You must notice it too. There is a packaging crisis in our country. When I walk the pooch in the morning, I pass the garbage bins placed on the street for the garbage trucks and about every other one if full to overflowing, often with large pieces of cardboard or styrofoam peaking out of the top.

I go to the drugstore to buy something or other. I pay my money and walk out with the product. What I wanted was vitamins, what I get is: a plastic bag, a paper receipt, a cardboard box that contains the plastic bottle. The bottle has a plastic security seal, and a little cylinder inside that is a de-humidifier of somekind, or a ball of cotton. It's all trash except the pills.

Buy a banana and hamburger patty at the grocery? Bag for the banana in produce. Styrofoam and clear wrap around the meat. Cashier puts the meat in another plastic bag and puts the meatinabag in a paper bag along with my bagged banana. Add receipt. I have a banana (which when you think about it comes in a natural package), and a hamburger patty, and a ton of packaging.

Buy a digital camera the size of a wallet. The package could contain a football. A lap top computer? Comes in a container that would hold end table.

Where is all this stuff going? We bag it all up and put it on the street and call it garbage. But it isn't garbage. Garbage is icky, smelly stuff, or broken lightbulbs and dead batteries. This is packaging. I'll bet 85% of the stuff I throw away is packaging. My garbage company won't recycle unless I pay them extra to recycle. There should be a law about that. Since I live in "the bubble" it looks like we'd have a law that everyone must recycle all cardboard, paper, glass, plastic, aluminum, tin.

Ugh.

A promise of success brings out the best in candidates. If there were no chance of a democratic victory in the fall, would Hillary and Barak be running? I doubt it. They'd leave Edwards or a retread out there to take a beating. The numbers are so strong for the Dems this time though that it appears that even a black or a woman might overcome all those prejudices to snare a victory.

Likewise, the Republican candidates are a pitiful lot. The front runners don't stand for anything that Republicans stand for. One has a dismal family record. His children don't support him and he has married his long time mistress who is a decade or so younger. Pretty girl though. One is Mormon. Regardless of your take on that, it is probably more prejudicial to be Mormon than black or a woman. And he doesn't raise money, as a gozillionaire he just spends part of his fortune to promote himself. Bravo if he gets the nomination. He has no constituency. Fred Thompson has wandered in to be a front runner and he seems clueless about the whole deal. A more natural fit for Republicans in his point of view, he has a trophy wife that is much, much, much younger. That's family values for you, dump the old broad for a dancing girl.

Now the Newter is thinking about getting in. Hahahahahahahahahaha. Did you see he criticized Thompson for announcing his candidacy on Leno. It should have been C-Span he said. Then Gingrich held a question and answer session on the internet on "Second Life," where everyone is pretending to be someone they are not. Gingy is clueless. His claim to fame is that by developing viscious campaign tactics, he led the Repubs to power in 1994. I want to ask, "How is all that Repub leadership working out for ya."

So there is a sea of weird non-Repub Repubs running for president is because no decent candidate would be caught dead in this race. It's for losers only.

I'm still of the opinion, however that Bush intends to remain in office past his term. We'll see.

It is great to see people taking to the street marching for a cause: democracy with feet. The recent anti-war march on Washington brought out 100,000 demonstrators. Then we had last week’s march on Jena, to protest the unequal treatment of blacks and whites in the school system and judicial system in Jena. It was a big peaceful protest and reminded one of the old days when people marched across the south for racial equality.

Unfortunately the poster child for equality in Jena is not a great role model. The story I saw on television didn’t give many details of the events, but it reported that the young man was an A student who had never been in any trouble. After participating in a beating of a young white man, he was charged with attempted murder. Horror. There were insinuations that the KKK was in the background as demonstrated by the hanging of three hangman’s nooses in a tree that was the center of conflict. Get it? Noose, Noose, Noose stands for KKK. That bothered me. The story said that the white boys who hung the nooses received a couple days suspension as their only punishment. Then the AJC ran a rather detailed story.

The young black man in jail is a good student. This is not however, his first run in with the law. He has been convicted of other violent acts and was on probation for three crimes at the time of this attack. Furthermore, other members of his community who are also black are angry because they have been reporting this young man to the police regularly without follow-up by the police. They are angry that when he committed a crime against a white man the police arrested him: a different kind of unfairness than I had anticipated.

