underdogishere

A couple of months ago, on Morning Edition, there was a professor who specialized in Pakistani history talking about why so many Pakistanis have such crazy ideas about the United States (for example, that the U.S. funds the Taliban). She said it was due to a "reality deficit."

Reality deficit! The term struck me immediately. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Now, I don't want to imply that every boneheaded belief is due to ignorance. For example, I suspect that most Young Earthers are well aware of the preponderance of evidence regarding the true age of the Earth. They aren't boneheaded because of a deficit of reality. They're just boneheaded because they choose to be.

On the other hand, I think there's a constant stream of evidence that the boneheaded ideas of many so-called Tea Party members and many religious conservatives can be chalked up to reality deficits. Some good examples are the many so-called Tea Partiers that I've heard claiming that Obama should be impeached for violating the Constitution, or that the Constitution states that Christianity is the official religion of the U.S., but who, when questioned, admit that they have never actually read the Constitution. This ignorance creates a knowledge vacuum -- aka a reality deficit -- that can be filled in or made up by any talking head or radio jockey saying pretty much whatever he wants. You see, the real value of the idea of reality deficits, as expressed by that Pakistani professor, isn't just that people are ignorant. No, the real insight goes a step further: It's how this missing reality leaves a gap into which obviously wrong ideas can be easily poured.

So much attention these days is being directed at budget deficits. In my humble opinion, those aren't the deficits that should really be scaring us.

Labels: Dubya, Language, Musing, Overheard

My employer makes us take a series of on-line training classes every year. The classes cover topics like the company's diversity policy, and protecting intellectual property. One of the classes is about business communication. It includes tips on what constitutes "proper" business communication, and what is not proper, but of course it's impossible to cover every possible need to communicate, so one of the broad guidelines that the course includes is the Front Page Test. The Front Page Test is, very simply, this: Would you feel comfortable if what you're writing appeared on the front page of the newspaper? Because, you know, it's only a subpoena away from doing just that.

The Front Page Test always made a lot of sense to me. Let's say I'm writing an email message to a colleague, and I type, It doesn't matter if this feature in our product works or not, since we're only adding it because the customer's CEO is a retarded bonehead. Hmmm. On the front page of the newspaper? Okay, delete that.

Then a couple weeks ago I was listening to an interview on All Things Considered with one of the psychologists (or psychiatrists -- I didn't get which, but definitely an MD) who developed the torture techniques used by the US on terrorist suspects. As you know, doctors are supposed to heal people, not pioneer ways to do them harm. I think they may even take some sort of oath to that effect. When the interviewer asked this particular doctor about that , the doctor who helped refine torture techniques said something to the effect of, "My patient is the United States, the people of the United States. That's who I'm helping. I don't care about the physical or mental well-being of the person being interrogated. He means nothing to me. I don't care about him at all."

Of course there's the obvious arrogance of this statement, beginning with the assumption that anyone who is tortured using the techniques this doctor developed has been implicitly anointed as deserving of torture, without any consideration of his well-being, even though there is no impartial review of evidence, much less a fair trial*. But beyond the arrogance, there's also the question that, having, as a doctor, departed from the code of ethics that defines what is and is not right for doctors -- heal, not harm -- then how does such a rogue doctor decide what is unethical and what is not? If you are promoting harm, how do you know how much harm is too much?

The interviewer asked the doctor this question, something like this: Given that you are studying, as a doctor, the best ways to cause people the greatest harm, then how do you know when to draw the line? How do you decide what is right and what is wrong?

The doctor answered that he and his colleagues used the "Front Page Test": We asked ourselves, would we be comfortable seeing what did on the front page of a major newspaper?

Ah! I thought. The Front Page Test! I remember that from my company training. It seemed reasonable.

Well, continued the reporter, now your work is on the front page of every newspaper, so how do you feel?

And the doctor replied that...

...he felt completely comfortable. Fully vindicated. Not ashamed in the least.

In that instant I realized that the Front Page Test is worthless. Completely worthless. Because it relies entirely on the judgment of the applier, and there will always be some, like this doctor, who will rationalize however they must to make themselves feel vindicated. The test is actually worse than worthless, because while perhaps most people can apply the Test correctly, to the rationalizers who can't, it reverses and a becomes a shield for unethical or even evil activity. It's an easy defense of immorality.

