Comedy is a funny thing.  I was pretty excited about last nights gig.  I had all new stuff and had invited a lot of people but for one reason or another the turn out was very light.  In fact it was light for everyone.  I think the comedians outnumbered the audience and that isn’t a good thing.  I suppose nights like that are bound to happen along the way.  We had a good time in spite of the low turn out and I have tonight’s gig to look forward to as an opportunity to get last night’s experience behind me.   Mamma told me there’d be days like this…Well, the next show time is only hours away and I need to finish putting together my set. 

Gimp sent me a neat video today that I thought I would like to share with you all.  I hope you like it.

 

            So.  I was finally back at work on Monday after a nice reprieve.  Happily (okay, well, maybe not happily, more like doggedly) doing my work, catching up on my e-mail's, voice mails, and trying to prioritize my work for the week.  And then, I got an e-mail from my church.  No, that's not a bad thing or anything -- just reminding me of a meeting I need to go to tomorrow.  The meeting agenda was attached to the email; I took a peek.  One of the agenda items for our meeting is to report on our Thanksgiving highlight.  And I panicked just a little.  Okay, panicked is the wrong word.  But, having an 'oh sh--' moment is not something one can comfortably report in connection with reading something about church.  But since none of you are likely to rat me off to my pastor (oh, sorry P.K. is you're reading this, and yes, I know, I am the same girl who used to tell dirty jokes in Sunday School, but that was a looooonnnnggg time ago and I've become a lot more reverent since, okay, well, usually, I am, but I digress), I'll just tell you what I thought about next.

            I went to church on Wednesday night for our annual Thanksgiving Eve service and it was a very nice service but didn’t stand out as of my highlight for Thanksgiving.  Although the bargains my daughter and I scored while shopping on Black Friday (but not at the crack of dawn, mind you) seemed pretty good at the time, the money I saved on our new coffee pot (digital) and even the fantastic dinners we ate just didn't seem like what I wanted to report for my Thanksgiving highlight.

I spent some good time with a number of family members during Thanksgiving weekend, and I provided some needed chauffeuring to Courtney's college buddies from out of state to get them to the airport, I'm not sure I could call that a highlight.  In some ways, I think I went through the motions this past Thanksgiving -- being where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there, bringing the items I was supposed to bring to whatever event I was at, but nothing all that remarkable.

But as I reminisce about what I did this weekend to celebrate all that I am thankful for, I keep coming back to one image.  Two of Chris' uncles (and my uncles too, because I claim them through marriage to the RH) came to Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's house.  Let me tell you about them.  While they are two very different men, they are much the same.

            Uncle Braulic (my mother-in-law's brother) was the dean of students for many years at a private college here in Iowa.  He is a wonderful man, a gentleman and a scholar.  He has two great boys, grandkids, and a nice life in small town northeastern Iowa.  He is loving and kind.  He lost his wife to cancer more than ten years ago and has adapted to life as a widower.  He is Mexican.

            Uncle Joe (who was married to my father-in-law's sister) was a home builder in Waterloo for many years.  The homes he built with integrity and skill still stand -- my husband has pointed them out to me.  He is a wonderful man, gentle and loving.  He has two great boys, grandkids, and a nice life he has built in a senior citizen's apartment complex not far from where he built his last home.   He does useful carpentry jobs for the widow ladies in his apartment complex.  He is popular and happy.  He lost his wife to cancer more than ten years ago.  He is white.

Both men celebrate the time they spend with their families and reminisce about days gone by.  While they are both kind to all around them, they contentedly know that the one great loves of each of their lives has gone on ahead of them, and look forward to the day they join them.  They have lived rich lives and have loved much.  I love them both.  The highlight of my Thanksgiving was to watch them and to listen to them and to hope, at the end of day, to have a rich life like theirs.

 

           

            Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Bilal Hussein was arrested in April of 2006 as a “security threat” and since that time he has been imprisoned without charge.  The military has announced plans to file charges by the end of the week.  His attorney still does not have information about why his client has been arrested but must plan a defense based upon rumors and unsubstantiated allegations.  That might be troubling for the defense team considering that Hussein will likely be facing terrorism charges which carry the death penalty. 

