dread the future. What if the corporate news entities had attempted to temper the "war fever" instead of exploiting it? Would we have 2,200 of the best folks who called themselves Americans still alive to enjoy their lives and their families today? It's not that I would urge a boycott of KNWA, but I am most especially concerned for the lack of courage in standing up to bullies who call themselves children of God. I am sad for the path to perdition our nation seems intent on taking today. I am sad about the right-wing madness of some of the bloggers and columnists I read in AR alone, much less all the vitriol spewed throughout America.

Seems to me fundamentalist Christians have become the persecuters these days. The admixture of politics and religion is still as dangerous as it was in the bloody centuries of Christians killing and destroying other Christians that preceded our time. Another victory for the fundamentalists in their Holy War declared in 1992 by Patrick Buchanan on behalf of the GOP. Cograts! Funny how Patrick considers the media the "neo-con media" as opposed to the mythic "liberal" media the GOP characterize today, which in GOP/Religious correctness jargon means, ANY criitcism or bad press for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz hydra we must suffer because of the neurotic path Americans demand for their nation. Here's an example of why PJ Buchanan is 100% correct in his assessment of the American media.

Paleocon speaks out

2006-01-15T14:45:00.000-06:00

Nice article by Pat Buchanan for American Conservative Magazine with some interesting poll numbers and an interesting take on the "human rights" rationale (one among among many--WMD, spread democracy, etc, etc.). If human rights is such a concern for neo-cons, why haven't we moved forces to eastern Chad or Darfur? Another could be why don't we invade Zimbabwe, the former "breadbasket" of Africa, needlessly sucked dry by dictator Robert Mugabe? " O-i-l", Israel, and American dominance of SW Asia are prime reasons polls of Islamic faithful claim as reasons for the American invasion of Iraq. Nice to hear Buchanan characterize the press as a neo-con press, not a "liberal" press. He's right!

...More about the Bush/Cheney racket

2006-01-13T23:12:00.000-06:00

Paul Craig Roberts is deeply unhappy with the death of the true conservative movement and doesn't care how he illustrates his disgust.

Says Roberts : "The Bush administration, backed by the neoconservative Federalist Society, has brought the separation of powers, the foundation of our political system, to crisis. The Federalist Society, an organization of Republican lawyers, favors more "energy in the executive." Distrustful of Congress and the American people, the Federalist Society never fails to support rulings that concentrate power in the executive branch of government. It is a paradox that conservative foundations and individuals have poured money for 23 years into an organization that is inimical to the separation of powers, the foundation of our constitutional system."'

Roberts sounds like a guy who believed in conservative opposition to some of the least desirable aspects of Democratic dominance of American politics only to be kicked in the face by folks with more sinister aims for a conservative takeover of the U.S. I once subscribed to the GOP bill of goods until I became disillusioned with their complete disregard for most things I hold sacred, like the American system of government. As Roberts describes:

"Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush's violation of law. Note the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriots who exposed the administration's illegal behavior.
Bush has actually declared it treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior! His propagandists, who masquerade as news organizations, have taken up the line: To reveal wrong-doing by the Bush administration is to give aid and comfort to the enemy."

Bush's administration of the executive branch is contrary to all the lessons I learned about our government and ideally how it should manage the affairs of America. Bush breaks the law, a brave NSA official, Russell Tice, blows the whistle, is declared "psychotically paranoid" by Defense department psychiatrists, and is fired. Granted, whistleblowers forever take a great risk and firing is one of the possible results. Yet, the mythic "rugged individualist" ethos many Americans take pride in perpetuating should push Americans to be horrified at this behavior. Still, many who support Bush refuse to point out the tinge of evil in the actions of the NSA and results of Tice's brave act. Looking at conservative bloggers in the NW AR area, Bush should ascend to sainthood for his transgressions against our free society. Tice said that if he were implementing the illegal domestic spying, he would vacuuum all possible information and take what he needs. In other words, a dragnet on communications would be instituted for maximum effectiveness since there was no accountability, not even to the FISA "rubberstamp" court. 5 warrants were denied out of scores of requests since 1978. Old Soviet guardians would have been proud of the Defense department shrinks and their politicizing of psychiatric ailments to combat dissent of all forms.

Roberts gets the final word: "Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarden picnic. The Bush administration's lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the final step and declared Bush to be above the law."

It has been reported that paleolithic conservative John Ashcroft declared these activities illegal. Ashcroft has long since been shown the exit door from the White House and replaced with an AG who will "tickle the ears"(quoting Paul) of the Bush/Cheney racket and sculpt legality from illegality as the neo-cons demand. P.C., I still trust our 200+ years of this American government and I am dismayed at the direction our nation is now taking. I am deeply afraid for the future of our democratic institutions while the Bush administration "attempt" to create democratic nations in the Islamic world. They certainly provide the very worst example of the "benefit" our form of government can provide for ordinary Iraqis. Bush eschews Immanuel Kant's dictum from Critique of Practical Reason to act according to that maxim which one would will to be universal law. In all fairness to Dubya, I believe few Americans follow Kant's sage advice on ethics these days. To ignore Kant is to imperil our ethical fabric. Clinton's adultery and lies to cover up the act is "kindergarten" stuff, as Roberts states. Bush's corruption is fundamental and counter to our nation's values we've accrued through some severe ethical low points, such as the acceptance of slavery as right and worthy of perpetuation, and bloodshed.

Wah!

2006-01-13T13:47:00.000-06:00

I suppose the question posed by Sen. Kennedy when Alito's wife started to cry was unfair in her view. The crying began in response to Kennedy's questioning of Alito concerning his affiliation with a right-wing group at Princeton, CAP. Kennedy was reading the stated views of the group, which are certainly mainstream Repub values, but no Repub will own up to their real views they discuss at the bar(or the family values institutions like the titty bars in Houston whose business burgeoned during the most hateful, vitriolic GOP convention in history with Pat Buchanan's infamous Clarion call of Holy War in America) or at church with fellow faithful. Alito claimed not to have remembered his affiliation except to preserve the ROTC program on campus. Funny that Alito claimed membership in CAP on his resume' submitted for a Reagan administration job. It seems that Alito lied about his affiliation with CAP on his resume' or he has the same selective memory disorder of his beloved Ronald Reagan(Iran-Contra), or he is a quintessential CAP conservative who deep down believes everything Kennedy recited as CAP views. Dunno, maybe one can join a group, yet disavow the ideology of the group. That doesn't seem to be a supportive view of the group one decides to join. Perhaps he saw them as an ally to save his ROTC program and never officially joined the group. That would lead us back to the possibility that he lied on his resume'. I see what this man is all about: The end justifies the means. He needs to disavow his contact with a hateful conservative student organization at Princeton in order to smoothly take his seat on the Supreme Court and finish the conservative takeover of America. Enjoy, America! Big business is in the same position it was early in the 20th century with GOP presidents like Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Wilson took the presidency because TR ran against Taft and split the GOP vote in 1912. Harding was the most scandalous president in American history until Nixon's widespread corruption. Americans must learn by disaster, just like their brilliant President Dubya.