Of course, torture isn't a part my my day-to-day life, so I thought about how this lesson might apply to my own company. I thought about the email example above: It doesn't matter if this feature in our product works or not, since we're only adding it because the customer's CEO is a retarded bonehead. I asked myself, "Self," I said, "is there anyone at our company that you know who would not only approve that message using the Front Page Test, but, if it actually did appear on the front page of the newspaper, would be happy to see it there?"

It didn't take me two seconds to think of the first employee: A first-line engineer who would not only send something like that, but if it appeared on the front page, would boast about it -- I can see him saying, "It's true, and someone needs to tell that customer's CEO the way it is, and I'm the only one who had the guts to do it!" He'd be proud.

Just like the torturing doctor is proud.

The Front Page Test, is only as good as any single human's nature. Unfortunately, as the torturing doctor has shown us, that's not enough.

* Perhaps the doctor is convinced that his torture techniques give their wielders a superhuman window into the human soul that allows them to separate the evil from the innocent.

Labels: Dubya, Musing

Imagine a day when our schools are fully funded, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to pay for a bomber.

Imagine....

Labels: Dubya, Seen

I voted yesterday. As I walked through the door into the polling place, I suddenly became forcefully aware, just as though I had had a revelation from Heaven, that the most important reason I was there was to vote No on Proposition 2. Voting for Obama wasn't nearly as important as defeating Prop 2. I mean, the presidential election was just two guys running for office. Prop 2 was about fundamental human rights. This revelation lifted me spiritually. I went in and voted.

This morning I discovered that Prop 2 passed. Human rights were dashed. And, along with them, my spirits. To make matters worse, anti-marriage amendments also passed in Arizona and California. I can't feel any joy in Obama's victory, especially knowing that (even though I voted for him) he's one of the bigots who opposes human rights. He was the best choice, and will do the best job, but his victory is hollow and joyless.

In 2000 I was bitterly disappointed when Dubya "won." In 2004 I was even more disappointed when Kerry lost. So disappointed that I didn't listen to news of any kind for two years (when I started listening again, I was startled to find that Colin Powell was no longer Secretary of State, and had been replaced by Condoleza Rice -- who?). And now, in 2008, I am disappointed yet again.

Maybe I'll just give up voting altogether.

Labels: Dubya, Gender Issues

California's Proposition 8, and Anti-Marriage Amendment, has been much discussed on the Internets Tubes and in the news media, but I've heard nary a peep about Florida's equivalent, Proposition 2. I know the reason for this: In Florida, unlike California, gay marriage is already illegal, so the amendment won't have any immediate impact on anyone. But still, it irks me. There have been no ads, for or against, on the radio. No discussion. I've seen a few "Yes on 2" bumper stickers, complete with a stick-figure man holding hands with a stick-figure woman -- we know they are a man and a woman because one is blue and the other is pink. How... stereotypical. And I seen even fewer "Yes on 2" signs in yards. But when I went looking for a "No on 2" sign for my yard, there were none to be found. No yard signs, no bumper stickers.

What's up, people?

Locally, the Young Democrats and PFLAG have mounted an anemic "No on 2" campaign on a couple of blogs, but somehow I expected a much larger effort. Isn't anyone interested? This is a question of basic civil rights, people!

I was especially peeved to get my sample ballot in the mail and see that this hideous amendment is titled the "Florida Marriage Protection Amendment." How did that happen? The state Supreme Court is supposed to review all ballot initiatives to make sure they are worded clearly and fairly. "Marriage Protection" is neither clear nor fair. How many people will vote for it just because of the title, when they have no idea what it actually says? I wouldn't have expected the Court to compel a title that was actually accurate -- something like "Florida Marriage Destruction Amendment" -- but I still would have thought they would have approved something more neutral. "Protection"? Get real, people.

So what we have is a despicable attempt by hateful bigots to enshrine the deprivation of basic civil rights in the state's constitution, and all it's managed to stir up is a lackluster movement to pass it and an even less lustrous movement to oppose it. As it yawns its way to election day, I think our only hope that right will previal is that in Florida, unlike California, a constitutional amendment requires 60% of the vote to pass. Will it fail to muster that?

Hope is all we got.