            Hussein won his Pulitzer as an AP photo-journalist after taking pictures of insurgent activity in Fallujah.  At question is whether he was with the insurgents or among them.  Perhaps the greatest reason he has been arrested is due to the fact that he captured pictures of a viable insurgent threat in Fallujah at a time when our government was reporting that things were under control.  It will be interesting to watch this case as it develops.  If this man did cooperate with our enemies or if he is merely a propaganda pawn in this misguided war we should all hope for appropriate justice.  The irony that this man may face the death penalty for reporting the truth in a war that has been about lies is almost too much to consider. 

 

            Dick Cheney may be suffering from heart ailments which were detected when Cheney was seen by doctors around at the White House for a lingering cough from a cold.  I hope he gets well soon.  It would be nice if all Americans had that sort of responsive health coverage.  But I suppose Dick Cheney’s life is more important than the Americans who don’t have health insurance so I guess we should all just be thankful that he has coverage.

 

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – “Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton trails five top Republican presidential contenders in general election match-ups, a drop in support from this summer, according to a poll released on Monday.”  And Obama is leading in Iowa.  I recently heard a Democrat refer to Hillary as "George Bush in a skirt."  If you consider that she is a Washington insider, adept at the inner workings of Washington and an acceptor of PAC money they may have a point.  But "George Bush in a skirt?"  I think that is a bit too harsh. 

 

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (the longest serving Republican speaker in history) is now officially retired.  Hastert, R-Ill., timed his resignation to give his home state of Illinois time to call a special election for his replacement on Feb. 5, which is already a scheduled primary day in the state.  Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott announced Monday he will leave office at the end of this year after a 35-year career in Congress.  Lott’s timing is perhaps more aligned with ethics reforms enacted by the Democratically controlled Congress which that take effect at the end of this year which raise from one year to two the “cooling off period” that former Congressional representatives must wait before accepting jobs with lobby firms.  Can’t say I will miss either of ya boys.  Don’t let the door hit ya in the butt on the way out!

 

 

           I watched the Michal Moore movie “Sicko” again over the weekend.  It is now out on DVD.  If you haven’t seen it you should.  It shouldn’t even matter if you love or hate Michael Moore.  If you hate him you might as well watch the film to justify your feelings.  I have a hard time knowing what to think of the film.  Everything he says in the film seems at first to make so much sense.  It would be great if I had been able to find some trustworthy critique of the movie but as much as the movie has an agenda; the critics of the film seem to have an even greater stake in discrediting the movies message. 

            At the root of the problem with health care in the United States are the contradictory objectives of providing health care and returning a profit to the medicine and insurance industries.  I would like somebody, anybody, to explain to me how you reconcile providing service when profitability depends exclusively on denying payment for services.  The argument that without profit there would be no research and development, essential to medical advances, is without merit.  I seem to remember our government putting a man on the moon.  It seems our police and fire departments continue to utilize new technology in their efforts and nobody could deny that our “socialized military” lacks an infusion of new technology created by private industry outside of the government’s bureaucratic largess.  The post office seems to be meeting the challenges of mail delivery in the digital age and our school systems, arguably, are meeting the needs of America every day. 

            Opponents of single payer health care continually warn of the loss of choices in doctors or hospitals and lament long waiting times for procedures.  Yet Moore took camera crews to visit countries who offered health care for all of their citizens and they reported that those fears are laughable.  And even it it were the case that those countries have long waiting lists; does that mean you assume we can't do health care better in the United States?  Countries that provide universal single payer health care enjoy lower infant mortality rates, better overall health and greater longevity than residents of the United States.  For those kinds of statistics I might be willing to give up my choice of doctor or hospital but in fact that doesn’t seem to be a requirement to achieve a healthier America. 

            One of the priorities for me in the upcoming election is health care reform and it appears that no candidate other than Dennis Kucinich is supporting health care reform that Michael Moore has called for.  One can only hope that we will see some migration towards a health care policy that is more in line with that of our allies after we get a new administration that is more willing to consider the needs of the electorate than those of the corporate campaign financers.  Moore’s film raises more questions than it provides answers.  The questions raised are important questions.  I challenge you to watch the film and ask yourself if don’t believe that our ranking in the lower 30’s of global health care quality is acceptable to you.  Does Moore have all the answers?  No.  But he sure seems to be asking the right questions.

