Sunday, December 24, 2006

On Holidays Greetings

First off, thank you to everyone for their best wishes during this season. Some even took the time to express a nice message about my having been on council.

I can only wish you and yours the best in 2007.

Enjoy this time living out the definition of who we are with those we love - it is the process of unwrapping this personal touchstone - that inner collection of ideals and understandings - that sometimes reveals both our longsuits and shortcomings. It is the result of this effort that we find ourselves referring to for the rest of the year.

The sources for these fundementals are hopefully as diverse and as numerous as possible, thereby constantly adding to their strength in both belief and wisdom. It is in this decision making that will hopefully lead us to understand who we are in an ongoing, evolving fashion.

We are, afterall, human - as good, and sometimes as bad, as it gets.

Be good.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

I Wonder?land

Given this seasons’ penchant for the make believe, it is not surprising that the battle between The Donald & Rosie O’Donnell would be front and center in the news cycles of late.

Apparently the Miss USA “scandals” qualify for hours upon hours of scrutiny by everyone and with it the eventual fallout by these two great mind trusts. The Donald takes a failing asset, the Miss USA pageant, and turns it into something everyone wants to know about and Rosie takes the bait, thereby extending this make believe important story’s life for another day or two or three.

While we are focused on this “important” diversion, the meter keeps running in Iraq at $10 million dollars an hour. That is correct, an hour. The American deaths are fast approaching the 9/11 losses. The president is about to ask for another $100 billion in funding for this effort and perhaps another 30,000 troops and, in an “oh-by-the-way” moment at his recent press conference, tells Americans to go shopping.

How can the focus of what’s really important be put where it belongs?

Perhaps we should have Miss USA go and do her rehab in Baghdad where she can dance on tables and make-out with Miss Teen Iraq in a bathroom in the Green Zone.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

A New Year's Lynching?

With the news of John A. Lynch Jr. being sentenced to 3 years 3 months for mail fraud and income tax evasion from using his public offices for other reasons than the public benefit and with the end of the year approaching, I thought it a good time to speak about public service.

As a public official myself, whose term is expiring at the end of this year, I read this story from a somewhat different perspective than most and I am embarrassed to see yet another trust being violated by someone who thinks more of themselves than anyone else.

If there is anything that has been affirmed to me in each of the 9 years that I have been in public office, it is that those in a public position, or those thinking about seeking an elected position, need to remember some things:

1) It is the fool who thinks that they have “power”, for the only thing given to them by the electorate is responsibility.

2) Don’t fool yourself into EVER thinking that you are all wise, all knowing about any subject – there are ALWAYS other people who know more.

3) A fool thinks that backroom deals will not become public knowledge because the details are being held so close to the vest. People WILL ALWAYS talk and you will be found out.

4) When it comes to casting your vote on an issue, don't make the mistake thinking that you owe anyone or organization anything for putting you there. If those that helped you get elected really respect you, they won't EVER have a problem if you disagree with them on anything. If they do, then maybe they are part of an overall problem. Remember, you are voting on behalf of the citizens, not a clique or party basis.

With the New Year approaching and the oaths being taken, remember – don’t be foolish or you just might find yourself wishing a future Happy New Year to Mr. Lynch in person

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Swedish Yuletide "Tradition"?

December 18, 2006, 3:21 pm

Is That a Bow on the Christmas Goat, or a Bullseye?
By Tom Zeller Jr.

NY Times


Some residents of Gävle, Sweden celebrate the holidays by erecting a Christmas

goat. Others celebrate by beating it down.

In keeping with the holiday spirit, a good-news story (so far, at least) from Gävle, Sweden, where the town’s giant Christmas goat (a 40-year tradition) survived its first attack by arsonists (also a 40-year tradition) and remains standing today in Castle Square.

According to news agency reports, since 1966 when the town first erected a 43-foot wood-and-straw goat, the seasonal sculpture has “been hit by flaming arrows, run over by a car and even had its legs cut off” and has made it intact past Christmas Day only 10 times.

A more detailed history from Wikipedia gives the Gävle Goat — apparently a version of the Yule Goat, a traditional Scandinavian Christmas symbol — a survival rate of 54 percent overall, with 13 of 31 goats surviving various assaults, including one last year by attackers dressed as Santa Claus and a gingerbread man.

Official Web cameras have been erected to monitor the goat (it’s still there, despite the poor odds, as of this writing). And an English language Web site, based in Sweden, for fans of the Gävle Goat offers a guestbook for those who might want to leave messages of support.