Labels: Dubya, Gender Issues

It's been about a week since Joseph Alois Ratzinger, D.B.A. The Pope, addressed the United Nations. His speech emphasized the idea that world peace must be based on universal human rights. Hardly an original idea: See Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Stride Towards Freedom: "Without justice, there can be no peace," among many others. But still, an idea I agree with. So Fr. Ratzinger and I agree on this one thing at least. Except... Fr. Ratzinger makes an exception.

If you are gay.

If you are gay, Fr. Ratzinger denies you have a right to marry, to have sex, to have children, to have a family -- even to have your children baptized into the Catholic Church.

It's easy to support human rights, isn't it, Fr. Ratzinger, when you pick and choose what those rights will be, and to whom they will extend.

It's even easier when you are convinced that you possess the magick of infallibility.

Come to think of it, you remind me of another world leader....

Okay, I'm sorry, the two of you loyal readers. This has been bugging me all week. I needed to get it off my chest.

Labels: Dubya, Gender Issues

While I was on vacation, a coworker forwarded the following email message to me. It's a little distasteful, but if you read it through, I'll continue:

Normally I would delete this kind of drivel without a second thought, but I don't normally receive this kind of drivel from a coworker. Someone I know. Someone whose political convictions I know to be right-wing extremist. And someone who knows me. And the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable it made me feel. Uncomfortable that someone who knows me might think that I am as drivelly as he is. And I just couldn't bear that thought. I couldn't let myself be thought of that way, even by a driveller. So I replied. This was my reply:

That's it. That's all I have to post. I told you you wouldn't care. You should have skipped it. But I felt better.

Oh, and I restrained myself from pointing out that "illegal's" in the original message should have been "illegals." I didn't want to seem... well... educated. Educated, you know, by that free education that is subversively provided by our evil government.

Labels: Dubya

Now that I think about it, I believe that this is the really busy time of year for my brother in Vermont: Town Meeting.

The discussion of Rex Stout's Might As Well Be Dead is going pretty well, but, in the interest of not letting this blog stagnate, I'd like to mention a fascinating quiz that I took over at The Political Compass. The premise is that, as The Political Compass says, "The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape." The quiz allows you to see where you stand, politically, in a more meaningful way. That's all I'm going to say, because the quizmasters don't want you to know too much until after you've taken the quiz. But I recommend giving it a try.

If you'd let me know how you score, by leaving a comment, by sending me a message (link to the right), or by posting on your own blog and sending me the link, I'd appreciate it. For the record, I scored -4.88, -5.44, which put me a hair to the right of and a hair below Gandhi. You'll know what I mean by "to the right of and below" when you take the quiz.

Labels: Dubya, Memes

Some years ago Toni Braxton had a hit song called Unbreak My Heart. I once saw the music video on TV, while I was walking on a treadmill at the gym. The video is hot. I mean, Toni Braxton is gorgeous anyway, and in those outfits and all, she's hot. But what was most affecting was, still, the song. It drips anguish. And you hear the pain in the lyrics partly because of the unexpected use of the prefix "un-":

Unbreak my heart
Say you'll love me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked outta my life
Uncry these tears
I cried so many nights
Unbreak my heart, my heart

"Unbreak my heart" and "Uncry these tears" -- talk about drama and emotion! Compare, for example, to "Mend my heart" and "Dry these tears." Ho hum.

Braxton the lyricist was, in fact, following in the footsteps of a more illustrious predecessor: William Shakespeare. In The Stories of English, David Crystal analyzes the Bard's coinage of un- words: It seems that Shakespeare was the first to introduce many new un- words that are in common use today, such as uncomfortable, uneducated, and unaware. But it was his use of un- with verbs that produced the most striking results:

Unshout the noise that banished Martius

Unspeak mine own detraction

Again uncurse their souls

Unswear faith sworn

My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear

(From Coriolanus, Macbeth, Richard II, King John, and again Richard II, respectively.) "Unswear faith sworn" is especially poetic. I like "undeaf his ear," too.

I've been thinking about the un- prefix, about what makes it so effective, and about when it can be used. One thing I've decided is that using un- in unexpected ways is, realistically, only for grand or rhetorical speech. It would seem odd, for example, to take a sip of coffee in the break room at work, grimace, and say, "Unbrew this coffee!" You might draw some glances. On the other hand, it would be easy to picture, say, Martin Luther King saying something like "Unstrike these blows." That the unexpected un- isn't suitable for everyday use is disappointing, because I was looking forward to giving it a try.