 

            I have perfectly good explanations for not posting the last couple of days.First, and perhaps most significant, our coffee pot died Friday morning.  I think we all know each other well enough for me to admit that I simply am not worth-a-shit without my first cup of coffee in the morning.  Call it a crutch, call it weakness, call it dependency, call it what ever you want but I just don’t “do” morning until I’ve had that morning picker-upper, my cup of Joe, my muddy water, my fuel for life, my mud puddle buzz.  The passing of a Wilcox coffee maker in my household is not unlike…um…uh… well; the worst possible thing imaginable.  I wasn’t particularly fond of the last Wilcox home coffee maker.  It was one of those little five cup machines that always seemed to be empty about the same time I was about to hit my morning stride.  So SWMBO, in true heroic fashion, braved the crowds of Black Friday shoppers while I sat at home mourning my ability to function in the morning.  You have to love a woman who would sacrifice herself, who would brave the manic shoppers and venture out into retail hell all for the want of getting the Red Hog moving in the morning.  Notice the high-tech new 12 cup Hamilton Beach model.  It's digital!

            And there was some football on TV over the weekend.  There were some fantastic games.  It’s hard to tell if I enjoyed seeing Texas A&M upset Texas, Arkansas beating LSU or Colorado beating Nebraska 65-51.  Dang that was great football.  But perhaps the game of the weekend was when my hometown UNI Panthers came from behind to beat a strong New Hampshire squad, 38-35, in the first round of their “Football Championship Subdivision” playoff game to win with 7 seconds left on the game clock.  The game was exciting from the opening kickoff.  I know that many of you aren’t sports junkies so I will spare you the details.  If you are a football fan though be sure to check out your favorite sports programs today to watch for a replay of one of the most incredible game winning catches you might ever see.

            And there was family to be with over the weekend.  We started Thanksgiving Day at my mother’s home in Sparkle City where we were fortunate to be joined by two of my favorite Uncles.  One from my Mom’s side of the family and the other from my Dad’s side.  Both are widowers and my dad passed away in 1989.  It was great that we were able to share our table and have some beloved surrogate paternal figures join in our celebration.  One uncle is 77, the other 87.  Both are still strong men with a sharp wit about them.  Both men’s presence gave us yet more to be thankful for.

 

            And now I have a couple of mild football rants to go on.  About that “Football Championship Subdivision” stuff.  Football used to be divided into 1-A, 1-AA and 1-AAA divisions.  The divisions were used to classify schools by size and to a lesser extent competitiveness.  All sports except football still use the old terms.  Somewhere last year a group of bean-counters and university presidents got together and decided that such nomenclature caused too much confusion for we peons in the sporting fiefdom.  So they came up with Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision to clarify things for us.  Evidently they didn’t have anybody there with any marketing savvy at their meetings.  I had to Google the classifications before writing this post because they are so forgettable.  Sorry great guru’s of the college football roundtable.  I’m going to continue to use the old 1-A and 1-AA titles until I have taken my last breath.  I would have preferred Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear divisions to what they came up with.

 

            The Big 10 Network.  AAARGH!  The Big 10 Network is a new creation of FOX Sports which saw a way to make money and bribed the 11 schools of the Big 10 to join up and give exclusive rights to broadcast all Big 10 Conference sporting events.  The only problem is they didn’t check with cable providers around the country and now something like 60 percent of all of the fans of Big 10 athletics have been denied access to their teams on TV.  Something about the demands of the way the network is offered and the price for which it will be made available is unpalatable to nearly all of the major cable networks in the country.  Why is it that every time big corporations see ways to make more money consumers get screwed?  The schools of the Big 10 are public schools and are supported by tax payers in their respective states.  I would say that you can’t blame the schools for wanting to get the biggest return they can on television contracts but they really should have checked to see how it would affect their fans before they signed any dotted lines.  I hate that I am being denied the ability to watch the very teams I have watched all of my life because somebody else thinks they had a way to make more money.  Ah ta-heck with em.  The 1-AA UNI Panthers aren’t competing for huge television contracts and they play better football and basketball than the Hawkeyes do anyway.  I’m gonna miss ya Herky.  How ‘bout them Panthers!