Maybe Alito will grow to beloved stature amongst Court watchers, but I don't believe that will be the case. The GOP deserve to choose the nominees since rank-and-file Americans have decided to cut their own throats to spite the "leftist" Dems by reelecting Big Oil and the Neo-Con factions to the presidency. Granted, the Dems could have chosen someone other than Kerry, but I believe we should have taken our chances and allowed someone who actually served America in combat to preside over our nation for 4 years. Sorry Mrs. Alito that some unfortunate associations in your husband's life hurt so much that you had to bawl in front of the American people on their TV sets. It was a FAIR QUESTION! I'm no fan of Sen. Kennedy, but this wasn't a cheap shot.

Paul Craig Roberts sounds the alarm

2006-01-13T13:36:00.000-06:00

Here's a post on truthout.org sounding the alarm of more serious economic problems over the horizon for the nation we all love. P.C. says it best: if you want to work for Dubya, learn to lie or else. Our economy is in shambles and no real jobs are being created. Our deficits have reached heights unimaginable even during the Reagan administration(P.C. should know;he worked for Reagan).

Exemplar of true courage dies

2006-01-06T14:43:00.000-06:00

Hugh Thompson, who landed his helicopter at My Lai between American troops and terrified villagers thus ending the massacre by our troops, has died of cancer at the age of 62. Thompson received death threats over his role in ending the massacre. Some argue he should have been court-martialed, not William Calley. Our political environment hasn't changed much since the Vietnam era. Ideology blinds.

Hugh Thompson did a favor for the Americans engaged in the massacre. Thankfully, Thompson saved them from far worse memories of their participation in the brutal war (those who survivied the war). Thompson stood up for true American ideals; those kids(soldiers at My Lai) needed a leader who would look out for them, not some jackass like Calley or commanders who condoned such actions who would exploit them.

"Incoming"

2006-01-06T14:03:00.000-06:00

A nice post on truthout.org by William Rivers Pitt. The list of Republican beneficiaries of "superlobbyist" Jack Abramoff is provided by Pitt. Nice quote provided:

"It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left. Our job is to remove them from power permanently."- Jack A. Abramoff

If all Dems are leftists(just ask a Holier Than Thou GOP-er), why would Abramoff give them a dime? Abramoff's GOP largess certainly drowns the pittance of cash he donated to Dem candidates and concerned organizations. Abramoff is a partisan GOP lobbyist. Give the red herring attempt a rest!

Reader Post: "Rove Exposed" excerpt

2006-01-06T13:56:00.000-06:00

Here's an excerpt of James Moore and Wayne Slater's latest book, Rove Exposed: How Bush's Brain Fooled America. Thanks for the link, Steve. I read Bush's Brain. I also read about the "dirty tricks" school in All the President's Men. Rove was noteworthy before the public knew his name. Some shadow this s.o.b. casts. Thanks for unleashing him on our democracy assholes!

Afghanistan update

2006-01-05T15:23:00.000-06:00

"Iraq tactics" have spread to Afghanistan. A crowded market near the governor's office in Uruzgan province in South Central Afghanistan bore the brunt of the injuries. 10 were killed. The U.S. will be in Afghanistan for a generation I predict. I hope American soldiers will be there for a generation because there's no other way for the weak government of Afghanistan to manage under the present global and regional circumstances they face. 1,400 dead resulted from an increase in terror attacks in 2005.

Inching toward Rome's demise

2006-01-05T14:51:00.000-06:00

Maccabee of Daily Kos posts a story about Bush's Brain (great book) author James Moore has been placed on the No-Fly List. If true, yet another revelation of the daily saga of troubling developments concerning the Bush administration. I suppose revealing the past of Karl Rove and his impact on this President and the political electioneering techniques perfected by GOP insiders like him is grounds for an official flag as a suspected insurrectionary or terrorist. Bush has dangerously inched us towards Gomorrha(to quote the inimitable Judge Bork), er Rome.

Pat Robertson, again

2006-01-05T14:29:00.000-06:00

This Robertson character is evil incarnate. He just doesn't have a sympathetic bone in his body. He tries to gloss over his hateful words by mitigating it with "I think Sharon's a likeable fellow, but.... and Rabin..but.." Then the real master of Robertson's heart, more commonly referred to as Satan or Lucifer reveals himself. How could the Christ I remember studying be held responisble for such venom out of the mouths of his "people" like Pat. If this is all a preacher has to offer our democratic nation, then I suspect preachers should be relegated to occupying the church and keeping their mouth shut on political matters. They're like sheltered children you have to watch your language around for who knows what reason. What, is he going to personally send me to the flames? Brave Pat who sat on a ship while fellow Marines attacked a beach at Inchon during one of McArthur's finest moments as a commander(soon to be followed by his worst moment as a commander). Blaming an assassination and a stroke suffered by peacemaking Israeli PMs as wrought by God for the sin of "dividing the land" is proof positive of Pat's officially earned APOSTATE of the YEAR for 2006 as well as his honor for 2005. Cograts Pat! You accomplished in one week of 2006 what took you several months to earn in 2005!

Zarqawi-Kurd ally connection

2005-12-31T13:22:00.000-06:00

From NPR's "All Things Considered " an interview with coauthor Daniel Benjamin of The Next Attack. Benjamin briefly discusses Zarqawi's association with a Kurdish extremist group in the area protected by the No-Fly Zone in Iraq and the administration's awareness of the existence of the camp. The group had been working to produce ricin, a poison everyone should be familiar with at this point. Al-Zarqawi was allowed to operate within an American ally's de facto national borders(Iraqi Kurdistan) prior to the invasion. According to Benjamin, the Ansar al-Islam camp's existence was known, but administration officials decided not to attack the camp after American forces had crossed the border into Iraq, despite the desire by American forces. I remember an Ansar al-Islam camp having been destroyed rather early in the invasion of Iraq by special forces. It must not have been Zarqawi's camp.