The other thing I've decided is that the un- prefix is most powerful when used to create a verb that descibes an action which is, in a literal sense, impossible. Take Ms. Braxton's song, for example: It's not actually possible to uncry tears. Cried tears are water over the dam. Or down the cheeks. But that just intensifies the anguish: We know that she's really asking for something a little different -- to be made happy again -- but expressing it indirectly only has the effect of calling attention to it. And we wish we could uncry her tears.

Okay, so now I'm going to try my own hand at un-. Just do me a favor and imagine me having the voice and projection of Martin Luther King. Instead of, you know, how I really sound. Here I go:

Mr. President! Mr. President, unwage this war! Unmake the mockery that American has become. Untarnish the reputation of our great nation. Unshed, Mr. President, the blood of our children.

Labels: Dubya, Language

Last week I was driving home from work, scanning the local radio stations, and on one of the talk stations the DJs were discussing Dumbya's escalation of the war in Iraq, when they suddenly broke into a somewhat disjointed on-air rendition of an old Vietnam anti-War song that I used to sing -- we all used to sing -- when I was a kid: Country Joe McDonald's I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag:


When we were kids, we thought this song was great. Especially since it allowed us (all Catholic school students) to legitimately (I mean, it was in the song, wasn't it?) say the word "damn." This is the chorus:


We used to sing it all the time, but by the time I heard it last week I hadn't heard it for decades, and in fact hadn't even thought about it for decades. I don't think it ever gets airplay. As far as I know, everyone who reads this blog (possibly excepting my brother) is too young to remember the Vietnam War. Have any of you ever heard it? It was, in its day, the most popular anti-war song on the radio:


Looking back from my perspective today, my most powerful memory from the Vietnam era was the day the war ended. Or rather, the day the peace treaty was signed. I came home from... wherever. School, maybe. And my mother was standing in the living room of our house, watching the TV and crying. On the TV screen I saw men in suits seated around a big table and passing papers to one another. "The war is over," said my mother, through her tears. "It's over."


To be honest, I was callow and careless as a teenager. I didn't ask my mother why she was crying. I didn't care why she was crying. I went on with my teenager life. But, today, I know why she was crying. It was because I was less than two years from being old enough for the draft. I never asked her about it, and she never spoke to me about it, but now I see that as the war dragged on, and the years passed, and I got closer and closer to draft age, she grew secretly more and more distressed by the thought that I would be forced to go to Vietnam and I would be killed there. What mother wouldn't worry about something like this?


My mother's tears that day were tears of otherwise inexpressible relief. When I see pictures in the news, today, of the tears on the faces of families grieving for their dead coming home from Iraq, I remember my mother's tears, how much alike they looked, and for how different reasons they were shed.

Why do I bring this up today? Because I think you're interested in my memories? Hardly. I bring it because of two things that recently, coincidentally, crossed my path: The first was those DJs on the talk radio show singing that old Vietnam-era song by Country Joe and the Fish, and bringing back those memories of that time.

The second reason is a piece of mail I received last week. It was an advertisement from a cruise line, for a twenty-one day trans-Pacific cruise, originating in Vancouver and ending in Beijing. But what struck me was that two of the ports of call on this cruise will be in... Vietnam. A country where we fought and lost a stupid and futile war, a war I came within a couple of years of perhaps having to fight in. And now, thirty years later, a country to which I can sail on a luxurious American cruise ship and, you know, see all the sights! As I sat here, in 2007, fuming about Dumbya and the American men and women he's murdering in Iraq and the tens of thousands of Iraqis he's murdering and... and... I got myself so worked up... and then I heard that protest song from so long ago, and I looked at this beautiful four-color brochure inviting me to cruise to what was once the land of our enemies and our shame, and suddenly I was comforted by the realization of this one truth:

Nothing can endure the passage of time. Nothing. Not even stupidity.

Labels: Dubya, Musing, My Family

My policy is to not post about politics, but this isn't a political post. It's a historical one, or at least, one noting a historic moment: The beginning of the End of Days. No, it's not the Biblical Apocalypse, but it's an Apocalypse of sorts nonetheless.

As you know, Bush gave a speech the evening before last, trying to sell the public on the idea of escalating the war in Iraq. His proposal flies in the face of what a majority of Americans want, what the Congress (including many Republicans) wants, what most military officers want, what the Iraq Study Group wants, and even perhaps what most Iraqis want. Yesterday I followed the news of the aftermath of his speech, and it seemed that he hadn't changed any minds. On the contrary, the American mood seemed to be one of despair -- that we are being led by someone who is reckless and completely removed from any sense of reality.