 

My old riding buddy “Gimp” continually forwards emails that had been forwarded to him.  I typically don’t even open forwarded emails but seem to make an exception in Gimps case.  Once in a while he sends me a gem.  Yesterday was one of those times.

A group of alumni, all highly established in their respective careers, got together for a visit with their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about the endless stress of work and life in general.  Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen and soon returned with a large pot of coffee and an eclectic assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal -- some plain, some expensive, some quite exquisite.  Quietly he told them to help themselves to some fresh coffee. When each of his former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the old professor quietly cleared his throat and began to patiently address the small gathering.  ''You may have noticed that all of the nicer looking cups were taken up first, leaving behind the plainer and cheaper ones.  While it is only natural for you to want only the best for yourselves that is actually the source of much of your stress-related problems."  He continued. ''Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee.  In fact, the cup merely disguises or dresses up what we drink.  What each of you really wanted was coffee, not a cup, but you instinctively went for the best cups.  Then you began eyeing each other's cups.  Now consider this: life is coffee.”

Jobs, money, and position in society are merely cups. They are just tools to shape and contain life, and the type of cup we have does not truly define nor change the quality of the life we live.  Often, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee that God has provided us.  God brews the coffee, but he does not supply the cups. Enjoy your coffee!  The happiest people don't have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.  So please remember: Live simply.  Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.  And remember -- the richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.

 

Sometimes I wonder if we can be thankful enough on a day like today.  When you consider the sheer abundance of food available to us everyday, the ease of traveling great distances to be with the people we love and the comforts of the homes where we will share our good fortune; can we really appreciate that enough?  I would think that we maybe take our lifestyle a bit for granted; even on a day such as Thanksgiving.  Perhaps today is a day to be thankful for more than the things we have, the family we love and the food on our table.  Perhaps today we need to be thankful for life itself and consider what our purpose here really is.

Happy Thanksgiving Red Hog Readers.  For each and every one of you I am truly grateful.

 

 

Everybody is okay which provides an abundance to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.  http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/11670791.html

 

            As luck would have it, last months comedy video arrived in the mailbox today so in lieu of other matters needing attention tonight I will put up the video for the Wednesday post.  Hope you like it.

 

See all my video's here. 

 

            Oh man it’s starting.  Now that the Iowa Caucus is a scant 6 weeks away the dumbing down of the electoral process is galloping into full stride.  The rhetoric from the politicians themselves is being squished into sound bites and not even bullet point commentary about  policies hopeful candidates would hope to implement  seem to hold the electorates attention.  I could never make it as a campaign staffer.  All the sweat and hours they put into campaigns seems to be for naught when it gets down to crunch time.  From three distinct sources today I heard that there is a “Bill Clinton-esque” skeleton in Bill Richardson’s campaign closet.  “Another campaign is just waiting for the right moment to reveal it.”  From another I heard, “I just don’t like something about that one guy…you know the black one.  What’s his name?  I heard that there is more information available now about his Muslim past.”  And then there is all kinds of outrage over the claim that a picture is in circulation that proves Obama isn’t a patriot because he didn’t put his hand over his heart in during the Pledge of Allegiance somewhere.   And you know, he’s the guy who doesn’t wear the flag lapel pin.  I Googled but couldn’t find the picture. 

            My inbox has been flooded with stories of how Bill Clinton was a draft dodger and not a Rhodes Scholar and there is an email circulating challenging you to notice the similarities and it has a picture of Hillary and a grinning donkey.  I find it amusing that the draft dodger email has come to my inbox on several occasions from friends of the conservative persuasion; considering their most famous recent Executive Office ticket that seems a little pot / kettle to me, especially considering Bill isn’t even the candidate.  Go figure. 

            A friend of my daughter told her he was supporting a particular candidate because “at least you know where the candidate stands” and he is supporting a prominent Democrat who has failed to answer questions about being on one side of issues for one constituency and another side for other constituency.  When pressed to support his claim her friend resorted to, “Well, that’s what I’ve heard.”  One can only hope that this young man has a busy social schedule come caucus night. 

