Memorial Day held unexpected fun. I taught my afternoon lessons in the morning so we could go to a party hosted by one of my favorite families. For years I have been hearing about "the farm" near Barnesville. Only on Thursday of last week did we get an invitation from Morgan to come to her special graduation party there (she had a big graduation party at home--this one was for the close friends). I decided I wanted to go. Morgan had about 20 friends there, most of whom have been my students too, and assorted parents. I especially enjoy her parents. We took Patches who was a hit with all and ran around like mad to everyone's amusement. We played wiffleball, toured the pond and the mountain (yes, the mountain), and hung out at the barn eating hotdogs with Karl and Carli, Grant, Ellen, Katy, Krystal, Jenn, Nicole, and others. Riding up and down the mountain on the fourwheeler with Morgan was delightful and the view from the top was astonishing. You wouldn't think there would be a mountain in Barnesville, but there is, and they own a substantial piece of it, over 500 acres. It adjoins properties on either side of long time friends to make a 1000 acre plot. The view from the ridge was breathtaking in every direction and the silence was defeaning. Not a lot of development nearby, but you could see the town of Zebulon off in the distance. As dusk fell we had a campfire and as it burned down to coals the kids were getting ready to make smores and roasting marshmellows as we left for home. Patches slept like a log all the way home and is still zonked out this morning. I haven't had such a nice afternoon in many years.

The 28 percenters (those who still support the preznit and his war), have recurring themes in their articles. They are subtle, but they don't hesitate to say all of the following. Except for Fox News, all media are controlled by liberals. Black people are bad and scarey and on welfare. Intellectuals are of course, stupid. Being bellicose and strutting up and down protects us. There is no room for discussion on any issue.

I was aghast at a little opinion piece by Mary Grabar in this mornings paper. She works so much of the mantra into her article that the AJC gave four columns of space for some reason. Reading these repub pieces is really like reading Tass or Pravda back in the 60's. If you take the time to read the article notice these things: She wants us to know that the middle-aged man is black so she brings in Spelman college. Was Spelman an important word? Leave it out and the tone changes. It's the only thing that tells you he is black. Was the man an intellectual? Not by any stretch of the imagination so she just waved her arms and said "poof" he's the same as an intellectual (and you know how evil intellectuals are).

I have a respose to Mary Grabar.

I wonder who those 28 percenters are who still support President Bush and his Iraq war. You are apparently one of them, spewing out your venom. The object of your hate is a black business man. You were careful to let us know he is black without calling him black. Very subtle. The AJC caught the flavor and printed a four column photo of war protesters, who including Cynthia McKinney, are majority black. Grabar insinuates that even giving one’s critical opinion of the war in public “gives encouragement to the enemy and dishonors those who fight and die for this country.” Pretty harsh words, Mary. How about these words back to you? Refusing to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that the soldiers were not equipped for the battle (they still aren’t), that there has been criminal neglect in the administration’s planning, and that the troops should have been home long ago is what is actually killing those soldiers. It’s on you, Mary, not on those proclaiming the truth. See if you can wash their blood off your hands.

I'll bet you missed this on May 9th. I did. I'll quote part of an opinion piece from the Chattanoogan.com, a Tennessee newspaper.

Bush Makes Power Grab

President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president. The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator. That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency. The directive loosely defines "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."When the President determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the President can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an "enduring constitutional government. "Translated into layman's terms, when the President determines a national emergency has occurred, the President can declare to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over. . .

A Congressional Research Service study notes that under the National Emergency Act, the President "may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens."

Read it all here.

What's blooming at my house? Butterfly bush, salvia, petunias (three kinds), begonias, geraniums, zennias, diantha, roses, pomegranite, day lilies, hydrangea, cactus, and african violets. We must be getting old if we can keep all that alive. There is other stuff too, that doesn't bloom. My favorite is the rubber tree.

The unasked question that bothers me to think about is this. What about the other 84? We are making a big deal about the 9 attorneys general who have been fired for not playing ball with the GOP. But 84 attorneys were not fired. Do we not now need an investigation into what cases they are prosecuting, since it is pretty clear that they are considered by the administration to be "on the team."