Other problems with the television story: turns out there were only two nooses. Oops, the KKK angle goes out the window because now we only have KK. What’s more, when they were hung in the tree, students played with them—black students and white students. There wasn’t instant outrage or stigma. School officials took them down not because they recognized them as a racial hatred statement but because they were afraid someone would hurt themselves. After investigation of the circumstances, when it was clear there was some racial animosity associated with the placement of the ropes, the white boys responsible were sent to the county’s alternative school for a month, then returned to the home school for two more weeks of in-school suspension (isolated instruction). They were punished for 6 weeks for their non-violent, but highly insensitive acts.

The beating that took place was 6 black students against 1 white student and occurred three months later. It doesn't seem to be related to the earlier incident. The white student was beaten unconscious and then kicked as he lay helpless on the ground. Hospitalized, he had no serious injuries and went home in a few hours, looking much the worse for wear, but with the resilience of youth, able to continue his regular activities. The charges of attempted murder were reduced to aggravated assault and this was the charge on which the young black man was convicted. Five others await trial. I’m sorry, but I would need a better excuse to march than this set of circumstances. I can’t determine that anyone has much to complain about. The march on Washington I understand. Jena is a mystery.

Jesse Jackson made it to both marches, bless his heart.

How do you get the civil war in Iraq to appear to be getting better?
Easy. You just stop counting the casualties.

More truth from our preznit.

Let's stop the play-acting about how horrified we are that someone called a general a traitor in the newspaper. You may not agree and I'm sure most do not. But if you don't agree and you are in the struggling Repub party, we know you are delighted at the bad taste of the advertisement and you are hoping that it will backfire on the group and boost your party's election prospects. So no more about it please. Standing up for America by calling someone you believe to be a traitor, a traitor, seems like about the most important protected speech there could be for America. Your consititution at work. Get over it. It sure wasn't on a par with Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.

If you are old enough you may remember that the soviet union controlled their businesses and military by the placement of political officers within every organization. These officers made suggestions of how to run everything in a politically correct way and reported not to a higher boss in the organization, not even to the top, say a CEO, company president, or CFO, but rather . . . to the party. Perhaps you remember seeing a political officer being portrayed as an evil character in a movie. Inevitably the policies of this officer led to ruin.

Politicalization of the business of government destroys efficiency. This is the legacy of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. This is the reason our government can no longer function. We can't catch an old terrorist who now dyes his beard (Isn't that a hoot? A image concious terrorist.) We can't help rescue hurricane victims. We can't run the justice system. There is an excellent article on this tragedy in the American system in the Washington Post.

Was the media more trustworthy when I was young? Perhaps I was just more unsuspecting. I love that portion of the population, bless their hearts, that thinks Fox News is telling the "truth" and that everyone else is part of the liberal media conspiracy to destroy the United States of America.

The media today does weird things. For example, in Georgia we are supposedly having a DROUGHT. We have watering restrictions which limit us from watering. How much can we water? We can water for 10 hours a day, three days a week. My community has the "green" areas maintained by a service. Boy do they know what they are doing. We have the thickest, greenest sod I've ever "owned." Technically, it is my yard, but other people feed it, weed it, cut it, edge it, blow it away. All this in a drought. I've come to understand that a drought in Georgia means that we get only 40 inches of annual rainfall instead of 60 inches. Of course when we have "normal" rainfall, the whole state is under a mildew alert. Now this shortage in rain may make it harder for farmers to grow stuff. I'm almost certain of it. But if you have irrigation, you can grow whatever you want.

Now transfer the media hoopla on drought over to the "war on terror." The preznit gets on television EVERY DAY (like he has some big important news other than touting himself and bashing all democrats), to tell us he is a WAAAAR PRESIDENT. He has placed us in a situation so that he can assure that a dozen or more American soldiers will be killed each week in order to make us understand the seriousness of what he is doing. And yet no war is going on. There is no enemy. "Mission Accomplished" was so long ago that people have forgotten it. No one knows why Osama bin Laden (And what does that name mean anyway? Is he Osama from Laden, or Osama son of Laden, or Osama who makes Laden. I don't know. Why doesn't someone tell us about the name. I mean at least with Ludwig Van Beethoven I know that the name derived from nobility.) No one knows why Osama isn't important anymore, except that we can't find him. But hey, we capture the new number 2 guy in Iraq, every week.