            You would think that with the seemingly infinite tools of communication available to us these days that the candidates would have no problem getting their message out to the public.  In spite of internet, podcasts, radio, blogs, television, newspapers, magazines, direct mail and stump speeches it would seem we are going to pick our next president by what people have heard from a friend or a friend of a friend or by making a decision based on some ignorant email forwarded from only God knows where.  Hopefully I’m just to close too this coming election.  I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone could be blasé about what is at stake in this next election.  Maybe I just had a bad day.

            You couldn’t have thought I would have a bad day by the way it started.  The phone was ringing off the hook as I stepped out of the shower in the morning.  It seems our database was down at work.  Nobody likes starting off a Monday with news of a crashed server.  I never did manage to catch up with the work flow on Monday.  By the time I got home at the end of the day I was all done in.   And just as I was about to sit back with an ice cold Pepsi I realized that I hadn’t put any in the fridge so I was going to have to make due with ice.  That might not sound like a big deal to you but in my world that borders on devastating.  About the time I started to grudgingly crack the ice out of its tray my phone rang.  (For the 72^nd time that day)  My son had driven to Iowa City to meet with a lady friend and had locked his keys in his truck.  I laced my shoes back up and put on the super dad cape and made my way down to Iowa City; coat hanger in hand because none of the six admonitions to make a spare key had been heeded by my young Casanova.  By the time we made it home it was 10 pm.  But hey, by then my Pepsi was cold.  Maybe everything will be okay after all.

 

            Ever since she was a baby Courtney has been my Princess Butterfly.  She still lets me call her that.  I love that about her.

 

            There are a lot of pressures a young woman faces when she starts attending college. Let’s work in the hypothetical realm here: These pressures have the potential to threaten any hypothetical sense of balance she’s managed to maintain in her short, oh, let’s say, nineteen years; if readers have any familiarity with the Red Hog, they will almost understand what a hypothetical struggle it might have been for his spawn to have achieved this balance. Hypothetically, there could be booze all over the place that a girl has got to go out of her way to avoid on Thursday night, even at an academic function at her hypothetical University. There could be an ex boyfriend who won’t leave her alone, and there could be a really cute guy on the first floor of her dorm that  attracts her attention, neither of whom would she even hypothetically describe because she is all-too-familiar with the fact that her hypothetical grandmother reads these entries. There could be the notion that in order to get into grad school, in order to get it paid for, she’s got to get all A’s. There could be the guilt that she feels over not having practiced singing in a long time. There could be an overwhelming sense of urgency she feels in fixing this tiny little problem of world hunger; an urgency that complicates her daily life and that she has to suppress in the middle of classes, in line at the dining hall, and when watching sappy movies with her gal pals. School comes first—in order to be taken seriously in a political arena someday she hypothetically realizes that she has got to make the most of her education. Making the most of it means not getting distracted by unforgiving visions of legislative bodies’ stubborn ineptitudes from her 10:30 Monday, Wednesday, Friday history lesson. I mean, there they are! They’ve got the means to change the face of the planet—and what the hell are they doing? I’ve been told, on numerous occasions, that I should have been born in the ‘60s. I’m an unapologetic idealist, optimist, liberal. I do not believe that states or people are unwaveringly and innately selfish. I think we all want to help each other. That’s precisely why, in my humble opinion, I’m glad to have not been born in my father’s era. There were enough of me out there—enough people who thought global understanding could be an engine of peace.

 Okay, so I’m not fooling anyone. I, Courtney, the first child of Red Hog, want to become fluent in a couple of languages because there are already too many obstacles to effective communication in the world—some of the pages-long commentary on the Red Hog’s entries are a testament to that fact. I want to save the world from hunger. I want to get into a kick ass grad school…in four years. I want to have a promising career so I can raise my potentially, hopefully, ethnic babies in all the comfort I’m sure they will deserve. I want to not feel guilty about the fact that I want my babies to be as culturally aware as humanly possible, as a function of their parents’ mixed heritages. (I’m not racist against white boys, promise.) As is evidenced by this entry, I tend to over-think. A lot. I never give myself a break. That’s why it’s good to spend weekends at home.