Last week’s attempt on the goat, which happened overnight on Thursday, was foiled by flame retardant chemicals, in which the goat’s straw had been soaked this year, officials said.

“Somebody tried to set fire to the right front leg, but the flame-resistant chemical worked 100 percent,” Kurt Lagerholm, chairman of the goat committee, told the Associated Press. “There’s a smell of gasoline and the ribbon is a bit smutty, but otherwise it’s unhurt.”

Sunday, December 17, 2006

NJ and "Civil Unions"

It would seem that the gay rights issue has taken on new momentum with the passage of the civil union legislation this past week here in NJ. I’m glad that it finally happened for them. It’s been a long time in coming and as a NJ resident, I’m glad to be in a state that recognizes consenting adults’ commitments to each other.

In being around gays in all the various paths that I have taken since high school, I have seen that the relationships that they have are not that much different from my own or others that I know of a hetero world. Sometimes life is good, sometimes it stinks and most of the in between, it’s so-so.

Unfortunately, the “civil union” status that was passed is not enough for some in the gay community as they wanted it called “marriage”. Well, welcome to the world of those who want their cake and want to eat it too.

“Marriage” is not going to be there for a while, if ever.

The reason is that for many of the constituents of those who voted for “civil unions”, the term “Marriage” is off limits and reserved for the daughters who grew-up believing in that special wedding day – that day that they get married to Prince Charming. Many of these brides already knew the wedding gown style they were going to wear that day even before they met Mr. Right and all of it is geared for a wedding type as close to Princess Di & Prince Charles as they, or their families, can afford. To them, they are not getting “civil unionized”, they are getting “married”.

So the fight for the term “marriage” to be used for gay civil unions may go on, but I wouldn’t bet on it happening in the next 25 years. Mothers of the hetero brides carry ALOT more clout than you may think.

Friday, December 15, 2006

The Using Of Billy Graham

A truly disturbing report appeared in the Washington Post on Wednesday, 12/13/06 written by Laura Sessions Stepp concerning the family battle of Billy Graham, the world renowned evangelist and his being caught in the middle of wife Ruth and his eldest son Franklin – the dispute is about where he will be buried..

While I am wary of the current crop of evangelicals who have used their positions to try and influence public policy in such an extreme way of late, Billy Graham has, over the long haul, proven to be a man of his beliefs and has steadfastly maintained a certain degree of self control when it came to “using” his influence in any other arena outside of his religious deeds.

While I am not an overtly religious person, I have always thought of the Rev. Graham as one of the good guys. Whether I agreed with what he said or not, the delivery of his message always made me stop and listen and in turn, made me think.

In this world of 1,000 channels of TV, hundreds of cell phone ringtones or the come hither of the Internet, it’s a rare accomplishment for one person to stand at podium, with full humility and armed not with an elected title, or backed by an army, but armed only with just his voice, command the attention of so many around the world to at least stop and listen. He was John Paul II decades before that pope arrived on the scene.

Herewith that story from the Washington Post:

A Family at Cross-Purposes
Billy Graham's Sons Argue Over a Final Resting Place
BY Laura Sessions Stepp
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 13, 2006; Page A01

MONTREAT, N.C. -- It is a struggle worthy of the Old Testament, pitting brother against brother, son against mother, and leaving the famous father, the Rev. Billy Graham, trapped in the middle, pondering what to do.

Retired and almost blind at 88, the evangelist is sitting in his modest log house on an isolated mountaintop in western North Carolina and listening to a family friend describe where Franklin Graham, heir to his father's worldwide ministry, wants to bury his parents.

Billy's wife,Ruth Bell Graham, is listening too, curled up in a hospital bed on this bleak November evening. At 86 and 100 pounds, she suffers from degeneration of the spine, which keeps her in constant pain. In a nightgown, quilted pink silk bed jacket and pearl earrings, she stares up at the longtime friend on her right, her face and mind alert. On her left sits her younger son, Ned, 48, who has taken care of her and Billy for almost four years, and Ned's wife, Christina.

Events will unfold quickly in the days afterward: more meetings at the house, prayers offered and a notarized document produced that Ruth signed before six witnesses.

But at this moment everyone's attention is on the visitor, crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, who is talking about a memorial "library" that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, headed by Franklin, is building in Charlotte. Cornwell toured the building site and saw the proposed burial plot. She was asked by Ned, who opposes Franklin's choice, to come and give his father her impression.

