TAKING A TIME OUT, A GOOD ONE

My weekend assignment entry is here, in my other journal.  I recommend it highly.

Many family members will be arriving for the week ahead, starting tomorrow.  I am, therefore, deeply involved in vacuuming, bed-making, grocery-shopping, clearing off the dining-room table (it's where we usually pile everything we're working on - the two of us eat at the kitchen table, ten of us won't be able to do that), and making sure we have enough crayons, and........  Still going to do voter registration tomorrow afternoon, into the bargain. 

SO!  There won't be much time for posting here during the coming week, I regret to say.  I look forward to my journal time, both writing and reading.  I'll probably still be reading news and political sendings, so from time to time I may take the short road and just copy and paste anything of overwhelming interest.  In the meantime, my brother-in-law in DC called yesterday to give me a website, which I am passing on to you:  Capitol Hill Blue  for what it's worth.  Some interesting stuff on there.  The stories he wanted me to read have probably passed on into the "more stories" link, not in the current ones.  They have to do with Dubya on heavy-duty anti-depressants, sinking into a Nixon-in-his-final-White-House-days mode.  Urban Legend?  or true?  Jim swears these stories are true, and he still knows lots of folks on the Hill (he worked for Clinton), so - check it out.

A WHUPASS TIME WAS HAD BY ALL

You either watched it, or you didn't.  Anyone who reads this journal probably watched the last night of the convention, and saw John Kerry report for duty.  You saw Wesley Clark and Max Cleland, and all the ex-servicemen from the VN days, all of whom were quite impressive.  The night before you saw John Shalivashkili give what was for me an amazing speech.  I reference these particular people because they are military, or ex-military - because they, like John Kerry, know the horrors of war, they know the mistakes of war, they know when war is itself a mistake.  And they believe in this man as the right choice for president.  You saw his wonderful family (though I must say I have to wonder:  where is his first wife?  From last night's video, etc., she appears never to have existed.) What a fine bunch of young people in both Edwards' and Kerry's families, blended and nuclear.  Gives me great hope.

So, you watched it or you didn't, and you have your own thoughts and opinions and there are a blue ton of them out there in blogs, journals, all over all of the media, etc.  I watched the whole evening from the Third Edition in Rehoboth Beach, with a lot of rowdy Democrats, and had a fabulous time.  It was so much more fun than just the two of us here in our living room yelling and whooping and scaring the animals.  We, all of us in that restaurant/bar, thought the speech was fantastic.  He hit every note he needed to hit, was strong on military might, and strong on every liberal issue that's gone missing for the past three and a half years.  We were all high as kites at the end of the evening, and I don't just mean those who had spent most of their time at the bar.  It was a Convention contact high, I yell and hollered all the way home.  Here are some pictures from the evening, just to give you the flavor:

Mesmerized party-goers watching Kerry.  My sweet partner is the cute woman in a black tank in the foreground.

Well folks, that's yours truly on the far left (always) in this picture of our tableful of women cheering for something Kerry said, I forget which thing. Although it may look as if I have two heads, that's actually our friend Chris who was standing behind me for much of the speech. 

SRO at the bar TV for Kerry's acceptance speech.  There was another, and much wider screened, TV in the restaurant itself.

Here we are again, G on the far left this time (yes, her too), me beside her. Fifty pounds lighter, and I still can't lose the double chin.  Ah well, I notice Hillary has one too.  New friends from DC beside us.

I was commenting in Tank Gurl's journal, at length, when I realized I was saying stuff I wanted to say here.  So, here are some thoughts I've been having as I watched this convention all week:     I watched the whole convention on c-span, so there were never any talking heads to get in the way.  I have to confess I even love just watching people on the convention floor during the breaks.  What a widescreen picture of America it is: every race, gender, size, shape, class, age, every strange thing a person could put on their head and body, every version of the American flag in every imaginable form, everyone dancing to the music to the best of their ability, people bored out of their skulls, people as alive as they have ever been - just....people.  Americans, us, our delegates, our surrogates. I love them.  I love this country.  I want to be able to continue to love it.  I don't want to have to move to Costa Rica. I want this adminstration to be over.  Please get out there and work your tails off, register voters, go door to door, work for the campaign.  Let's have the biggest whupass party yet - in November.

RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN

Lordy lordy, how time flies when you're having fun.  No convention blogging this morning, maybe tonight after I get back from the Acceptance Speech party.  Right now I've got to go in to the beach and see my Sussex County for Kerry issues committee chair with some stuff for next month's meeting (Civil Liberties is the issue - we're focussing on the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and the Bill of Rights), maybe help decorate the place for tonight's party.  We're having a county wide party to shake it all out, watch Kerry's speech, talk, rant, drink, dance, eat, sell t-shirts, buttons, bumper-stickers.  Somewhere between now and tonight's festivities I also have to finish mowing the back forty before another monsoon lets loose on us.  There could be entire families of large mammals living out there, for all I know.  And it keeps getting worse with the constant rain.  Then there's the weeds in my garden - ELK could be living in there.

Another project showed up this week, which I will discuss at more length in an eventual post.  It has to do with the Indian River SD School Board (the school district we're in) and a case that's brewing against it about prayer at school events.  G and I attended the School Board meeting on Tues night (recorded the convention speeches that we missed) in order to get up to speed on this situation.  We both wish we had known more about it before we went and had the time and background to prepare comments.  It's far from resolved though, so there is yet time for that, I'm sure.  I am working on letters to the newspapers on the issue, and that's taking some time and research as well. 

But, today I discovered a wonderful Journal; Donna Callejon is a Maryland delegate to the convention, and she is blogging for us right here on AOL.  Her journal is called "DC does Boston" (do you love it?) and it's pretty damn good.  She started it for the purpose of doing just this, but I do hope she'll stick around J-Land after the convention ends.  She's a fresh new voice, and I'm so happy to welcome her here.

ONE CAN ONLY HOPE

As Bruce at Old Hickory's Weblog keeps saying about the Convention: "I can quit any time I want to."  Yeah, right.  We can't, and we know it.  So above is a great portrait of Barack Obama, last night's Keynote Speaker, and a rising star in the Democratic firmament.  I've been reading about him, but this was my first chance to see him in action.  I understand the excitement.  He made me want to move to Illinois so I could vote for him this November.  When his speech finished, G. and I turned to each other and said: "we may have just heard a speech by this country's first black President."  Today I read Tom Engelhardt's post from the convention and he has the the very same thought:

But the speech that rocked the house -- and for good reason -- was Barack Obama's. While it offered the usual praise of Kerry, it was remarkable in its own right. Certainly, it was the only speech of the day, possibly of the convention, which even mentioned the Pentagon ("Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted, by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon."), or Arab Americans ("If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties."), or the American toll in Iraq by number ("I thought of the 900 men and women -- sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who won't be returning to their own hometowns. I thought of the families I've met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were Reservists."), but read it for yourself. He was a knock-out. Call me starry-eyed, or simply punchy as a day inside the Fleet Center ended, but there's always something about genuine enthusiasts that just does get to you. I thought to myself when Obama was finished and the place was truly rocking, maybe, just maybe, I listened to a speech by a future president of the United States."

And after we had said we may have seen a future president, G and I said, once again in a chorus, "I hope I live long enough to vote for him for president."  The picture is from his campaign website, which - sign of the times - includes a blog.

PLUS CA CHANGE........

Continuing Krugman's theme from yesterday's post, here is some information from yesterdays Progress Report, the daily newsletter from the American Progress Action Fund.  This may be the single most informative daily political news update that I receive, and I get a lot of them.  This is more info on the problems likely to be occurring with voting this November, things all of us need to know about.  A constant theme of the convention speakers is "this time, every vote must be counted."  It seems entirely possible that this may only be wishful thinking.  I'm putting in the entire section from the Report on voting, so you can just read it here. 