Certainly the recent testimony of former deputy attorney general James Comey about the trip of Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card to the intensive care hospital ward of John Ashcroft to try to get approval of wire tapping that the justice department clearly considered illegal, is a new low point in the tactics of this administration. John Ashcroft is about as far to the right as you can get in this country, and from what might have been his deathbed (in his mind at the time), he refused to approve such a thing. Comey is also a conservative repub and refused to go along. Note that after the 2004 election Ashcroft was pushed out in favor of Gonzales who was the the preznit's go to guy in the hospital. All the attorneys general who were pushed out were good repubs also. They just couldn't go along in good conscience with the falsehoods they were asked to perpetrate. That's a good thing, right? Face it. In Gonzales mind he has never done anything wrong because he has always done what the preznit has told him to do. The preznit has seized complete authority, a defacto martial law, overruling both the judicial and legislative branches of the government by his power as commander in chief in the never ending war against the enemy that is every where.

If you think the preznit plans to step aside in 20 months, you may be mistaken.

What have the other 84 been doing? Someone please ask that question.

We have a dog. Her name is Patches. Most of the time I think she is AD/HD. Of course puppies are like that. She is entertaining at times. She hauls her bed and all her toys around the house. Sometimes she piles everything up and sleeps on it. Mostly she spreads them all over the house. She has learned a few tricks: to sit, stay (sometimes), walk well on her leash, to lie down. We are working on play dead and high 5.

The concert went extremely well the other night. We had a large enthusiastic audience of more than 300. There were many prospects for the choir for next year. I also have picked up a few voice students since then. The program went well from beginning to end and audience members were moved to tremendous ovations--more applause than I have ever seen for one of my concerts. It seemed that everyone stayed for the reception that followed. It was a grand evening.

It seems that the preznit is taking the position that regardless of the last election and the polling data that shows lack of support for his positions, he will just continue on his merry way with his band of incompetents, refusing congressional subpoenas, stonewalling investigations, protecting his appointees in the face of clear evidence of unethical if not illegal activities, confident that he'll not be impeached and convicted, which is apparently the only thing that might bend his will. Did you think it was irony to hear his office say that President Carter has become irrelevant? Whoa! Actually, worst in history, most damaging policies ever--that is not irrelevant. W. will go down in history, and I do mean down. Hopefully he takes a generation of the GOP with him.

Did you see the NOVA on the robot cars? In this competition they drove over a rugged desert course for hours, negotiating hairpin turns, going through gates, passing other vehicles and obstacles. The winner was named Stanley (from Stanford) and averaged 19 miles an hour. A second vehicle was only slightly behind and 5 of the 20 actually finished the course. The military's entry came in 5th but finished. It was quite a complicated set of programs that allowed it to work, but it makes you think that cars that drive themself are indeed possible. The only bad thing was that when they had a problem, like the 15 that did not finish, they tended to lurch suddenly off course and into a ditch or something worse. The winner used a combination of a video camera and lasers to look at the road. The idea worked.

One of my student's parents gave me the biography of Einstein by Walter Isaacson yesterday. A very nice gift, don't you think?

Just some stuff out of the AJC:

"Asked twice during a news conference Thursday if he personally ordered Gonzales and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to Ashcroft's hospital room, President Bush refused to answer. "There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen. I'm not going to talk about it," Bush said.

"President Bush continued to stand by Gonzales, his longtime adviser. "The attorney general has the full confidence of the president," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. He dismissed the call for a no-confidence vote. "A 'no-confidence' vote is nothing more than a meaningless political act, not that that's stopped them before."

Senator Arlen Specter R-Cal, the ranking member of the judiciary committee predicted Gonzales would be forced to resign.