"I was horrified by what I saw," she tells Billy, in the presence of a reporter invited to be there.

The building, designed in part by consultants who used to work for the Walt Disney Co., is not a library, she says, but a large barn and silo -- a reminder of Billy Graham's early childhood on a dairy farm near Charlotte. Once it's completed in the spring, visitors will pass through a 40-foot-high glass entry cut in the shape of a cross and be greeted by a mechanical talking cow. They will follow a path of straw through rooms full of multimedia exhibits. At the end of the tour, they will be pointed toward a stone walk, also in the shape of a cross, that leads to a garden where the bodies of Billy and Ruth Graham could lie.

Throughout the tour, there will be several opportunities for people to put their names on a mailing list.

"The whole purpose of this evangelistic experience is fundraising," Cornwell says to Billy Graham. "I know who you are and you are not that place. It's a mockery. People are going to laugh. Please don't be buried there."

Billy Graham's eyes never leave Cornwell's face as she talks. Ruth Graham sighs. A lot.

"It's a circus," Ruth says at one point, softly. "A tourist attraction."

Ruth Graham has told her children that she doesn't want to be buried in Charlotte. She has a burial spot picked out in the mountains where she raised five children, and she hopes her husband will join her there.

Ned Graham has been working to convince his three sisters, Gigi, Bunny and Anne, that their mother's wishes should be followed.

But six years ago, Franklin, 54, took over the BGEA and now is trying to convince their dad of the appropriateness of the Charlotte burial site, Ned and another family member say.



Franklin, in a telephone interview, says no decision has been made. "Some of the board members feel the library ought to be the place," he says, declining to name which members. "I'm preparing both places."

Of the library, he said, "I wanted to show to another generation of pastors and evangelists what God did through a man who was faithful and who communicated it simply."

After Cornwell finishes, Ned Graham speaks to his father.

"Could you see going to a Ronald Reagan library and there not be one book?" he asks. "Or people being solicited to be on a donor list?" He wipes his eyes; his mother, tissue in hand, wipes hers.

Billy Graham, who has Parkinson's disease, sits erect in an orthopedic chair, dressed in pressed bluejeans and a pale yellow pullover. His famous rugged face remains impassive except for something Ned notices: He's grinding his teeth.

His dad, he says, does this when he's upset. And why wouldn't he be?

The burial issue threatens to tear asunder what some have called the royal family of American religion, and Billy is being asked to make a Solomon-like choice between the wishes of his heir and his wife of 63 years.

The Preacher's Wife




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to those who know her, Ruth Bell Graham has always spoken her mind. When she and Billy married in 1943, Ruth, raised by Presbyterian missionaries in China, told her husband, a Southern Baptist, that she would remain a Presbyterian. When Billy announced in 1947 that he wanted to become a full-time traveling evangelist, she insisted that they settle in Montreat, a hamlet in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so that she and the children could be near family.

With his tall frame and Hollywood good looks, Graham drew record crowds to his Billy Graham Crusades and became so popular that between 1950 and 1990, he appeared on the Gallup Organization's "Most Admired" list more often than any other American.

He traveled as much as six months at a time and while he was away, Ruth was raising their children in a house built from logs found on abandoned farm sites. Her children say that she was fearless and fun, a mom who thought nothing of chopping off the heads of rattlesnakes or driving a motocross bike into a split-rail fence when she realized she didn't know how to stop it.

As teenagers, the children struggled with the expectations that come with being a preacher's kids. Both boys, Franklin and Ned, fell in love with fast cars, drinking and girls and were no strangers to the local police. Eventually, however, four of the children started their own ministries, the largest of which is Franklin's international relief agency, Samaritan's Purse.

Though initially, according to family members and news reports, Billy and several other BGEA board members had reservations about Franklin succeeding his father because of his limited experience, in 1995 the board named Franklin vice chair.

The Charlotte Site



As its new CEO, Franklin, who has the tall, leonine looks of his father and the feisty nature of his mom, persuaded the BGEA board to move the organization from its longtime headquarters in Minneapolis to Charlotte, near where Billy Graham was born. It was a logical choice, and not just for nostalgic reasons: Charlotte's business elite had always been big supporters of the Billy Graham Crusades, raising as much as $1 million for the preaching tour each time it came to town.