Since I started going to school at the University of Iowa, I’ve barely spent a weekend there. It was out-of-state Mock Trial tournaments or research presentations or this or that that took me away from the comforts of the dorm. Not that I minded it. I like being busy. Being busy makes me feel powerful; when I’m busy I have the power to remind myself to slow down—I control the pace of my life. If I ever feel like I might not be able to get a reign on it, I come home, wrestle with the dog or my baby brother or both, clean up my room, do my laundry, bum some CDs off of Dad. It’s the good life.

I was never so excited to get home as this weekend though. I’m taking a break from Mock Trial and we’ve got the week off of classes. I get to go see my grandma Anita on Wednesday and hopefully cook some awesome Mexican food. I get to talk to her about my heritage and about how ignorance frustrates me and about how boys are stupid…she is a comfort to me. Whenever I’m on the brink of tears—thinking about how it sucks that I didn’t meet her father, that I’ll never know if my Spanish accent is anything like his, I give her a call. I’m usually walking to class or heading to the library. She’s always good for a chat and if that weren’t the case I’d probably be a lot more confused right now. She’s so calm and rational…the opposite of me when I get to thinking about my heritage and how my blue eyes—though I thank my Mom for these ornaments---are an intense source of discomfort for me as I try to explain that I am, in fact, Mexicana.

I get to work on my relationship with my twin this week. That’s good news. I like to be there for him when he needs to vent. I get to see Betty and Herold, my German grandparents this coming weekend too. I’ll over-eat and engage in forced conversations with some of my cousins. I’m excited to seem them but they’ll never know that. I love them like crazy but I’m never more reserved than when I’m around them.

Home has its own pressures but they’re pressures I’ve dealt with my whole life—they’re familiar and familial and totally manageable. The rest of it is manageable too. Somehow. I’m young. I’m active. I’m not yet too jaded by dudes or politics or any of the other evils of the world. Maybe I just contradicted myself. Oh well. I’m young. All is yet forgivable.

 

            Is there any chance Barry Bonds could get the same lawyer as Scooter Libby had when he was tried for perjury and obstruction of justice?  Let’s see how this works out.  You can bet Barry will end up doing time.  He cheated in baseball.  You know…Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and all that.  Scooter only lied about undermining an undercover agent in a time of crisis to our national security.  Scooter is white.  Barry is black.  Hmm, I wonder how this will end up.  We’re gonna miss ya Barry.

 

            Those darn “tax and spend” Democrats are at it again.  You know they can’t be trusted with your tax dollars.  On Monday, President Bush explained his veto of the recent Labor-HHS bill, claiming the “majority” in Congress had abandoned his “clear goals for the Congress to reform the earmarking process” and was “acting like a teenager with a new credit card.” I’m sure the president is right.  He would never mislead us and with that in mind I am sure that there is a reasonable explanation for the fact that earmarks for FY08 appropriation bills are down 33% from FY06 when it Republicans controlled Congress.  The American public perhaps can’t be trusted to understand the complexities of Bush-league economics. 

 

            Army desertion rates are at a historical high.  But I suppose it is only the phony soldiers who go AWOL. 

 

            140 nations met in Valencia, Spain last week and came to a consensus on human-induced climate change.  The agreement will be instrumental in meetings scheduled for next month in Indonesia that will seek to launch multilateral cooperation in controlling global warming.  The US delegation tried to undermine efforts the entire week but those darn foreigners just wouldn’t listen to reason and adopted a document to work from.  I guess the EIB Network and FOX News don’t have a strong enough signal to cross the Ocean.  If they did those other countries would know that global warming is just a big liberal sham.

           

            The Mine Safety and Health Administration has some explaining to do.  Their records detailing that they claimed to have ordered the Crandall Canyon mine to evaluate their roof control plan were dated 4 months before the inspection even occurred.  Six miners died in a cave in at the Crandall Canyon mine last August. 

            It has also been discovered that the MSHA has not got around to required inspections of 15% of the nations underground coal mines.  I wonder what the Bush administration approval rating is among miners and their families.

 

            It’s Saturday!  Finally all of the leaves have fallen from the 19 trees in my yard so you can guess how I plan to spend my weekend.  It seems hard to believe that the Holiday Season is upon us.  Courtney comes home for a week of Thanksgiving break from school today and I suppose shoppers will be jamming the malls all of next weekend.  Do your part America.  Go out and run up your charge cards so we can fight terrorism and feed the insatiable appetite of corporate coffers.  Have a great weekend Red Hog Readers. 