But it was yesterday evening, as I was driving home from work, that the true import of this day was revealed to me: At the corner of a major intersection here -- the location of our largest shopping mall -- I saw a crowd of people. People with signs. "What are they doing?" I thought. "What can this be?" And then I read their signs.

It was an anti-war demonstration.

You may be saying, so what? Big deal! Well, it is  a big deal. Because this isn't, like, Berkley, or Vermont. Brevard County, where I live, is very, very conservative, and very Republican. Our Representative is Dave Weldon, one of the most radical, foaming-at-the-mouth, extreme conservative Republicans in Congress. This county voted overwhelming for Bush both chances it got.

The traffic light stopped me at the intersection, and I had time to watch the demonstrators waving their signs. This morning the newspaper said there may have been as many as a hundred of them. The constant traffic in the intersection raised a constant chorus of horn-honks of support. An anti-war demonstration, here , in Brevard County.... It felt... out of sorts. Like this shouldn't be happening. Like something was a little fractured. Like a window had opened a slit and we were looking through space and time to somewhere else. Like we were slip-sliding off the face of the Earth. And then I realized what it was really  like:

It was like the End of Days. It was the ripping apart of social fabric that will signal the beginning of Apocalypse. Now don't get me wrong: Jesus isn't returning. It's not the end of the world. But it's the end of something, in an epic way.

And I say, it can't happen too soon.

Labels: Dubya, Seen

I was listening to the news on NPR this morning when I heard the story that the Iraqis are considering encircling the entire city of Baghdad with a trench, to prevent unauthorized vehicles from sneaking into the city. I don't normally comment on politics or news, but as I heard this story I couldn't help but think that if the Iraq war was in fact a novel that you were reading, and as you were reading you were trying to figure out the novel's genre -- you know, suspense, romance, mystery, thriller, science fiction -- you would get to this very point in the story and clap your hand to your forehead and exclaim, "Of course! I get it now! The novel is meant to be a farce!" (Farce - n. 1: a comedy characterized by broad satire and improbable situations.*)

Only this isn't a novel.

* Thanks to WordNet via dictionary.com

Labels: Dubya, Language

Yesterday I went to the gym during lunch, and the televisions were showing a paintball tournament. There was a hard, flat field, and a bunch of big brightly colored cushions that I guess were supposed to be cover. Two teams of men would rush onto the field from opposite sides and blaze away with paintball guns. This was actually being televised on a national sports channel.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it disrespectful -- maybe even a little obscene -- that grown men are playing pretend-combat on national TV while men and women are fighting in real combat in Afghanistan? In Iraq? In Chechnya? In Sudan? Does anyone else see paintball battles on national TV as glorifying the outcome of combat while pretending there is no suffering, no fear, no loss? Am I making too much of this? Or does anyone agree with me that we should draft these guys and send them overseas to see what it really is that they're playing at. They could do some honest good fighting the Janjaweed in Darfur. And they could still be on television. It would just be CNN, instead of ESPN.

Labels: Dubya, Musing, Seen

...on an otherwise depressing and discouraging day, to read this bumper sticker:

My child is an honor student,
But my President is an idiot

Labels: Dubya, Seen

A couple of things about me:

• I do not like not having anything to do.


• I love to read am a compulsive reader. I will read anything. The warning labels on circuit breaker panels. The ends of shoe boxes. The small print at the bottom of grocery store cash register receipts. Anything.

So anyway, I had to go to the Post Office to pick up a package. I crept up in line until I was at the counter. The Post Office Dude went off in search of my package. I had nothing to do. So I looked for something to read. I read the menu of services and prices hanging above my head. Not that I haven't read this hundreds of times before: Priority Mail. Delivery Confirmation. Registered Mail. Express Mail.

The Post Office Dude still had not returned. I read the blotter on the counter, that describes those items that may not be mailed. As I had hundreds of times before. Just so you know, it is still forbidden to send explosives through the U.S. Mail.

The Post Office Dude still had not returned. I noticed that someone had left, on the counter, one of those pamphlets that young men are supposed to use to register with the Selective Service.

Have I mentioned that I will read anything?