Though growing in population, Charlotte was experiencing something of an economic downturn in the late 1990s. The new BGEA headquarters would pump money and jobs into the local economy. Franklin Graham and Graeme Keith, a major developer in Charlotte and a BGEA board member, began envisioning something else as well, a Billy Graham memorial that might attract 200,000 or more tourists to Charlotte -- putting it up there with the nearby Paramount Carowinds theme park and a planned NASCAR Hall of Fame.

In 2001, the organization purchased 63 acres of land adjacent to a major highway (named years earlier for Billy Graham) for $7.4 million. In 2005, the new corporate headquarters was completed, a 200,000-square-foot building of fieldstone, cedar and glass costing almost $44 million. Then Franklin turned his attention to the memorial library, which he sees as a tool for evangelism.

"I would hope every person who comes through hears the message and by the time they come out of the library be confronted with a decision to accept or reject Christ."

The library was, by all accounts, not something his father initially wanted. In fact, Billy Graham abstained when the board first voted on the idea. Though Billy has hobnobbed with the rich and mighty for more than a half-century, observers have often commented on his humility. Unlike Franklin, who collects handmade cowboy boots and leather jackets, Billy wears old suits that, as Johnny Cash once said, look like they came from a JCPenney store.

According to Graeme Keith, the board tossed around several ideas for the library, including something like the stucco-and-tile Reagan Presidential Library in California. Finally, Franklin suggested a house resembling the one Billy grew up in, plus a barn, to be called the library. Convinced by Franklin and others that this new building would perpetuate the Gospel after he died, Billy gave it his blessing.

The 40,000-square-foot structure has a high-pitched roof supported by unfinished wooden beams, and bathroom stalls of corrugated tin. The tour is geared particularly to children, according to Franklin, starting with the life-size mechanical Holstein named Bessie who greets visitors from her stall just inside the front door.

What Bessie will say is yet to be decided, Franklin said, but she might start off with something like, "Hello. I bet you didn't know milk comes from a cow. Well, let me tell you about that." She'll then introduce the main man: "When Billy was young, we cows knew there was something special about him. . . ." Bessie will challenge youngsters to count how many times during the tour they hear the voice of "Billy Frank" mention Jesus. For their efforts, they'll be offered a glass of milk at the snack stand, where cookies and other items will be on sale.

"One of my concerns is how do you engage a child," Franklin said. "To see pictures of a man preaching in black and white, that isn't going to do it."

Franklin says the library also will house some of his father's writings and memorabilia taken from the Cove, another piece of BGEA property about 100 miles west of Charlotte in Asheville. As it turns out, it is also where his mother wants to be buried.


Nestled in forests of poplar, locust and Southern pine, invisible from the highway except for a single gray steeple, the 1,500-acre Cove was Ruth's project from its beginning in 1984. She believed that people working hard for Christ, in whatever capacity, needed a place where they could idle in a rocking chair, stare at the mountains, and find new energy to continue their work. Her husband and his board agreed, setting up the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove.

Ruth worked closely with architects and construction engineers on the classrooms, auditorium and guest accommodations. A small library was established and as years went by, books given to Billy, inscribed by the world leaders who wrote them, found their way there. Glass cabinets today display some of the thousands of gifts he acquired: a Ten Commandments tablet from movie producer Cecil B. DeMille, a letter opener from German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and porcelain and silver from visits to China, North Korea and Russia.

In his early years on the BGEA board, Franklin directed millions of dollars to the Cove, which is 18 miles from Montreat. But once plans for the new library in Charlotte were underway, he turned to the Cove for money. The BGEA sold its 300-acre campground, transferred money earned from the Cove's endowment to the library's endowment, and laid off Cove staff.

The Cove Location




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Ruth was supervising construction at the Cove, she paid particular attention to the chapel, a spare yet elegant stone edifice built by local laborers.

She arranged six arched, clear glass windows on each side of the sanctuary so that visitors would always see outside. She asked that the floors be made of native pine and the chandeliers of cast iron from Asheville. On the sanctuary's back walls she hung two damask banners summing up Billy's ministry and what she considered hers, the first quoting Jesus saying, "Go Ye Unto All the World" and the other, "Come Unto Me and I Will Give You Rest."

A few hundred yards from those banners is the quiet, leafy spot where Ruth intends to be buried. Her desire might have remained just a preference communicated to a couple of her children had Ned Graham and Patricia Cornwell not acted. Cornwell happened to call Ned Graham in mid-November to ask how his mother was doing. She had felt close to Ruth from the time Cornwell was a child living a few miles down the mountain. In 1984, she wrote a biography of the woman whom she had come to consider as a second mother.