 

            Just when you thought the Bush administration couldn’t possibly produce another glaring example of cronyism and lax oversight two more examples come to light yesterday.  No, I take that back.  Nothing unseemly that this administration could yet do would surprise me.  The United States Inspector General, Howard Krongard, has to defend himself against evidence that he has obstructed investigations into fraud and waste as it relates to the US embassy in Iraq.  There is also evidence that he bullied State Department employees from cooperating with Congress’s investigation by threatening their “jobs and careers.”  In case you want to write this off as partisan witch hunting the FBI has deemed the allegations serious enough to begin their own investigation.  Innocent until proven guilty I always say but wouldn’t you think this administration would go to the ends of the earth to avoid the perceptions of impropriety?  If this were not so serious it would be laughable. 

            But don’t start laughing just yet.  It gets worse.  Remember when the President promised to get to the bottom of intelligence that Blackwater USA employees were illegally smuggling weapons into Iraq for sale on the Black Market?  Through some, I am sure innocent, oversight; Inspector General Howard Krongard was picked to head the investigation.  It has been reported that Krongard went so far as to send a letter to employees instructing them to “IMMEDIATELY” stop cooperating with federal investigators.  Pretty incredible huh?  No?  That doesn’t seem beyond the scope of the Bush administrations method of operation?  Well get this.  Krongard’s brother, Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard is a sitting member on the Board of Directors at Blackwater USA.  When confronted in a Congressional hearing about the glaring conflict of interest Krongard at first denied the fact and later had to admit that it was true and promised to recuse himself from further Blackwater USA investigations.  His subordinates still have to work for him though.

            In other news of Bush administration “sticking it” to all things decent and any semblance of integrity The Washington Post reported yesterday that former Senate GOP leadership aide Manuel Miranda has been given the dubious honor of teaching legal principles and Democracy to Iraqi government employees in Baghdad.  His official title is Director of Legislative Statecraft at the US Embassy in Iraq.  Miranda is the man who was forced from his job in early 2004 after a Senate investigation discovered that he and a junior aide had stolen 4,670 documents, memos and e-mails from Democratic legislator’s computers.  Since that time and until the Bush administration found him and considered he met the criteria of loyal foot soldier Miranda has been spending his time sending out emails disparaging Democrats, including one that challenged Majority Whip, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) to “meet me in an alley.”  Yeah.  This is the kind of guy you want teaching sectarian adversaries with millennial feuds between them the art of diplomacy and governance. 

I don’t think Bush is even trying anymore.  We need a president who has the leadership, integrity and willingness to lead in a transparent and accountable manner.  I watched the CNN debate last night and it remains obvious to me that Obama is the guy to do it.  I’m not with him on 100% of all the issues but the most critical are perhaps his commitment to transparency in government and ethics reform.  And I believe that of all the Democratic candidates Obama hears what regular Americans worry about and hope for most in life.  As far as rating the debate goes I don’t think it was apparent that Obama won the debate on technical merit but his answers were smart and sincere. 

The TV pundits wanted to suggest that Obama’s statement that he would favor offering driver licenses for undocumented immigrants cost him points.  It was a dumb question.  It has nothing to do with the real reform that is needed to face our issues with securing our border.  Obama said first he would secure the border and then he would hold employers responsible to the law if they hired undocumented workers.  A driver’s license and insurance, in the absence of real reform, would at least take steps to ensure drivers were competent and insured.  Hillary flip flopped and because she said “no” the pundits believe she won the point.  And I suppose if you wanted to rate Clinton on debating skills she did as well as anyone.  But if you want to measure who one the debate by the message delivered, Obama cleaned up.

 

            Did you hear the big news?  The House stood up in brave defiance against the Bush War Machine and passed a $50 billion bill for the Iraq war.  By a vote of 218-203 the House’s bill requires the President to start bringing troops home immediately with visions of an end of combat by December 2008.  Yawn.