Benjamin posits the view that the War on Terror has been distracted by the Iraq War, not enhanced. There are a number of al-Qaeda wannabe groups inspired by the death and destruction wrought against Americans and Iraqis who would prefer not to be destroyed in the name of Allah. Seems to me it's a lot like the hate-group phenomenon in the U.S. where the old standard hate groups of American history have faded into oblivion with a more sinister motley collection of skin-head groups with no central communication, except the internet and are more difficult to monitor and discover their crimes. Al-Qaeda as a movement has morphed into a collection of isolated cells inspired to be creative in their murderous ends among groups of folks who have no idea who their compatriots are, but serving the same goal inspired daily by jihadist websites and their sympathizers (some might argue Al Jazeera is adding to a bandwagon effect throughout formerly peaceful communities in various Islamic countries where jihadism is rising in popularity).

The Party of Lincoln

2005-12-30T15:44:00.000-06:00

From Raw Story, human trafficking still taking place in subcontractor companies doing business with U.S. military contractors despite a 2002 Presidential order to end such practices. Congress has passed bans recently, but the White House is slow to enforce the rule. The Party of Lincoln allowing human trafficking within companies they indirectly pay American dollars? What was this Iraq War all about again? Seems like this week, the PRIMARY reason for the war is to promote democracy and human rights. Yet another sterling example of American "democratic" and "human rights" concerns: Abu Ghraib, slave-trading pmc's. Who'd have thought the South would become majority Republican 100 years ago? Times, they are a-changin'.

Sen. Lott retiring?

2005-12-26T16:00:00.000-06:00

Robert Novak writes that Trent Lott has pondered retirement from the Senate. I admit to agreeing with Novak's idea that Bush's refusal to support Lott in his remarks about former Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond, a fixture in the GOP for 50 years before his death, undermined the Southern GOP faithful. The GOP Southern base is most assuredly set upon the backlash over the Democrats' civil rights legislation that LBJ thought would spell doom for the Dems for at least a generation. LBJ was half right. Let's hope the bedrock Dixiecrat tradition responsible for GOP dominance in the South, and in national elections, is eroding as Novak fears.

It's about time! Could the nation really stand a GOP-dominated Congress for 20 years? 40? If Bush is "mainstream", I can't imagine a strict adherent of far-right values in charge of our nation. Bush's spend-all-you-have-then-spend-all-that-you-don't-have conservatism has managed to alarm some of the most fervent fire-breathing GOP faithful. Is there a place in the Southern Dem party for fiscal conservatives who are troubled by GOP spiteful rhetoric? You bet there are. We'll see what the Third Way crowd, often maligned by center-left Dem faithful, emphasizes in its effort to take back the South and America from the demagogues of the GOP. Hillary's latest speeches are an indication, along with Jimmy Carter's latest printed adjuration, that the Dems are getting it right on the front lines of the battle for the soul of our democratic traditions. The futile"all-or-none" counterassaults(largely by center to left Dems from states outside the South) have ended and the Democratic Party seems to be focusing on legitimate cultural concerns that guide Americans at the polls, while continuing the fight for progressive traditions of the party. Then again, Southern Dems have largely remained in the traditionalist ideological camp anyway. Sen. Clinton wants to be a force in the South and her residence in Arkansas for 20 years can be a plus in the eyes of Southerners. Bill Clinton was no fire-breathing "liberal" straw man the GOP have crafted through the years since their humiliating defeats against FDR in response to the callous, today predictable, GOP response to human suffering within their own nation. The real BIG TENT is within the Democratic Party, not the anti-science, wedge-issue wielding, soft-imperialist GOP excuse for governance.

Only in the Bible Belt

2005-12-19T11:07:00.000-06:00

Southern Baptists have continued the effort to purge non-dogma elements from their churches. The latest issue is the speaking-in-tongues debate, which to most folks is downright nutty, has caused some ill will within their International Mission Board. Trustees of the agency "voted 25-18(actually 50-15 according to folks who attended) to establish a new policy banning the appointment of missionaries who had practiced a 'private prayer language,'" according to Robert Marus reporting for the Associated Baptist Press in an article for the ADG (registration required). Some interested folks believe the new policy is an attempt to embarass board president Jerry Rankin who has publicly engaged in a private prayer language and "interpreted" another "message" in tongues for a congregation.

The first impression of most who might read this is "what are they talking about?!" In the south where the tongue-talkin' faiths usually had their churches built in a remote location in the middle of a cotton field or across the tracks or in the mountains where they might be tempted to play with snakes, the issue is prime. Southern Baptists have their dogma and "holy-rolling" ain't acceptable for missionaries serving overseas in the name of the Southern Baptist god, er in the name of God on behalf of the Southern Baptist doctrine. If there was ever an illustration of why church and state have been deliberately separated by our Founding Fathers, this issue is proof of their wisdom.

I have in-laws who grew up worshiping in a tongue-talkin' or self-described "Pentecostal" manner who believe that among the "gifts" of the Spirit of God is included the ability to pray in other languages and the further ability for another to interpret messages sent in other languages for the edification of the Church. Mr. Jerry Rankin, current president of the Mission Board since 1993, believes his faith must include a "private prayer language". Mr. Rankin, welcome to the multitude of "purged" Christians whom the SBC decided weren't doctrinally sound, thus, they must "get their mind right" or leave. Many former SBC congregants have left the convention the past 25 years because of "unsound" political views or Biblical beliefs which the SBC have decided to formally condemn. The tongue-talkin' controversy had a public show during the media evangelist scandals of the late 80s when Jerry Falwell, not a believer in "gifts of the Spirit", took over Jim Bakker's, a tongue-talkin' proponent like Baptist Pat Robertson, "Christian Disneyland"(to quote Jimmy Swaggart, fellow hypocrite). Falwell was forced to answer questions on the doctrinal taboo and his view of what these folks are really saying or what psychological reason there is for the existence of such a concept. Needless to say, those years were not shining moments for evangelical Christendom. I would argue they should be viewed as cautionary. The religious component of the nasty political environment can lead to some absurd reasons for nasty occurrences.