After learning from Ned about the Charlotte plans, Cornwell retrieved a letter, mailed to her several months earlier, asking for a sizable donation to the new library and signed by Billy Graham. She had been puzzled because Billy didn't write fundraising letters. She decided to fly to Charlotte.

Board member Graeme Keith took her on a tour of the barn. She was impressed by the TV footage of Billy over the years. But a talking cow? "It truly is tacky," she said.

She asked Keith about the mailing list. He told her that traditional donors were aging and that younger donors were needed. He also said the names of big donors would be inscribed on the concrete silo.

At one point, she asked Keith, "Are you going to have any memorabilia, like a suit or something people can touch?"

Keith leaned over, she said, and told her that Billy and Ruth were going to be buried on the property. The tour, he said, would end at the foot of their graves.

Cornwell recalled, "I asked, 'How do Billy and Ruth feel about this?' "

Keith told her that Billy had agreed. And Ruth? Billy was working on her, Keith said.

Cornwell then visited Montreat to ask Ruth where she wanted to be buried. Ruth repeated her position. That's when Ned Graham decided he needed to get the notarized statement, which his mother dictated. "My Final Wishes Concerning My Burial Site" says, in part:

"Since it is impossible for me to be buried at my 'first home' in China, my next choice is the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina which I have loved and where I have lived for the past 60 years. . . ." A number of years ago, the document continues, she and Bill "agreed that we would be buried together near the chapel at The Cove. The Memorial Garden at Chatlos Chapel was prepared for that very purpose."

"Bill has recently talked to me about being buried at the Billy Graham Library/Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. However, I want to make it very clear that I am standing by our original agreement. My final wish is to be buried at the Cove. Under no circumstances am I to be buried in Charlotte, North Carolina."

In an interview with The Washington Post yesterday, Keith said, "Ruth wants to be buried next to Billy, first and foremost." When asked about her objections to Charlotte, he replied, "In her physical condition, she agrees with the last person who talked to her."

Personality Matter




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Franklin knew where his mother wanted to be buried but until recently never talked to her about his plans, leaving that to his father.

It was not the first time he and his mother saw things differently. By his own admission, he was always a headstrong child. Once, Ruth, fed up with the teenage Franklin's smoking, made him smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. He vomited a half-dozen times but never gave in. On another occasion, Ruth, angry at Franklin's pinching his sisters in the car while on a trip to a fast-food restaurant, locked him in the trunk. When she opened it up, he asked for a cheeseburger without meat, French fries and a Coke.

He was sent to a Christian boarding school on Long Island, N.Y., then to a small college in Texas and in 1974, at 22, had a conversion experience in a hotel in Jerusalem. A month after that, he joined an international aid ministry that eventually became Samaritan's Purse, and channeled some of his energy into piloting planes carrying food, medicine and the Gospel to places such as Rwanda, Haiti and recently New Orleans. With a budget of $264 million, Samaritan's Purse is among the country's 50 largest charities.

Ned, six years younger than Franklin and the baby of the family, was the quieter child. Named for his mother's father, a surgical missionary in China, he says he was spoiled, and he wonders occasionally whether his siblings resent him for that.

That's not to say that, on occasion, he didn't give Ruth fits. "In my late teens, early 20s maybe, I'd be out late drinking, getting stoned. I'd come home at 2 or so and Mother would be up. She'd just kiss me and say, 'Ned, I'm glad you're home. Love ya, I'm going to bed now.' "

Now, he says, it's his turn to take care of his mother. Two years ago, Christina assumed the daily operation of their East Gate Ministries, a Bible and training ministry in China, so that he could return to Montreat. He found his mother severely undernourished, he says, and his father's health also deteriorating. He had the house adjusted to make it easier for his father to walk around, started his mother on a special diet and made sure she visited the beauty salon once a week.

As he heard reports this fall about the library from his sisters, one of whom compared it to a Cracker Barrel restaurant, he said, he grew concerned that it would belittle his father's ministry. His brother dismissed his concerns. His sister Anne was sympathetic but unwilling to challenge Franklin openly, he continued. Anne's own ministry, like Ned's, receives funding from the BGEA.

"I've spent the last few years trying to help my parents preserve their mental acuity, independence and dignity," he said over lunch in the spacious Cove dining room. "And I'm saddened that the family is not unified on this issue."