First WAR was to remove Sadaam, then to secure the country and have elections, and now it's to . . . I don't even know. Meanwhile how does this affect the non-military of us back home. Are there WAR BOND drives? Are there shortages? Is the draft coming back? Are there taxes to support the war effort? Well no, we are doing just fine, thank you. Not even renewed fair taxation of the rich is necessary. The stock market is just below it's all time high, threatening to reach new heights.

Robert Gates doesn't know if the war is a good idea, and he's secretary of defense. David Petraeus doesn't know if we are any safer because of the war. We are inconveniently delayed at airports to make us afraid. We are stopped and searched if our name is Ted Kennedy or John Lewis. Port security? Naaah! Border Security? Ridiculous! Not even the freight on airplanes get's screened. Seriously. Old ladies can't have a bottle of water, but freight is not screened.

If there was a real media today, they'd be ripping this stuff to shreds.

I'm sure that "War on Terror" means something to politicians. But it doesn't mean anything to us. Just "scarey" words.

Okay one last thing. I keep seeing in the media how smart George W. Bush is. He has a degree from Yale, a Masters from Harvard, and can fly an F-102 fighter jet. But get real. You know that is made up. He got into Yale because of who his daddy is. I suspect he attended class the same as he did the National Guard, you know, if it was convenient and he was in the same state at the time. But I've heard him talk and I'm absolutely certain that he can't write a paper that would have passed in any class that I took. He admittedly doesn't read and would rather his aides just give him an oral summary. He doesn't read, because he can't force himself to do it. Sounds ADHD to me. BUT THE FIGHTER JET IS THE REAL GIVE AWAY. You know for certain that if the preznit COULD fly a fighter jet, he WOULD fly one almost every week, just to show us how tough he is. His cowboy, testosterone laden approach to life would demand it. In fact, this lack of flying is a great testimony to the whole falsehood of this presidency. The guy is a lie.

How many plastic bags will stuff into a bin in the kitchen used to store them? Actually it is an infinite number. They just keep going in there.

As though the world really has corners, the weather in Georgia turns cooler on September 1. The overbearing heat and humidity of August is exchanged for cooler nights and less humidity in the day time. This happens every year on September 1 on the button, as though we lived in Camelot. "The rain may never fall till after sundown."

The preznit lives in a bubble and is unaware that the rest of us have figured him out. He just goes on his merry way campaigning the same as ever.

The surge and the Easter Bunny.

Lies and stonewalling. Pentagon reports showing a worsening of stability in southern Iraq, were held up until after Patraeus spoke last week. Sad but true. Check the Post.

" A top House Democrat began an inquiry on Tuesday into accusations that the State Department's inspector general repeatedly interfered with investigations into fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, including security defects at the new United States Embassy in Baghdad." Apparently information that might prove embarrassing to the preznit cannot be obtained from the office whose job is to keep up with such things. The white house is obfuscating the facts, again. Read it in the Times.

Was Bush really crying on TV over the death of a fake "sheik"? Is Al-Qaida in Iraq also fake? Is the surge our salvation? Read an up close account from Greg Palast.

The 22 most corrupt members of congress? Geez, Louise. Four are even democrats.

Justice under Bush.

I can't remember the name Oscar Wyatt, Jr. as one that I should remember for any reason, but the Bush family knows that name. The 83 year old oil industry corporation chairman will go to court today against charges leveled by the Justice department that could bring him 60 years in jail if convicted for having paid surcharges to the Iraq government while participating in the U.N. Oil for Food Program. To gain access to Iraqi oil, kickbacks were paid to Saddam. More than 2,000 individuals, companies, and governments paid such fees. Condoleezza Rice even sat on the board of Chevron while that company paid surcharges for oil.

These payments were illegal and the companies have since been allowed to pay fines to avoid prosecution. Today Bob Barr has come out and said "What makes the case against the Texas octogenarian and World War II veteran particularly troubling is the manner in which he seems to have been singled out for what appears to be vindictive treatment."