It is sad how nutty and imposing a so-called "Christian" believer can be when it comes to differing or "unsound" doctrine. What did this Rankin fellow do to deserve be singled out by a 50 of 65 Board trustees? The SBC inquisition has been taking place for nearly thirty years with past efforts to purge differing doctrines from being taught in SBC-affiliated colleges like Wake Forest or Baylor, jokingly referred to by SBC preachers and congregants alike as the "Sodom and Gomorrha of the Brazos" and other SBC schools of divinity were under attack until Wake Forest left the convention in 1986. I remember my SBC preacher crowing about their "ouster" for undoctrinal teachings and his support for the work of Adrian Rogers of Memphis. Adrian Rogers, in the news last when it was announced he had died, was the most influential SBC preacher in the Mid-South and he was one of those responsible for the the slowly developing SBC version of Inquisition, purging all "liberal" ideas about doctrine from being heard or discussed in any of their affiliated congregations. As far as SBC devotees are concerned, folks like Rankin can join the Cooperative Baptist "apostate", more commonly referred to as the "Jimmy Carter Baptists".

Mr. Rankin can deny his "gifts" or leave the SBC altogether. It sounds like a purge to me and among Board members, he's already out the door. Shameful! The battle for who really knows God's Will is heating up and the mud in the name of Christ will continue to be flung until folks come to their senses, stop fearing death, and start caring more about people and less about dogma. When people are afraid, they tend to go to extremes to prove to themselves and others they are capable of plunging irrationally into a dogma and the way to Christ gets real easy from there. Nice fantasy to maintain! If it was so easy, the rivers of blood shed over religious differences within the same Christian faith would never have been a fact in our history. Luckily for Protestants, at the time the Catholic defenders were prepared to slaughter the Lutherans, the Turks decided to go a-conquering in Europe again. Naturally the Islamic infidel must be stopped BEFORE "apostate Christians" could be dealt with. Sad. Party-line Christianity can never be a pretty sight.

Honest Iraq War reasoning

2005-12-13T11:17:00.000-06:00

Nice commentary by William Rivers Pitt on the real reasons for the Iraq War on the site truthout:

"Here's the deal: we invaded Iraq to establish a permanent, muscular military presence in the Middle East; we invaded Iraq to take control of their petroleum reserves for the next hundred years, a pretty little piggy bank in a world where oil is becoming harder to find; we invaded Iraq so we could use our military presence there to attack and invade several other countries in the region; we invaded Iraq to establish strategic positioning for any economic and/or resource struggles with China and Russia; we invaded Iraq because administration officials who think they are members of the Likud Party believed this war would serve to protect and defend the state of Israel; we invaded Iraq so a bunch of military contractors with umbilical ties to the administration could get paid."

It's incredible to hear supporters of the decision to invade Iraq who don't want to hear about natural rsources as a prime reason for committing American troops to the region. Pro or con, natural resources is a very important component of any scheme to invade and occupy Iraq. The whole S. Asian region is embroiled in battles over natural resources with two of the largest consumers in the world right at the doorstep of the rich Caspian region and the Middle East: China and India. A former superpower with the bruised ego equivalent to that of the former French superpower stands on top of the world fighting to keep a piece of real estate worth a lot of Russian blood to maintain a grip on their former empire's oil capital Grozny. The Russian invasion of their own province is ALL about oil and the sole aircraft fuel refinery in Russia. Plans for a pipeline from the Caspian to the Black Sea shipping lanes has been publicized since early in the Clinton administration. Chechnya has been a sore spot for Russia since the very beginning of the collapse of the USSR. US negotiations with the Taliban to bypass the Russian trouble zone by building pipelines through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean via Pakistan troubled the Kremlin and Putin always has in mind the potential for Russia to become marginalised in its former satellites in the Caspian region including Krgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan. Natural gas and oil of the Caspian region has certainly drawn the attention of China, which borders Afghanistan in the southeast and the former Soviet satellites, and India. Russia will continue to make nice with the giants, but will also keep a wary eye on them for good reason.

Another noteworthy point of Pitt is the positioning argument for the war. The US have troops and equipment along the eastern and western border of Iran along with American allies Pakistan and Turkey, another nation with a sore spot which a pipeline to the world's shipping lanes will cross in the Kurd areas. The Kurds and Turks have been enemies for the longest and an independent Kurdistan is troublesome for the Turks, who have traded heavy losses with Kurdish insurgents in the past. Iran is firmly in the sites of US military power and perhaps some of Ahmadinejad's lunacy has resulted from the uneasiness of the US's recent history with the Bush administration in the White House. The US is in a position to invade any number of smaller nations in the region from the Middle East to central Asia. The Russians and Chinese have been trying to push the US out of basis in the former Soviet Caspian republics and have succeeded in persuading dictator Karimov of Uzbekistan to oust American bases supporting the Afghan mission.

Having accepted the totality of an argument for American involvement, Melivn Laird, for example in Foreign Affairs magazine, argues "so what?" Is the nation's need for oil no longer a legitimate reason to unleash American military power? Laird has a point except the potential "blowback" as experienced on 9/11 and the hundreds of terrorist attacks across the globe committed by actual Afghan war veterans or those whom those veterans have recruited and trained. 9/11 was the quintessential "blowback" event and invading Iraq could lead to a replication of the effect. The selling of the Iraq War was heavily dependent on the 9/11 connection. The fear that Saddam was building WMD and was planning to use it is indubitably a 9/11 argument for Bush's preemeptive strike. A 9/11 argument for the Iraq War is missing the point entirely of potential results of the ill will which a military solution to a lingering concern might engender. Laird is honest and is certainly a perspective on this issue to hear. In his Foreign Affairs article he laments the Ford decision to nix funding of the S. Vietnamese war effort and fears such a development could arise in Iraq. Funding shouldn't be cut off from what emerges as the legitimate Iraqi government when or if our troops ever fully withdrawn from Iraq. My thinking is that Wes Clark's proposal to position American troops along the borders of Syria and Iran isn't a bad idea. Our troops must be working toward limiting exposure in Iraqi society and retreating to isolated bases within the nation as has been suggested by those in charge of this effort.