VOTING
GOP Calls for Voter Suppression

A string of recent declarations from top government officials and Republican party leaders are raising questions about whether the Bush administration is quietly attempting to manipulate voting in the 2004 presidential election. Last week, a GOP lawmaker and co-chair of the Bush-Cheney '04 Michigan Veterans Leadership Team called recently for his party to "suppress the Detroit vote," making a mockery of President Bush's belated attempt to reach out to African-Americans in that city last week. Speaking at the National Urban League, Bush said, "I believe you've got to earn the vote and seek it," but State Rep. John Pappageorge (R) revealed a backup plan in the swing state of Michigan: "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election," he said. It is little secret what Pappageorge meant by the "Detroit vote" – while Michigan state is majority white (78 percent), Detroit boasts an overwhelmingly minority population (88 percent). State Sen. Buzz Thomas (D) told reporters, "I'm extremely disappointed in my colleague…That's quite clearly 'code' that they don't want black people to vote in this election."

SAME OLD STORY: The idea the GOP might try to "suppress" votes is nothing new to minority voters. A BET/CBS poll shows "more than four in five blacks believe Bush did not legitimately win the [2000] election, and two-thirds think deliberate attempts were made to prevent black voters' ballots from being counted."

BACK TO MESSING WITH FLORIDA: Earlier this month in Florida, where President Bush's brother Jeb is governor, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced it would ask the Department of Justice to investigate whether the state's aborted effort to "use of a flawed database to remove felons from the voter rolls was a deliberate attempt to block some voters from casting ballots." The Miami Herald reported that this year's list "included people – many of themblackDemocrats – who have had their right to vote restored."

E-MACHINES MEAN NO RECORD: Efforts to suppress votes could only be aided by the proliferation of touch screen voting machines. The machines, despite coming under fire for technical glitches and a lack of transparency, "are poised for use in the November elections in more than 675 counties, comprising more than 30 percent of the nation's registered voters." Because many of the machines provide no paper record of votes, they could make a manual recount of a contested vote impossible.

RIGGING THE SYSTEM: The CEO of the company which will provide many of the new voting machines is Diebold's Walden O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser (Pioneer) who wrote in a fundraising letter last August that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Federal Election Commission data shows "at least eight million people will cast their ballots using Diebold machines next November," meaning 8 percent of the number of voters in 2000 will have their 2004 votes calculated on a machine created by a self-described Bush partisan.

STILL STICKING WITH PUNCH CARDS?: Meanwhile, the ACLU is taking aim at problems with antiquated punch card ballots, which were the source of controversy during the 2000 election in Florida. AP reports an ACLU lawyer in Ohio is "arguing that even isolated malfunctions in Ohio could change the November election results in this swing state." Arguing for the machines to be judged unconstitutional, the ACLU maintains "that punch cards are more likely to go uncounted than votes cast with other systems, and that use of the ballots violates the rights of black voters, who mostly live in punch-card counties."

So, there you have it.  We all need to make some noise about this, and quickly.  I'm working to register voters, I'm especially concerned with getting minority voters registered.  I want their vote to be counted, not an exercise in futility.

Again, from yesterday's Progress Report, some disturbing, though unsurprising facts on corporate donations to the Democratic Party, and Convention.  I know my party is not perfect, I know my candidate is not perfect - I know there are huge reforms that need to be made in this whole system.  This is a longterm effort that truly needs the attention and participation of more than just a few people, however.  It won't change until the entire electorate decides it needs to change.  In the meantime, yes, the corporations are calling the shots and pulling the strings.  Take a look at just how big a pricetag is attached to those strings.  I'm only putting in the first and last paragraphs of this section, go to the Report and read the entire thing - it is, to say the least, illuminating.

CONVENTION
'Boon for Special Interests'

As the Democratic Party this week uses its national convention to trumpet its working class roots, and the need for a government that represents the middle class, a whole other convention is occurring out of sight of television cameras. In scores of parties throughout Boston, the New York Times reports, "corporate big spenders...finally can cut loose." While anti-war protestors expressing their constitutional rights are "under lockdown" and cordoned off from the convention, lobbyists have flooded the area, underwriting the convention with cash from some of the biggest companies with the biggest business before the federal government. The brazen display of corporate largesse runs counter to Sen. John Kerry's consistent support of campaign finance reform. As one lobbyist at the convention said, "Corporate dollars are flowing rather freely" at the convention, with "a lot of folks saying, 'Let the good times roll.'" Similarly, former DNC Chairman Don Fowler said, "Some of the best lobbying in the world is done at these conventions. It is a tremendous boon for special interests."