". . . it appears Wyatt's fate was sealed in the eyes of the federal government when he dared to stand up to the first Bush administration in 1990. He dealt directly with Saddam Hussein to rescue 22 American hostages being held in Iraq as "human shields."

. . . He remained an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq and the Bush family."

Barr's take on the whole issue seems to be that the Justice department is being used as a political sledge hammer by the Bush administration to punish this man who dared oppose them politically. Bob Barr is a former Republican congressman and U.S. Attorney General. He led the impeachment movement against President Bill Clinton.

Patches and I go walking every morning about 7:20. We may be a bit earlier or later but that’s about the time. We make a two mile looping journey through three subdivisions, along sidewalks, passing frontdoors, and on golf cart paths where we disappear from sight. We see certain people religiously.

There are three exercisers. A large man who wears a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts, strides along pumping his arms high in the air. He works up quite a sweat. He seems glad to see us. We pass Bruce, who run-walks. He is my age, red-faced, wearing his white t-shirt and sweatpants and always speaks to us. There is the skinny woman who runs in various colored jogging bras and spandex or gym shorts (she has much more variety in her wardrobe than the men). Her gait is awkward and her feet flail out to the side as she runs. Her black poodle runs with her and she too lacks any grace in her stride, but hey, they move along pretty fast.

Patches and I walk, covering the distance in about 37 minutes. There are three big hills to go up and down. The homes are beautiful and the yards have shapely landscapes and gardens filled with blossoms—annuals, shrubs, roses, flowering trees and hedges. I pass the lady gardener who knows Patches name and speaks to her. She seems to be involved with most of the showy floral displays along our route and in the early morning she works in her hat with gloved hands, removing dead blossoms and stems, sometimes replanting seasonal bloomers.

There are other dogs. The yappers on the corner raise an alarm as we pass their house on two sides. Both of them yap ferociously in the front window and one races to the back patio to bark at us again until we are out of sight. There is an elderly couple with white hair who have an elderly white poodle. They make their way along slowly. There is a woman with two daschunds. They are not well behaved. The young couple with a large gray weimaraner sometimes jog with him. He is not on a leash, though they carry the leash. He neither looks to the right or the left but stays exactly on their heels. I’ve never seen him turn his head to consider Patches. On the next street there is another weimaraner, that is more blackish. She also runs loose at times and her German speaking mistress has little control over her. She has told me that the dog can ignore commands in both German and English. She pushes her large garbage can out to the street on Tuesdays as we come by. Regis, is a little noisemaker over on the Governor’s Street subdivision who is often tied in front of his house. His barks usually bring his mistress out to scold him.

It is a beautiful, largely peaceful walk, interrupted by a few “hellos,” head nods, and an occasional conversation. Mrs. K comes out to get her paper as we walk by on many mornings. I often see Mr. R backing out on his way to work, or his son Tyler as he drives the tenth of a mile from his house to the high school parking lot. A Chinese couple who speak no English walk slowly along on many mornings.

The morning light is coming later and later now and soon we’ll be going along in the dark and the cold and we’ll long for spring.

When watching the latest campaign by the preznut, remember that the emperor really is naked. We are supposed to believe that the “surge” has produced remarkable changes in Iraq. Things have stabilized. The preznut’s lackey Patraeus, is prepared to stand before congress this month and read whatever report on Iraq that the repub party has prepared for him. Every day one of the administration’s minions is on TV telling how all is now well in Iraq. In fact, things are going so well that we may bring home a few troops leaving only 100,000 or so over there for the rest of our lives. Meanwhile the Army is signing up young men and women for “quick deployment”, three months of training then on to Iraq, by giving them a year’s salary as a signing bonus. A mathematical look at things shows that there is no improvement in Iraq.

The preznit’s strategy is to keep the debacle going until he is out of office. The tragedies that are sure to follow American withdrawal—the slaughter of all who may be thought to have collaborated with us, the escalation of the civil war, etc., will happen on the following Democratic President’s watch, enabling the repubs to proclaim, "You weaklings surrendered. You are destroying America."

History will not forget what we have done there. There will be a price for us to pay.