Another argument I've often heard among Arkansans is that "I'd rather fight 'em there, than here." That's a narrow argument at best. Another Foreign Affairs article which appeared recently posits that with such reasoning, one must be able to identify a finite number of terrorists to kill. The "blowback" effect includes the ability to recruit and train as many terrorists as a terror organization can muster. Iraq is today's training ground for terrorists and they all aren't going to be killed. Insurgencies of yesterday leave behind numbers of surviviors who had a change of heart about continuing a struggle, much like the inusrgency encountered by Americans in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Killing all the "terrorists" is impossible! It's REALLY difficult to tell a terrorist from a legitimate "freedom" fighter in today's murky world of guerrilla warfare. For example: Are ALL the Chechens committed to irregular warfare merely terrorists? If one would look at the entire history of Chechen/Russian relations one would see a bitter picture of Russian atrocities committed against these people. The Beslan attack was horrible, but Chechen civilians have been tortured and murdered to get at the "ghosts" who appear and then disappear hounding Russian troops who operate in and around Chechnya. I would like to see some real talks about an autonomous Chechen republic within a Russian state. Has such a compromise become impossible at this point? As in the Balkans, an uneasy truce at best can be expected, but I prefer what I see in the Balkans now than through the Nineties. Age-old remembrance of atrocities past must be allowed to abate for there to ever be peace in the present.

Circumspection is not a trait of the Bush-in-the-chinashop crowd. Laird is right: Natural resources are a fair consideration in the wise use of American military power as was exhibited by the elder Bush in his Gulf War. Saddam's aggression against Kuwait was a development which could be challenged militarily and one of the world's oil-rich regions was spared from the disruption of lingering wars and threats when a legitimate Coalition was formed and the world sent actual combat troops to the field to do battle alongside American and British troops, unlike today's war. The US is practically alone with the best the UK can offer. Moderation is key in developing an effective global military and diplomatic strategy to protect our nation from future attacks like the World Trade Center and to protect the industrialized world's energy resources. Our strategy must include our dealings with China, India, and Russia and their energy needs. They are growing rivals who spend an awful lot of money on their militaries. In percentage of GNP, China and India spend 20% +. Some sources believe India and Pakistan each spend in the 30s and 40s percentage-wise, a steep figure for two relatively poor countries, ergo the Pakistani drive for nuclear weapons. Pakistan is vastly outnumbered by its elephantine neighbor to the east. Nukes are an equalizer for the Pakistanis and nuclear development offers more bang for the buck (so to speak).

A sane, fair argument could be waged about the future of our incursion in Iraq and other plans the PNAC crowd have in store for us. The lack of honesty over the real meaning of Iraq by the neo-cons has left many Americans wary of any maneuver undertaken by the Bush administration. If the Iraq War was sold as a protection of resources presently available to the US as well as fears about the spread of the Islamic fundamentalist jihad, I doubt the clamor would be as deafening. On the other hand, selling a war as part of a competition between nuclear rivals for natural resources would not be the most politic argument in the history of American diplomacy. But this Iraq War invasion mess doesn't appear to have been such a wise choice either. A moderation of the pros and cons of the Iraq War is necesary to provide a clear,determined direction for the American people as a whole. We need leadership which is capable of shaping this difficulty in Iraq to our advantage or unimaginable horrors will result from the short-sighted, bullying strategy. I suspect the PNAC crowd believe military solutions provide quick, easy results. Such thinking is faulty at best, at least to thousands of American casualties and their families. "Blowback" from this particular war could unleash a terrible future for the world's citizens and I fear Bush's decision to invade Iraq will likely be responsible for worse acts of human cruelty than we've yet experienced.

Texarkana car salesman update

2005-12-10T12:53:00.000-06:00

The Texarkana car dealer who went missing since accompanying a test driver was found dead. A 17 year old boy, a 16 year old girl, and possibly a 12 year old boy were involved in the murder. Ables, 52, was a former quarterback at Texas High, and was a musician and vocalist for various local bands. He is survived by a daughter, brother, and ex-wife. He worked at the car dealership for four years and was considered "a very good friend" by coworkers.

Rogers police clerk admitted past theft, drug use on previous jobs

2005-12-10T10:55:00.000-06:00

It seems that the least brilliant police force distinction in NW Arkansas for the largest cities must be assigned to the Rogers Police Department. A police clerk, Sheila Villalpando was arrested on suspicion of theft of $23,000 worth of cash and checks paid for fines. In two previous jobs, she admitted to the department prior to her hiring that she'd stolen approximately $1,000 and had used drugs at the work place at one of the jobs. They hired her despite her admissions. Brilliant!

It must have been really easy to catch her. It seems, though I couldn't find an archive article online, that the Rogers PD hired a man who failed a psychological screening from the Bentonville PD, then the guy was arrested for assault and battery of his significant other. If I'm wrong, if any news person reads this, please verify that for me. From racial profiling to hiring clerks to handle the money from fines with previous thefts and drug use on the job, to drawing a weapon on a working man in the early morning hours as he locks a gate to a business (me) as his company vehicle is parked and running with the lights on and the officer refused to identify himself and he didn't turn his blue lights on, they are the most self-righteous bunch of bunglers I've ever encountered. I was stopped by a Rogers officer on another early morning because I was parked outside a post office just after 9/11 to drop off some letters while in the same company vehicle. The officer thought I was a "potential terrorist"(his words); he was a complete moron who had NO BUSINESS wearing a uniform and definitely not qualified to carry a weapon. That incident can't be much worse than the Johnson PD road blocks set after the Oklahoma City bombing so they could heroically catch the bomber and propel Dean Melton, finally, to the Washington County Sheriff's office. By the way, the officer who seemed determined to use his gun on me in Rogers was the spitting image of Timothy McVeigh--- is there a connection? Rogers PD are a reckless bunch in the least.

Maria Taylor

2005-12-08T23:40:00.000-06:00

Here's an artist from Nebraska(I assume, since her label is located in Omaha) who has a delicate sound. Maria Taylor, courtesy spinsouth blog. I've only heard two songs, but so far, I like what I hear. Has she ever been to Fayetteville to perform? Not that I'd make it. I see far too few live performances. I haven't regularly attended live performances since graduating from Little Rock's finest university. Maybe if I learned to curtail the number of pitchers I imbibe, I wouldn't avoid live music venues. It's easy to download two songs by Maria at the spinsouth site. I hate to compare her to other artists, so I won't. There have been a number of female artists the past few years worth a listen. Liz Phair, Sam Phillips, Victoria Williams, et al. Fine music these chicks produce(no offense). Take the time to listen.