$39.5 MILLION FROM CORPORATE SPECIAL INTERESTS: The NYT reports the Raytheon Company, IBM and Fidelity Investments each gave at least $1 million to the host committee for the Democratic National Convention in Boston, according to a donor list. AT&T, Amgen and Nextel Communications each gave at least $500,000. In all, more than 150 donors have contributed more than $39.5 million - money they could not legally give to a political party or a candidate under the new law but are permitted to donate to a convention. All told, "private sources are on track to contribute about $110 million to this year's Democratic and Republican conventions combined, some 13 times what they gave for the 1992 conventions."

MAKE NO MISTAKE – THE GOP CONVENTION IS WORSE: As troubling as some of the behavior at the Democratic convention is, it appears the Republican Party is trying to go even further. Earlier this year, CBS News reported House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) was planning to use the guise of a children's charity to allow corporate donors to slather him and other Republicans with cash. Specifically, DeLay created a group called "Celebrations for Children" that he said was a charity, but planned to use to solicit corporate donations at the Republican National Convention. "For $50,000, a donor will get luxury box seats at the 2004 Republican convention, tickets to Broadway shows and spots in an upscale golf tournament," from the "charity," while "A half-million dollars will buy all of that, plus a New York cruise and two dinners" with DeLay himself. In 2000, DeLay had major corporate donors sponsor a luxury train car for him and other top Republicans to party in during their convention.

TODAY'S MUST READ COLUMN - Paul Krugman

July 27, 2004OP-ED COLUMNIST

Fear of Fraud

By PAUL KRUGMAN

t's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

This isn't a paranoid fantasy. It's a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent. Mr. Gumbel's full-length report, printed in Los Angeles City Beat, makes hair-raising reading not just because it reinforces concerns about touch-screen voting, but also because it shows how easily officials can stonewall after a suspect election.

Some states, worried about the potential for abuse with voting machines that leave no paper trail, have banned their use this November. But Florida, which may well decide the presidential race, is not among those states, and last month state officials rejected a request to allow independent audits of the machines' integrity. A spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush accused those seeking audits of trying to "undermine voters' confidence," and declared, "The governor has every confidence in the Department of State and the Division of Elections."

Should the public share that confidence? Consider the felon list.

Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. In 2000 the state hired a firm to purge supposed felons from the list of registered voters; these voters were turned away from the polls. After the election, determined by 537 votes, it became clear that thousands of people had been wrongly disenfranchised. Since those misidentified as felons were disproportionately Democratic-leaning African-Americans, these errors may have put George W. Bush in the White House.

This year, Florida again hired a private company - Accenture, which recently got a homeland security contract worth up to $10 billion - to prepare a felon list. Remembering 2000, journalists sought copies. State officials stonewalled, but a judge eventually ordered the list released.

The Miami Herald quickly discovered that 2,100 citizens who had been granted clemency, restoring their voting rights, were nonetheless on the banned-voter list. Then The Sarasota Herald-Tribune discovered that only 61 of more than 47,000 supposed felons were Hispanic. So the list would have wrongly disenfranchised many legitimate African-American voters, while wrongly enfranchising many Hispanic felons. It escaped nobody's attention that in Florida, Hispanic voters tend to support Republicans.

After first denying any systematic problem, state officials declared it an innocent mistake. They told Accenture to match a list of registered voters to a list of felons, flagging anyone whose name, date of birth and race was the same on both lists. They didn't realize, they said, that this would automatically miss felons who identified themselves as Hispanic because that category exists on voter rolls but not in state criminal records.

But employees of a company that prepared earlier felon lists say that they repeatedly warned state election officials about that very problem.

Let's not be coy. Jeb Bush says he won't allow an independent examination of voting machines because he has "every confidence" in his handpicked election officials. Yet those officials have a history of slipshod performance on other matters related to voting and somehow their errors always end up favoring Republicans. Why should anyone trust their verdict on the integrity of voting machines, when another convenient mistake could deliver a Republican victory in a high-stakes national election?

This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Think about what a tainted election would do to America's sense of itself, and its role in the world. In the face of official stonewalling, doubters probably wouldn't be able to prove one way or the other whether the vote count was distorted - but if the result looked suspicious, most of the world and many Americans would believe the worst. I'll write soon about what can be done in the few weeks that remain, but here's a first step: if Governor Bush cares at all about the future of the nation, as well as his family's political fortunes, he will allow that independent audit.