So who does James Dobson want for president? Now we know for sure that he doesn't want Rudy. I don't know how Mr. Dobson got to be so influential. When I was a young man people were turning to him for advice on how to raise their children, a sort of right-wing Christian version of Dr. Spock. (Don't get confused here--not Mr. Spock of Star Trek, Dr. Spock of the Baby Book.) As a young minister with children of my own, I almost universally disagreed with any of the guy's advice about raising children. Since my children have turned out to be pretty neat adults, I feel vindicated for taking positions contrary to Dobsons. Yet he has a wide following. CNN went bezerko and said that he has 220 million radio listeners in the United States. Uh . . . no. I don't think so.

It looks like Rudy will have some 28%ers strongly against him if he wins the Republican nomination.

I have a concert tonight with my new community women's chorus. We are doing a difficult program of about 40 minutes of music and have had only 14 rehearsals to prepare. I wish there were two more rehearsals, but alas. When you begin a choir like this, the beginnings are usually meager and often the choir outnumbers the first audience. We are doing better than that.

When I look at the 37 faces of the women in this group and think about their voices, Oh my word, what a collection of ability in one place. The soloists are out of this world. Their performances will stun tonight's audience. What's more, the concert has picked up an unusual amount of community support. I could explain it to you, but you don't have time. I had been hoping to have maybe 150 at our inagural performance, but I'm beginning to wonder if the building will hold to number of people who seem to be planning to come. I've decided to print more programs. You have to love small towns.

I have a lot of Mormon friends and they don't seem crazy. So don't account this Republican's views to his religion. You have to read this stuff though. You don't have to do anything to it, it's good for laughs on late night TV if you just read it out loud. This is not the recorded rantings of 6 good ole boys sitting around a beer keg. There were 300 people at this meeting. Sometimes I wonder who those 28% are who still support the preznit (don't you?) Well here are some of them.

Sunday, April 29, 2007
Convention ends with Satan and immigrants
CALEB WARNOCK - Daily Herald
Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's influence on illegal immigrants. The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials. The convention was held at Canyon View Junior High School. Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.
In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.
At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."
Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

Senator Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, spoke against the resolution, saying Larsen, whom he called a "true patriot and a close friend," was embarrassing the Republican Party. "I agree with 95 percent of this resolution but it has some language that is divisive and not inspiring other people to its vision," he said. "This only gives fodder to the liberal media to give negative attention to the Republican Party."

Joel Wright, a member of the Cedar Hills City Council, was booed as he opposed the resolution. "This might be the most divisive issue in the Republican Party," he said. "I support President Bush but he needs to support this issue harder." When Wright said "the economic benefit (of illegal immigration) outweighs the downside" he was jeered. He warned that the Republican Party of California had "killed themselves" by taking a hostile stance against illegal aliens. He also said the LDS Church has studied the issue and tried to determine whether illegal aliens could be given temple recommends and allowed to serve missions but "gave up" because the issue was too complex. He ended by saying "President Bush needs to fix this now" and was booed again.

Larsen was allowed to finish the debate with a one-minute speech.
"If the Democrats take over the country, we will be dead, and we will have abortion and partial-birth abortion and the Republican Party will go into extinction," he said. "Nancy Pelosi and the ACLU would oppose this (resolution)." A member of the audience moved that the convention suspend its rules to allow the "objectionable part" of Larsen's resolution to be stricken, retaining only the final paragraphs of the resolution, which condemn illegal immigration. Eventually party officials counted all delegates in attendance, only to discover that, with 299, they were about 30 short of a quorum and could take no action.

My old sunglasses finally broke in half. I didn't do anything rash to them. I was just folding them together and they snapped. So I got some new ones. Wow. The world looks funny without scratches.

Jay Bookman has another article today in the AJC that reflects my sentiments.

"Any claim that President Bush is committed to victory in Iraq is contradicted by the facts. He is instead committing us to slow defeat, a defeat timed to come after he leaves office, on another president's watch so another president takes blame. . . All we're doing is keeping the lid on the kettle until the election (in 2008) . . . In congress, such statements would be dismissed as coming from "Defeatocrats" who lack the courage to keep fighting. But is it hardly an act of courage to insist that other people keep fighting and dying in some far-off place.

To the contrary, keeping people on the firing lines just so you don't have to face the consequences of your many mistakes--that's the very opposite of courage.

Read the whole article here.