Kunar

2005-12-08T22:02:00.000-06:00

From the "Forgotten War" in Afghanistan, American forces continue to battle insurgents including a familiar name in the painful history of Afghanistan Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Saudi Sunni choice in the Afghan power struggle prior to the takeover by Taliban forces. Kunar province sets along the border with Pakistan in NE Afghanistan. Hizb-i-Islami, al Qaeda, and the Taliban are cooperating to menace the nation-building effort. "Drugs, timber, gems," and death seem to be the chief export through Kunar province according to American military authorities.

It seems that after an American assault and taking of ground, the Americans leave and the enemy return. A threadbare military force can hardly cover all the terrain of mountainous Afghanistan. A special operations chopper was downed in the region killing a number of Americans who were responding to save the lives of some missing special forces personnel. The war drags on and Americans and NATO will be involved in the country for the foreseeable future. The U.S. helped create the mess and we're the only party capable of rebuilding the nation which has suffered war and mayhem since the late 70's in a bloody coup and subsequent attempt at secularization by the new leaders. The war actually began when a jihad was launched threatening the Soviet satellite government. The Soviets invaded the country to prevent another Iran situation along the southern border of the U.S.S.R. familiar to most Americans who were conscious in the late 70's.

A lot of work remains to be completed. What kind of military force will the Kabul government be able to build? Will it be capable of preventing a recurrence of the deadly cycle of violence so familiar to anyone who has survived the last 25+ years in Afghanistan?

Texarkana car dealer disappears

2005-12-08T21:41:00.000-06:00

Here's an eerie story from the Texarkana Gazette. A car salesman, Tommy Ables, was last seen when he accompanied a customer on a test drive. The customer was test-driving a BMW. The suspect is in his 20's. It doesn't sound good.

Cold weather memories

2005-12-08T15:58:00.000-06:00

The recent cold weather precipitation brings back the memories of growing up in Arkansas. I lived along the fringe of St. Francis National Forest, the smallest national forest in America. Yet, I can vouch for the fact that it's still a large forest nonetheless. When the leaves fell off the trees and most of the reptiles had found their nest, I spent every afternoon after school "hiking" the Forest. I knew nothing of the term "hiking" until I was older, but in hindsight, I was a hiker.

The Forest was a wonderful place to hike because of the hills of Crowley's Ridge which stretched from Piggott (famous as a short-term residence of Ernest Hemingway) south to Phillips County. St. Francis National Forest sets on the ridge at the confluence of the St. Francis River and the Mississippi. I have hunted frogs on the St. Francis during a terrible thunderstorm and we barely got the boat pulled from the river at the muddy launch and the truck labored to climb the hill rising from the river. As a kid, my neighbor's trusty dog and I would head to the woods and stay past dark most days. The weekends allowed me to stay in the Forest all day and cover some ground. The Forest hills seemed endless all the way to the Mississippi River from my house. Walk up the hill, walk down the hill. Usually I traveled along deer runs through thickets.

Years before my family occupied their property, an old wagon road still lingered and squatters were located throughout the Forest back when. Small burial plots can be found along with an old gun emplacement cleared by the Yankees to guard the old wagon road. Loggers had long since harvested practically every tree. I've never heard of virgin stands of trees in the Forest. Deeper into the Forest, remains of the old squatter's camps were never cleared away and old tins and bottles and other products from the Depression era and sooner rotted with the years. The headstones at one particular plot I remember were treasure. One stone read the name and the exact age to the day of the child who died of pneumonia. The headstone made quite an impression on me. I was probably one of few people who happened upon the plot over the past 50 years. Most of the stones that were upright were broken by tree debris falling on them. The best stones were the ones set parallel to the ground. Sad way to live and die. Too young, this child.

My trusty neighbor's dog was named Honky by his owners, but I never called the dog by that name. He was "Dog" to me when we were hiking. He was a tough dog; half Doberman, half Setter with a short red coat. No stray dog in the Forest lasted for very long when he had his defenses raised. Usually, if I encountered people, they wouldn't see me because "Dog" would properly greet them. I normally tried to avoid people, but wasn't always successful. The folks I encountered that seemed dubious never saw me. I tried to spend less time on main trails and vehicle paths(these weren't legitimate roads into the Forest). They could be very difficult in a 4 x 4 to negotiate during when wet. I loved the Forest and spent more time there than socializing with other kids. When I bought a real mountain bike,years later, I traveled along a logger's path all the way to the man-made lake just a few miles from my parents' house.

After snows melted, the Forest still had some rather slick hills to sled and some wonderful moments were spent trying to kill myself. I wore my old motorcycle helmet on the more hazardous hills. Trees were in abundance along the slopes and they could always cause great harm as I flew down the hills. Sledding caused me to bash my nose once and I bled like a stuck pig until I applied enough pressure to stop it. I played "hockey" with some kids in the Forest at a cattle pond and always enjoyed pushing opponents into the thorns that surrounded most of the pond.

The Forest was filled mostly with deciduous trees and a number of the glorious beeches could be found through the Forest and the carvings of folks who had happened past the tree as early as the 1920s on one tree. I love the beech trees. They grow so tall down in the ridge valleys of the Forest and always have evidence within the cavity at the base of the tree of creatures that hide out in the less-than-secure hiding place. Oaks are rife within the Forest. We cut a number of white and red oak trees on our property for firewood and those trees were plentiful. The latest logging in the Forest scarred the landscape with the evidence of clear-cutting. I haven't been back in some time to check progress of new trees along the barren ridges. The log road is overgrown by now and others have bought properties on the fringe of the Forest who might be troublesome.

I have my memories of the Forest and I will treasure the moments hiking for hours each day. Luckily, I never got shot by hunters. I usually avoided first days of seasons for safety sake. I trust legitimate hiking trails, but I did a lot more trailblazing than following paths and I feared some jackass in a tree stand overlooking valleys who might shoot at a sound. There has been one reported hunter killing by a jackass who fired at a sound so far this year. A hunter could find some amazing perches to cover a lot of ground in the Forest. There were many places where several ridges converged on one point and, at times, a 360 degree firing area could be found for the best view for prey.