D-DAY

Our Sussex Cty for Kerry group had the July meeting last week, the subject was the environment, so I had a large part in preparing the agenda and delivering it.  It was a great meeting, the group grows larger every month, and the contacts I'm making with other progressive folks in the area are really psyching me up.  The weekend was spend on voter registration near the movie complex that is still playing F9/11, and this is a process that I am enjoying immensely.  We are using the federal reg forms and so are able to register people from almost all states, which is a big plus, as this is a high tourist area and we get lots of out-of-staters.  Because we are using these forms, not state forms, we're also able to be partisan and feature Kerry/Edwards materials at our table.  Registered voters are stopping for buttons, bumper stickers, flyers, etc.  Donations are also high.  The positive response outnumbers the negative by a high margin.

Yes, I'm a happy camper - the Red Sox won yesterday, the action is revving up in Boston, Teresa Heinz/Kerry is in fine feisty form, and I registered a lot of young voters this weekend. 

Indeed, the Democratic Convention starts today in Boston and I'm really wishing I still lived a few T-stops from downtown right now.  More interesting stuff will be happening outside of the Fleet Center than in it, is my guess, as many progressive groups will be hosting events of their own in various venues around town.  But I'm in Delaware, not Boston, and I couldn't afford to go up there and spend the week, so here I am watching from afar.  Old Hickory has a good entry about the convention today, and he's right when he says that conventions are for poliltical junkies as flames for moths, windshields for bugs, etc.  I know it's a show, I know it's scripted, I know every moment is planned, every move is watched, every balloon that falls is counted like sparrows by God - but I still can't help myself.  I'll be watching all week. Thursday night I'll be watching at a big party the county Dems are having at the beach: food, booze, live band, big screen TV, call-in from John Edwards, all donations accepted, thank you very much.

Because I am spending most of my time either in local political action, or watching the convention (or reading blogs about it) I won't be posting much this week is my guess.  An interesting new factor for this year's conventions is that blogs are getting credentialed to attend, and there will be a lot of info online that you may not find elsewhere.  The wonderful site  cyberjournalist has a listing of blogs  credentialed for this convention, also media outlets that will be blogging as well as other forms of news outletting.  I will be checking in with some of these during the week myself.  This is the official site for the convention itself, and it will be hosting a bunch of stuff, video and audio, online as well.

For hometown blogging with a political flavor, keep reading my friends at:  DeProfundis,  Old Hickory's Weblog, Progressive Musings, WhoCaresWhatIThink?, 2004 Presidential Election, Tank Gurl's Two Cents, Random Thoughts.   Yep, they're all "liberal" journals, those of you who want the other side - you know where they are.

POETRY IN WARTIME

In late winter/early spring of 2003 I found a site called Poets Against the War.  I've talked about it before, but it's time to bring it up again.  It was started by poet Sam Hamill, and was a place where anyone who wanted could publish poetry expressing their feelings about this war.  I had a poem published there, as did thousands of people, unknown, slightly known, famous - people who wanted a public forum for their pain, grief, horror. Later, an anthology of some of the poems was published in book form.  Now, a documentary film has been made as a result of that website, called Poetry in Wartime.  You can find out about the film itself here, but I want to put in a few quotes and some information from the site, to pique your interest and get you involved.

"The right sentiment, rightly declared, whichever way your loyalties blow in the gust of the smoke-filled air. A country burns. The death-dealers deserved to die, you say. Death is easy to pronounce. It’s the smell of burning children that’s hard."   Sampurna Chattarji

"We read our mail and counted up our missions – In bombers named for girls, we burned The cities we had learned about in school till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among the people we had killed and never seen.”  Randall Jarrell

"We have to stop speaking in codes. Collateral damage is code for thousands of people being killed who are powerless to change their rulers."  Arthur Miller

"Six lines by a hero of mine. His name is Cameron Penny and he is in the fourth grade. He said:  'If you are lucky in this life, a window will appear on a battlefield between two armies, and when the soldiers look into the window they don’t see their enemies, they see themselves aschildren...'"  Marie Howe

As you can see, the film will feature poets both living and dead, from many countries, all ages, ordinary people and people you've revered since elementary school.  Poetry moves people at a level that only music can equal, I have great hopes for this film. 