            I’m sorry but haven’t we been down this road before?  You know me, I don’t want to be cynical but jeeze-louise Ms. Pelosi; Give it up!  This bill is expected to fail in the Senate and even if it passes there the Decider has already said he will veto it.  Surprise, surprise.  We aren’t going to win this line of fight so I believe it is time to move on to different tactics.  How about working out a swap?  Maybe the President could not veto every bill that comes up that mentions children in exchange for another blank check?  Maybe we could trade that blank check for SCHIP, for Head Start, Katrina recovery, Stem Cell Research, or the Water Resources Development act…Oh wait, we didn’t need Bush on that last bill.  Congress actually over-rode Bush’s veto of the bill which sought clean water and flood control programs for parts of the country that desperately needed it.

            Sending another war funding bill up to the President that is doomed to fail makes the Congress no more reasonable than the man who holds the veto pen.  In case you didn’t catch it I just suggested that Congress is about as unworthy of respect as anything or anyone I ever imagined until this President took office.  The White House responded to the bills passage with, "These votes, like the dozens of previous failed votes, put the interests of radical interest groups ahead of the needs of our military and their mission."  EXCUSE ME?  Radical interest groups?  So now the vast majority of the citizenry of the United States is a radical interest group! 

            Okay…calm down Red Hog.  So here is the deal.  There has been a reduction in violence in Iraq recently.  Afghanistan is another story but the fact that Iraqi civilian and US Soldier deaths are at the lowest level in 18 months is a good thing.  Whether that is sustainable I don’t know but it is welcome news.  So now is not the time to revisit demanding the withdrawal of our troops.  Especially considering there is a snowballs chance no chance in Hades that we will see that happen while Bush is occupying the Oval Office.  Now would be the time to work with moderate Republicans, if there really are any, and see if we can get some needed domestic agenda items put into law.  Picking this fight, again, only reminds Washington insiders of which side of embattled party lines they belong. 

            In fairness, I can understand that Congress has to try to do something about answering the call of the electorate to bring about an end of this war.  It would just seem that there would be smarter ways.  Fund the war in smaller and more frequent chunks.  Continuous votes would allow Congress to fund the war based on the progress being made and the political will of Republicans who near re-election time.  Pitching up another floater for Bush to knock out of the park just didn’t seem like smart politics to me.

 

            Yesterday I posted about “God Bless America” bumper stickers and I think I resolved my own personal issue there.  Thanks for being there for me.  With regard to vehicle adornment, ribbon magnets had gotten a little out of control there for a while.  I think I figured they had run their course when I saw a mini-van that had a ribbon magnet on it that said, “Buy Ribbon Magnets.”  I can’t say that I was ever tempted to purchase a ribbon magnet for my car but hey, if they worked for you…more power to ya.  There did seem to be a direct relationship in a driver’s proclivity to display ribbon magnets on the back of their vehicle and their willingness to drive a mini-van.  I’m not sure if that suggests anything about a person having given up on life but it might be interesting if someone did a study one day. 

            And then there are the “United We Stand” bumper stickers.  They must have sold 100 million of those in the weeks after 9/11.  It seems as if every third car in America has one adorned to their bumper.  I bet they aren’t such hot sellers lately.  And that’s a sad thing.  But you know what Red Hog Readers?  In spite of an upcoming election that will most likely try our patience along ideological lines I am longing to see that sticker become a viable commodity once again.  The thing is, however, I pray that the meaning behind that message is not one ascribed to war.  With the cost of the war reported to be $1.6 trillion while domestic needs remain unfunded or are seeing reduced allocations most Americans are not united behind this war.  (to give you an idea of what $1.6 trillion is, if you were talking 1.6 trillion seconds you would be counting them for over 50,000 years!)

            We do have issues at home in border security, health care, dependence on foreign oil and greenhouse emissions to rally behind.  Public education seems broken in many areas but is doing quite nicely where the tax base supports it.  National security will remain one of the largest issues confronting this nation for perhaps eternity and I believe all Americans could rally behind keeping that our national priority if they had faith in those responsible for it.  I’m looking forward to believing those “United We Stand” bumper stickers when I see them.  It seems to be within our reach again.  That little countdown on the right side column of the Red Hog Diary is showing about 430 days remaining until we have a new president.  Surely I can make it that long can’t I?