I picked up the pamphlet. First I turned to the card the young men are supposed to send in, to see what personal information the Selective Service collects. The usual: Name, address, social security number. I thought it was kind of cheeky, though, that they require the young man to provide his own stamp.

The Post Office Dude still had not returned, so I moved on to what we would call the FAQ. Q: Will I be drafted? A: Registering with the Selective Service does not mean you are joining the military. Is that evasive, or what?

The Post Office Dude still had not returned, so I moved on to the section of the pamphlet that outlines who is required to register, and who is not. Some were not surprising: Persons who are incarcerated are not required to register. Though perhaps they should be. But there were some surprises: National Guardsmen and Reservists are required to register with the Selective Service. What's up with that? If there's a national crisis, the Guard and Reserve are going to be mobilized and gone long before we get around to drafting anyone, so why should they have to register? Dunno.

And then, as I was reading and waiting for my package, I came to the thing that's the point of this post (yes, Virginia, this post has a point):

I read that if you are an illegal alien in the United States, you are required to register for the Selective Service.

I am not making this up.

So, all you illegal alien young men, we won't educate your children in our schools, or we'll resent the hell out of it if we do. We won't give you health care if you or your family are sick. We won't provide you with social services, or retirement benefits, even though we'll tax you for them. We won't take care of you if you get hurt while doing the lousy jobs that we make you do for lousy wages. And if we happen to catch you we'll send you packing back to where you came from -- and if a bill pending in Congress gets passed then if we catch you we'll do worse: We'll throw you into prison as a felon. In a word, we'll treat you like subhuman scum. But! You must register with the U.S. Government anyway because if there's a war, instead of deporting you or imprisoning you we are entitled to draft your (probably) brown-skinned butt and send you overseas to get shot at and maybe killed defending the American Way. Even though you're too scummy to enjoy the benefits of that Way during peacetime.

What is wrong with us?

Labels: Dubya, Musing, Out and About

I've been gone. Now I'm back. While I was gone, I had the opportunity to hear a wonderful new (to me) band called Liquid Blue. I heard them mostly cover other people's songs, but they do have a CD of their own, Supernova. Their lyrics are strongly activist -- no sappy love songs here! Check out this excerpt from the song If You Gotta Ask (it sounds much better with the music, by the way):

I think it's time we do some questioning.
If they did it back then we can do it again right now,
times they are a changin'.
Should we take a stand now?
Or just go with the flow.
Are things getting better?
Is the answer no?
Are we gonna speak out?
Or turn our backs and go.
Should you join the cause?
If you gotta ask, you'll never know.

Yeah, if you gotta ask, you'll never know....

Labels: Dubya

While we're on the subject of the previous post, thanks to LeftCoastBreakdown for this tip:

Impeach The {Moronic Fool} Already

(You'll get the "{Moronic Fool}" part if you read down the blog a bit.)

Labels: Dubya

In Vermont, many of the smaller towns still use a Town Meeting form of government, where all the eligble citizens gather in a hall once a year to debate and vote on the town business. It's democracy by direct involvement. These meetings are usually held around this time of year, and recently four towns passed resolutions calling for the impeachment of President Bush. You can read the story in the Rutland Herald, here:

http://www.RutlandHerald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006603080383

The material in the story belongs under copyright to the Rutland Herald, and I respect copyrights (mostly), otherwise I would repeat it in full here. But still, given that Web-based news stories often disappear after a time, I'd like to quote a couple of passages for relative posterity:

Four Vermont communities Tuesday passed town meeting resolutions calling for Bush's impeachment for allegedly misleading the country into war with Iraq, authorizing torture policies and for carrying out a secret program to spy on Americans without court oversight.

Residents of Newfane, the only town where the impeachment question appeared on the warrant, passed the resolution 121-29 by paper ballot.

Other towns passed the resolution under the "other business" portion of the meetings, including Putney and Dummerston in near-unanimous floor votes, and in Marlboro, where it passed 60-10 by paper ballot.

Although the votes weren't even close, there was a small amount of opposition:

Residents opposed to the controversial question tried to indefinitely postpone the vote Tuesday (in Newfane).

Gunther Garbe, who proposed the delay just seconds after the article was read by Moderator Hendrik W. van Loon, said "this meeting is to discuss town business — not national issues."