About the Movie

(Release Date: August, 2004)

Wilfred Owen's Last Photograph

POETRY IN WARTIME is a feature-length documentary that looks at war through images and the words of poets – unknown and world-famous – to bring the experience of war into sharp focus.

Soldiers, journalists, historians and experts on combat provide diverse perspectives on war’s effects on soldiers, civilians and society. POETRY IN WARTIME also brings to life how poetry and war have been intertwined since the beginning of recorded history – from ancient Babylonia and the Trojan War up through the great conflicts of the 20th century and the current war in Iraq. The stirring words of poets throughout the film - Homer, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman and poets from Hiroshima and Nagasaki – sear the experience, emotions and sacrifices of war into our hearts and minds. POETRY IN WARTIME is a veritable chorus of poets from around the world, from the United States to Iraq as well as Colombia, Britain, India, Nigeria and Canada, whose view of war extends beyond the borders of countries to reach into the depths of our soul.

We will hear the first accounts of war, written down in verse.

The film will follow war and the poems it inspires from ancient Babylon and the Trojan War up through the great conflicts of the 20th century and into the 21st century invasion of Iraq. As war has changed, so has poetry. Once celebrating conflict, poets became increasingly disturbed by the growth of larger and larger armies and increasingly powerful weapons. By World War I, poetry had become a medium of revolt. Wilfred Owen, probably the greatest of war poets, led his men in desperate battle, scribbling his poems in the trenches whenever he could. From a haunting and personal perspective, his poems chronicle the human waste of war. Owen will be a central character in the film.

As will poets as diverse as Homer, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes. "Poetry in Wartime" will tell the story of the poets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who used their writing to alert the world to the dangers of nuclear war. It will also follow the grassroots global movement of thousands of poets that came together in early 2003 to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The tone of the documentary will be questioning. The commentary will come from people of varying perspectives. However, in the end, "Poetry in Wartime" will always come back to the words of the poets. And to the deeper truths they express. Poetry from the past as well as the present, and poetry from everyday people as well as the world famous – will raise pressing questions of war and power at the beginning of the 21st Century.

If history and literature have taught us anything, it is that in the midst of trauma, violence and death, it is the poets who help us make sense of the senseless. In a world turned suddenly upside down, "Poetry in Wartime" can help to bring us together and lead us to a better place.

For more information, contact Kathryn Linehan.

 

WEDNESDAY FUNNIES, WHY NOT?

This is today's cartoon offering from The Center for American Progress, a fine site all progressives should occasionally check out. They send me a daily update on the issues; sometimes I read it, sometimes I don't.  I get so many emails and updates from so many sites and organizations that if I'd be in a soft room in restraints with a feeding tube down my throat if I read them all.  Cartoons always help, as our friend at Progressive Musings well knows.  Did you, by the way, know that Doonesbury has been interviewing Rupert Murdoch all this week in the daily strip?  Trudeau is even more on top of current events than ever.  And, by the way, MoveOn and Common Cause are sponsoring a showing of "Outfoxed" for our reps in The House this evening.  Call yours and let him/her/them (here in DE I only have one, imagine that!) know you, as a constituent, would like for them to attend.  And then pay attention to having the FCC do something about the "fair and balanced" slogan. 

Since coming back from Texas, I've been churning away on political work - doing voter registration, which turns out to be a lot of fun, actually.  I'm enjoying it very much, especially talking to young people who are registering for the first time.  Have also been doing lots of online research and working on papers and flyers for the Issues Committee of Sussex County for Kerry.  Our monthly Meet-Up is tomorrow night, and our topic is the Environment.  So you know I've been working like gangbusters to get stuff ready for that.  Next project is getting handouts ready for the Hispanic Festival next month.  The Republicans have been working hard to get into the Hispanic community here over the past four years.  I have constantly criticized the Democrats for failing to do the same.  There aren't many citizens yet among this population, but there will be soon enough.  Itwould be very stupid to neglect making inroads of information and contact in a group of people whose vote will one day matter very much. 