He says he would like to see the library become more about Franklin and less about his father who, in his view, is already memorialized at the Cove. He is close enough to his dad to know that, as he puts it, "there never would have been a Billy Graham without a Ruth Graham."

His parents are finally home together most days now. They eat supper watching old movies like "The Sound of Music" and listening to Ned or Christina read the Bible. Of late, Ned has chosen stories about decision-making and God's solace in troubled times.

Billy Graham sits next to Ruth's hospital bed for long periods, stroking her arms and her face.

Ned knows that his father hates conflict, which is one reason his dad has stayed away in recent years from the political battles of religious conservatives. But this is one dispute Billy Graham can't avoid.

As Cornwell ends her short speech to Billy that November evening, Billy says, "I sure appreciate what you say, and I have no comment. I've heard all this before."

Cornwell is not dissuaded.

"I tell you, if you're buried there I'll dig you up and move you here," she says.

Ruth chuckles from her bed. "I'll be one of the pallbearers," she says.

At the sound of Ruth's voice, Billy's face softens toward Cornwell, as he says, "I'll just think and pray about what you've said."

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Merla Trial Delayed Again

You know, by the time this trial takes place, we'll all be on Social Security.

The rumor that keeps bumping into itself around town is a deal of - admit to 1 count for a 10 month sentence.

Or go to trial and beat 'em on all but 1 count, piss 'em off and they'll ask for the max on the one count that they win (3 years?).

If that was the scenario facing you, what would you do, eh?

I know you would never find yourself in this position, but what if you did? What would you choose?

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Free Version - Iraq Study Group Book

If you'd like to link to the Iraq Study Group report from your Web site, please use the following link:
http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/iraq_study_group_report.pdf

Downloads of 'Iraq Study Group Report' Beat Out Sales
December 13, 2006
By Kimberly Maul, Book Standard

Readers are heading online to download The Iraq Study Group Report for free, rather than buy the $10.95 book, published last Wednesday by Random House’s Vintage Imprint. The book, which has already gone back for a second printing, sold 38,000 copies in the week ending Dec. 10, according to Nielsen BookScan, while the online version has been downloaded approximately 1.2 million times, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace, which hosts the report on its website.

The book was released online and in book form on Dec. 6, to coincide with the presentation from the committee, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Republican, and former Indiana representative Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, to President Bush and congressional leaders. The report is also available at the James A. Baker Institute website, where, from Dec. 6 to 11, it had been downloaded approximately 422,000 times, according to a representative.

Monday, December 11, 2006

How Does One Liberate And Not Communicate?

One of the more startling revelations of the Iraq Study Group appears to put the lie to Vice President Chaney's proclamation the "we would be greeted as liberators".

It seems one fundamental piece of that picture was missing then and continues to be missing now.

The ISG found that of 1,000 people assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, only 6 spoke the local language. That's right, 6.

Joseph Heller of Catch-22 fame couldn't have dreamed that up.

How would our soldiers know what was being chanted at them as they drove into the place on that first day? For all we know they could have been smiling and wishing us dead.

How do you explain democracy to someone if the interpreter calls in sick or takes a long lunch break? How seriously are you taken by those who you want to stand up so you can stand down, when you can even ask them what their name is?

No wonder the middle and upper middle classes are fleeing to Jordan and Kuwait. The doctors, teachers and other professionals aren't going to stay any longer - they've waited 3 years thinking Bush's supposed policy was going to work and it was working - inside the green zone. Now that area is seeing increases in violence and the taking of more American and Iraqi lives.

So is it any wonder that we had to learn about the tribal nature of the people there as a result of violence, rather than through discussions.

How do you build a nation, if you can't even talk?

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Discovery Lift-off Delays

The NBC affiliate in Orlando had on its' website the reasons and concerns for and about the recent delays in getting this recent launch done.

Weather - rain & wind - were the factors causing the actual delays for the renewed effort for a nighttime liftoff.

However, in reading further, it was revealed that the scheduled 12-day mission was running out of time to happen this year and was in peril of being scrubbed until next year.

Why?

Because the on-board computers on the shuttle DO NOT have the capability to change their clocks from the 365Th day of a year to the first day of a new year.

That's right, something your cell phone can do, cannot be done by the computers on-board the space shuttle.

The engineers do have a patch for this, but withheld applying it because it hasn't been fully tested. It's 2006 and it hasn't been fully tested.