Arkansas is blessed with a number of great forest and wilderness areas. I'm glad I've had a chance to enjoy forests of several parts of Arkansas. East Arkansas forests certainly are worth exploring. Unfortunately, a number of undesirable humans can be encountered in the East Arkansas forest, so be careful if you are ever priveleged with a visit. The waters of the Mississippi River valley are another draw of East Arkansas forests. Bogs, creeks,oxbow lakes, bayous, and a number of beautiful rivers are rife in the region. I hope you can enjoy the forests of Arkansas as I have in the past ; you'll be glad you took the time.

Huckabee has earned clout on highways, higher ed initiatives

2005-12-08T15:11:00.000-06:00

I believe the highways in Arkansas have been dramatically improved since the first bond issue. The Federal government is in debt at incredible levels and they may be unable to provide the same dollars they provide today. It's unlikely to be the end of Federal highway money because of the politics of transportation and the perception by most motorists that good roads are essential to a good quality of life for Americans. However, the assumption that Federal dollars will always be available for providing for transportation needs can change instantly with the fallout of a 2006 election cycle leaving all fixed ideas of the future in doubt. Opponents of the highway initiative all seem to have hidden agendas at stake and their characterization of the result of a yes vote is ridiculous at best. Huckabee, with all the good which has been accomplished during his term, deserves to lead Arkansans to victory with a passage of the bond initiative. Concerning highways, Huckabee has proven himself as a trustworthy steward of public finance instruments and his advocacy should clinch approval by the voters of Arkansas.

Granted, I'm positing nothing more than a gut feeling as a rationale for passage of both initiatives. I'm no great fan of Huckabee. I voted for Mrs. Claus in the last election. I have to be fair in assessing his influence on state government and his legacy will have some dings, but overall, he served us well. We owe it to our outgoing governor for his faith in the people of Arkansas that ultimately the correct path can be agreed upon despite the occasional disagreement. Our higher education institutions need to maintain,upgrade, or build new facilities and the money cannot always be raised through the normal means at the disposal of universities. Two year institutions rarely have the capacity to raise money like UA, UCA, UALR, or ASU. Smaller universities have some of the same problems as two year colleges raising money. Upgrading higher ed and vocational ed will make it possible for corporations to feel confident about locating jobs that pay excellent wages in our beloved state.

I would like to eventually see universal access to an education at a two year college in Arkansas so our work force can be trained adequately as industry continues to relocate to the Sun Belt from the traditional heavily industrialized regions. If our people are qualified to work at the best jobs, our state will naturally benefit. High school cannot fully prepare all students for life in society, so legitimate career training can help elevate kids who otherwise would have seen the best years of their life end at high school graduation.

Vote "YES" to each initiative for the benefit of all Arkansans.

Yikes!

2005-12-02T10:30:00.000-06:00

Check out this pic from a Russian news outlet, FARK.

Espionage Chinese Style

2005-12-02T09:48:00.000-06:00

Interesting article at CS Monitor about the unique nature of China's spy network. They like to rely on amateurs. Usually Chinese nationals studying or working in the U.S. are employed as well as targeting Chinese-Americans. The decentralized spy method is more difficult than the models of other nations who spy on the U.S. to uncover, much like the sleeper-cell model employed by al-Qaeda and its confederates in their terrorist operations. Fayetteville has its share of Chinese nationals; should they all be suspected? Only if you work with industrial and military secrets, one must presume. Spying on the U.S. isn't the exclusive purview of China; American allies such as U.K., France, and Germany all spy on us as the U.S. spies on them. Industrial and military secrets can be very useful in the lucrative defense competition between allies and certainly industry secrets unrelated to the military are of value.

Belgian Suicide Bomber

2005-12-02T09:30:00.000-06:00

A suicide bomber in Baghdad was from Belgium, BBC reports. The Muslim convert reportedly led a troubled life and decided to share the misery with others. Luckily, her husband was shot dead by American troops before he could set off his own bomb.

Roe v. Wade Musings

2005-11-30T17:09:00.000-06:00

I have to admit that I'm troubled by any legal maneuvering which allows abortion to be legal through the third trimester. The science hasn't changed much from the science available in 1973. Bob Woodward wrote an interesting article in 1989 concerning the papers of deceased Justice William Douglas and the concepts "quickening"(16-18 weeks) and viability (24-28 weeks) and the need to "draw a line". The right to the procedure had to be weighed against the life that is developing in the womb. Clinton's term "ensoulment" (or viability) was the rationale for continuing the status quo. The Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion rights for women and the decision is in the news since Alito's nomination and Roberts confirmation process.

Perhaps the folks who want a right to the procedure should hope that Alito turns back the clock. My reasoning is that there will be no hiding behind the Justices robes by those who talk the talk of illegalizing abortion-on-demand, but send their girlfriends to the abortion clinics in their home states to prevent a political mess an illegitimate child of an affair could cause(one recent case comes to mind in Georgia). Many folks in Congress actually do have convictions about the evils of abortion, but not all who espouse an end to the right to an abortion. I believe it would be a wonderful occasion for those who write and pass our laws to be on record under different circumstances. Much has changed in the 32 years of the decision's impact on America.

I believe there must be a line drawn, but many of the folks who use the issue to promote GOP 'virtues' in other blogs I frequent are disingenuous at best. On one hand, they advocate cutting the poor and working poor's needs out of the budget of the U>S or their home state to save money for defense contractors to raid the Treasury with the help of GOP pals(not that all "defense-friendly" Congressman are GOP---plenty of Dems are supplied campaign donations). Children's programs are anathema to many conservative voters with whom I am familiar. They want to "save the children" by outlawing abortions at ANY stage of development, yet don't want to spend the money to make a productive life possible for some of these children.

The attitude that seems to be growing in Arkansas blogs and among folks I know personally is to end all subsidies for children and poor Americans. I agree that folks on welfare who can work, shouldn't be entitled to a lifelong handout from the government. But, the Draconian crap I hear and read each day is shameful for the richest country on earth. Then to hear the despicable ideology of Bill Bennett exposed really shows me the truth of what I've heard growing up among a Southern Baptist community of believers. Most of the Christians I've known from my hometown are truly bigoted folks. Not that most would like to relive the "good old days" of murder and intimidation (some I knew actually participated in racial violence in their younger days or had relatives involved and bragged about their roles in some of the most horrendous acts of violence against blacks after the First World War), but many like to flash a wink to such thinking without an overt approval. The Christ can't be happy about such views.