But residents like Norm Kuebler, who reflected on his own German ancestors' silence during the Nazi regime, disagreed. While Kuebler said he did not want to compare Bush to Adolf Hitler, difficult issues such as war need to be addressed at the local level, he said.

"My ancestors are very ashamed of their silence," he said. "And we have this opportunity today to speak and I suggest we take advantage of it."

Does this make a difference? I dunno, but I'll leave you with this final quote:

Many voters remarked that it was vital for small towns to take the lead.

(Thanks to my bro', Glenn, for the tip about the article. Putney is the next town over from where he lives.)

Labels: Dubya

This is a quote from an article written by by Hank Pellissier, dated February 16, 2004, and available at http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/All_The_Presidents_Pets.htm:

Why was big George [Washington] chasing foxes on Sunday morning, instead of praying at church like his current smaller namesake in the White House? "Washington -- like many original patriots -- was not a believer," says Dr. Philip Schoenberg, a history professor at New York's College of Aeronautics and proprietor of a Web site called "The Presidential Expert." It is ironic that religion has deeply wormed its way into a government largely designed by agnostics.

These are some quotes from an article written by Ken Lynn, available at http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/1997/october97/lynn.html:

The discussion over Sunday mail began in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1809. The town postmaster, Hugh Wylie, followed the commonly practiced, though unofficial, custom of sorting the mail and opening his post office on Sundays so that churchgoers from nearby villages could pick up their mail after church services. Wylie, an elder in the local Presbyterian church, was expelled from the church for this outlandish violation of the Sabbath. U.S. Postmaster General Gideon Granger responded in 1810 by having Congress pass federal legislation governing all 2,300 post offices, declaring that U.S. mail would be moved seven days per week, and all post offices that received mail had to be opened at least one hour each day.

Petitions immediately began arriving in Congress from religious groups asking for the law to be repealed. By 1815, more than one hundred petitions had been received urging repeal. Sounding remarkably similar to the Christian right of today, one petition summed up opposition to Sunday mail as follows: "our government is a Christian government, a government formed and established by Christians and therefore, bound by the word of God, not at liberty to contravene His law, nor act irrespectively of the obligations we owe to Him."

...

In 1828, the General Union for the Promotion of the Christian Sabbath (GUPCS) was formed in new York City. This organization launched a new and much broader Congressional petition campaign to repeal the 1810 Postal Act. Members of GUPCS had to pledge to boycott all businesses that operated on Sunday. After a call for petitions went out, 467 petitions arrived in Congress by 1829 (and more than 900 by May 1831). Many petitions again mistakenly claimed America was founded as a Christian nation.

Defenders of Sunday mail called attention to the secular Constitution as the blueprint for the federal government. Some called the campaign of the General Union "the first step of a Christian party plan to seize control of the national government." In 1830, three states filed petitions with Congress opposing repeal of the 1810 law. One of the three state petitioners, Indiana, strongly endorsed the secular ideals of the United States Constitution and concluded its petition with words as meaningful today as in 1830:

"There are no doctrines or observances inculcated by the Christian religion which require the arm of civil power either to enforce or sustain them; we consider every connection between church and state at all times dangerous to civil and religious liberty."

...

The story of the "Sunday mail" is noteworthy because it demonstrates that even fifty years after the founding of our nation a powerful national consensus existed over the absolutely secular nature of our Constitution and our federal government.

As those of the Christian right have so mistakenly advanced, the United States was not founded as a Christian nation which was then eroded by secularist and liberals; in fact, just the opposite is true. Our great nation was founded by the adoption of an utterly secular Constitution and the nation has endured erosion as "God" first appeared on U.S. currency in 1863, entered the postal service in 1912, the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and potentially could enter the Constitution itself....

The religuous right has rewritten the beliefs of the Founding Fathers to suit their agenda. Or maybe the religuous right are simply uneducated and ignorant. That seems more likely. But what's interesting to me is that I came across these two related quotes while I was looking for information on two completely unrelated subjects: George Washington's dogs, and the history of Sunday mail delivery.

Funny how that works....

Labels: Dubya, Musing

1. Intelligent Design got smacked down (actually yesterday, but I heard about it today).


2. Drilling for oil in ANWR got smacked down.


3. Student loans, necessary to keep America competitive in the world economy, got smacked down.

Hey, as miserably as the last five years have gone, I'll take two out of three and call it a pretty good day.

Labels: Dubya