Did anyone at NASA pick-up a newspaper or turn on a TV to become aware of the Y2K scare of a few years back that had people wondering if planes in the air at midnight on that New Years holiday where going to be dropping from the sky? Or did they notice other government agencies and private businesses spend millions retrofitting software so that crashes to computer systems wouldn't happen?

News reports of the time had people stockpiling food, money and other essentials to at least temporarily thwart the effects of a complete societal breakdown caused by software failures.

Did NASA notice any of that?

And they are talking about putting permanent colonies on the moon?

Saturday, December 9, 2006

NJ Gov. Backs Off On Unions

Welcome to the dance, fellow New Jerseyians.

Unfortunately, the Gov. has asked that he, not the legislature, lead us in this charade of "getting tough" on the benefits that public employees are getting. The legislative leaders took that offer quicker than you could blink. Why not? After all they're the ones who will be up for re-election long before the governor will. He'll be the bad guy and they can play the good guys during their re-elction runs.

After decades of giving it up to the unions at the bargaining table by our elected officials, we are now suppose to believe that this one man, the Governor, is going to get it all, or most, of it back.

Right.

If I were a union member, why would I want my union leaders to give up a nice pension system, great health benefits, etc.? If you had it, would you give it up for nothing?

Let's see, the Governor got tough with them this year by saying that this was going to be the last freebie Friday after Thanksgiving day off that they would get.

I figure that the leftover turkey has more backbone that this guy.

Sunday 12/10/06 9:41 pm - Update

I think I have whiplash. It seems the Govenor has begun backstepping from his backstepping by sidestepping his intentions.

It seems that, via a letter sent tonight to Senate President Richard Codey & Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, the govenor is challenging the leaders to have their respective bodies go ahead and attempt to reform public worker benefits, without any mention if he would sign any bills that they might come up with.

Apparently this caught the president of Communications Workers of America Local 1033, Rae Roeder, by complete surprise. She is as confused as Codey & Roberts are about this sudden turn by the Govenor.

Why do I get the feeling that if we put together all of the backbones of all the elected leaders that are involved in this situation, we would find ourselves sitting ringside witnessing the political equivalent of a jello wrestling match?

On Iraq

It says alot when our President continues to hold a view on Iraq that, according to recent polls, almost 75% of his fellow countrymen disagree with.

The advice on what to do, whether it be from commissions, government agencies or departments, new appointees or even a former Secretary of State or two, continue to pile up in the "will be looked at seriously" stack on the president's Oval Office desk.

We can only hope that Laura Bush can nudge him to actually read any of them, like she has done with the Shakespeare writings and other literary works that the president so proudly boasted about having completed during the late summer.

How many American soldiers have died since then? How many American soldiers have been wounded or scarred, physically or emotionally, for life since then?

Why do we seem to want a democracy in Iraq more than the Iraqi people themselves?

There is only one person who can walk into the Oval Office and tell this president that the events in Iraq have reached the point of insanity and that it must be stopped sooner rather than later.

The surrogates have have their say, they have given it their best shot and the uncertainty still exists as to how much 43 has heard or absorbed. No, there is and always has been, only one that can reach 43.

That person is 41, the father, a man who faced death in war, a man who knew the names of military friends who were killed in action.

George H. W. Bush, like so many veterans, has in his heart those painful memories of war and with them the understanding of the impact on the families that are affected. He also knows the politics of it, whether it be from his days in Congress or at the U.N. as the U.S. ambassador. He could even draw upon his expierence as the head of the CIA if need be, not to mention his time as both Vice President and as the ultimate decider during his time as President.

The tears he shed the other day in Florida speaking about his eldest son, Jeb, the outgoing Govenor of that state, were from that same heart. I wonder how much of a stretch it would be to say that mixed in with those proud tears for his eldest son were perhaps one or two of sadness for the son in the Oval Office, the stubborn one with this mess on his hands, a mess of his own creation.

I hope that he, 41, gathers it all together and, for the sake of those in the field patriotically carrying out this mess of a plan, and for their families, sits W. down and tells him in no uncertain terms it's over.

LBJ had this moment with Eugene McCarthy in the New Hamshire primaries, Nixon had Howard Baker and Barry Goldwater in the Oval Office. It's time for dad to be the decider one more time.

Should 43 choose not to listen, then for the sake of stopping the deaths of American soldiers, 41 should reveal to the world his advice to his son.