I have no fear about the restriction of abortion because I'll never have children, but those who believe in the right should welcome this issue centerstage for Congress to act(the right wing are bound to demand a Congressional ban on abortion rights on a national level). There won't be any hiding; a Congressman's view and vote will mean everything. Will those who talk about illegalizing abortion blink? I suspect a number of "reliable" votes against abortion will reconsider the impact of their actions. Then, the American people can have their "knockdown, dragout" debate across the nation and fracture this nation worse than those alive today could ever conceive. I don't want the crazies to start taking the debate to the streets with their cynical violent notions(almost exclusively the purview of the right wing concerning the issue). However, the Court won't be a hindrance to their ideas of abolition and allowing New York to provide legal abortions while Texas outlaws it won't be acceptable to the right wing. A full-fledged fracas might be just what the nation needs at this point of our history. Politics are increasingly retreating to the days of American politics when horrible, unsubstantiated ad hominems were hurled with the desired results.

I don't have a crystal ball to divine the future of our nation, but from the climate of today, this issue is the last thing we need to further our division. A pragmatic approach would be to "draw the line" once and for all (at least until science proves the evil of abortion at all stages of pregnancy) and allow legality up to that line. Pragmatism is increasingly dying among the American electorate, so I have no faith that the issue will be resolved without rancor. The Civil War and the issues at stake are still alive and well among Southern voters 140 years later. The abortion rights issue will be equally as powerful I suspect. The debate about abortion seems to be potentially as violent as the debate about the legality of slavery and I don't want to see such parallels arise. We must promote pragmatic views and action or we'll see serious levels of bloodshed I fear.

Your tax dollars at work

2005-11-16T16:02:00.000-06:00

The Department of Defense is thinking of creative ways of spending American tax dollars. The DoD has been considering a zeppelin-esque aircraft designed to carry an "entire battle ready Unit of Action" from an American base to the front line. The craft dubbed WALRUS is to provide the capacity to transport "500-1000 tons of military payload across 6,000 miles within 4 days."

I hope they won't be as easily shot down as dirigibles used during WW I by the Germans to bomb London. I suppose this isn't the Hindenburg, but that's a lot of war materiel and tax dollars to move in an airship. Isn't it? Maybe it's a great idea. Dunno. There may be a smaller prototype by 2007, so it won't be long until we get a look at DARPA's(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) project if it survives budget constraints. An article about the WALRUS, appeared on the website Live Science September 2005. Lockheed Martin and Aeros Aeronautics each received approximately $3Million for Phase I of the project.

Reversing Bremer

2005-11-14T15:06:00.000-06:00

CS Monitor had a nice article on the hopes of regathering Saddam's once 400,000 strong army our brilliant first leader of the 'New Iraq', Paul Bremer, gets the credit for disbanding after the American invasion. The Monitor interviews former Iraqi officers whom the new Iraqi government would like to see rejoin the military. Bremer gets blamed for the decision, but Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Bush must have approved. The decision is credited with the May '03 rebellion that killed scores of American troops. Sunnis who served Saddam and have managed to survive and not join the rebels (or no longer fight alongside) could be quite useful to unifying the Iraqi 'nation'.

If trust was an issue when the Sunni-commanded force was disbanded and sent home, a heavily Shiite force as exists today can't be much more trustworthy. Brits blamed Shiite-dominated police for many of their troubles and the murdered reporters in S. Iraq has to be an issue of concern. A blended force of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds must be the aim of the new Iraqi government to get a grip on the incessant bombings. Violent politics are nothing new for Iraq. They'll always have folks who resort to the use of arms to settle disputes, but the major truck/car-bombings have got to be curtailed.

Zarqawi MUST have ample support from Iraqis in order to continue his murder and mayhem spree. Thus, strong-armed assaults as we've witnessed from afar the past weeks in the upper-Euphrates region bordering Syria will ultimately fail to provide the Iraqi government a needed boost. Not that the assaults are useless, but it's ONE part of the necessary approach to squelch the insurgency. Most Sunnis refused to support the uprisings of 1920 in the Shiite-dominated middle and lower Euphrates region and the Brits' air power demolished the rebellion with 500 British (and Indian)dead in 2 months of fighting with approximately 6,000 Iraqis killed. Thankfully, the Shiites have largely decided not to kill Coalition forces since their violent explosion of rebellion in spring 2004. The al-Sadr uprising provided a glimpse of how inadequate our troop numbers have remained. Separating Zarqawi and his allies from their base of support MUST be achieved before any American troops are withdrawn.

Rebuilding the once formidable regional power must be achieved and the regathering of former officers and troops from Saddam's force is crucial. Granted, the worst of the old regime should never be trusted with troops again, but there are plenty who either have no butchery in their past or have relatively minor infractions to besmirch their service. Bremer should be vilified for the decision to disband the army if indeed he is the singular culprit. The decision to disband is evidence of a bungled post-war administration of Iraq after the invasion was completed. The White House has run this war 'on the cheap' and American lives have been lost needlessly because of their brilliant decisions. Rumsfeld and Cheney are obviously more highly qualified than Gen. Shinsecki, since their assessment differed widely from that of the well- trained American general and their war-waging model won. Gen. Franks knew he could defeat the Iraqi army with 150,000 troops, but keeping the peace is a far different subject. Franks said he expected more troops later and those troops never materialized.

If you were pro or con concerning the invasion of Iraq, one thing is crystal-clear about the handling of the war by the White House. The Bush administration were in over their heads. Regarding the war in Vietnam, supposedly one of the "lessons learned" was for the White House to stop trying to run wars and let the military establishment perform their duties as trained. Bush and Company failed to learn that lesson and have to take the blame for the failures in the war to date. They can whine about Democratic Congressman all they want, but those folks weren't allowed any input into the war except to vote to authorize the use of force(not that it would have made a bit of difference in whether Bush and Co. launched the invasion--they would have anyway) and more money for the Bush administration to spend on this fiasco.