One of the things I get often, not maybe daily, but at least weekly, is Mark Morford's column from the San Francisco Chronicle.  Mark is a wild man who writes with seemingly no editorial oversight about anything that is on his mind.  What a job.  Here's the link to his column from today, called "Rig My Election, Please."  In case you don't have time to read the whole thing, he is, in this column, reading my mind about the possibilities that lie before us.  I give you his closing paragraphs:

"So, then, let this be a warning: Get ready. Expect the unexpected. Watch the headlines, look to the skies, dust off your stash of duct tape. Because Karl Rove and the BushCo war hawks and the corporate cronies who run the show aren't about to go down without a screaming, sickening, fiery fight.

And if BushCo has proven anything in the past four violent, budget-gutting, honor-molesting, nearly unbearable years, it's that there ain't no international law that can't be broken, no fear synapse that can't be hammered to death, no fraudulent power tactic that can't be abused. Anything is possible. You have been warned. God bless America."

UNFAIR, UNBALANCED, CHEAP AND TRASHY

Here is the text of a message received last night from MoveOn.org.  I am one of those over 25,000 people who gathered in living rooms across the country to watch the film "Outfoxed."  I don't get Fox "News" Channel, nor any of the other so-called news cable channels, so this was a truly eye-opening experience for me.  I watch PBS, listen to NPR, occasionally check in with one of the main network channels to see what they're doing with news. Because I have been this innocent and stupid about the way many Americans receive their "reporting" on events both domestic and abroad, I haven't been able to fathom how GWB's figures could be holding in the polls, how anyone in this country could still be planning to vote to bring back the horrors of this administration.  However, I see clearly now, the rain is gone.  The unbelievable pandering to the ignorance, docility, willingness to be led by the nose, of large numbers of my fellow Amurricans explains so very much.  I came home from the movie and ensuing discussion with the worst headache of my life, thought I was having a stroke.  I couldn't sleep most of the night, thinking over what I had just seen.

If you haven't seen this movie, please find a way to do so.  If you don't belong to MoveOn.org, please sign up.  Please sign the petition referenced in the message below to challenge this outfit's slogan of "fair and balanced."  Never have I seen anything on any medium LESS fair, less balanced.  How  could anyone who knows how Fox News operates have the gall to criticize Roger Moore's work, which doesn't call itself "news" OR "fair and balanced?"  Click the link, sign the petition, send it to everyone you know.

More "Outfoxed" links:  Fox News: Unfair & Unbalanced, and Outfoxing the Conservatives.

From MoveOn:

Last night, over 25,000 people gathered in living rooms across the nation to see Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. It was an inspiring turnout. And we saw just how Fox News delivers the Republicans' talking points under the guise of a news broadcast.

Raising the stakes, Common Cause and MoveOn filed a complaint this morning with the Federal Trade Commission challenging Fox News' deceptive advertising slogan "fair and balanced."

We need yourhelp. Sign our Fox petition and join in our complaint to the FTC and Congress at:

http://www.moveon.org/fox/

We need to add hundreds of thousands of signatures and comments by Wednesday, so that the FTC and Congress know they've got to deal with this issue. The challenges to Fox's partisanship are mounting. Not surprisingly, Fox hasn't offered any real defense. Instead, they have responded by attacking former employees who are speaking out. It's crucial that we demonstrate public support for these courageous journalists and voice our disgust with Fox's deceptive advertising.

And we really need to spread the word about this campaign. On the petition page, there's a really horrifying but funny video clip from the film highlighting Bill O'Reilly's hypocrisy. After signing and giving your comment, you can send the petition and this clip to friends to keep the ball rolling.

Join us in taking on Fox at:

http://www.moveon.org/fox/

This is just the beginning of our Fox campaign. In this election year, nothing could be more important than demanding fair coverage in the press. We're putting all the media on notice that we will accept no less.

VICTORY IN THE SENATE! MYERS CONFIRMATION DENIED!

July 20, 3:30 p.m.

I'm putting this P.S. at the beginning of this entry, instead of after it.  I just received the following announcement from Earthjustice, letting us know that Myers nomination for appellate judge for the Ninth Circuit was NOT confirmed.  This is great news, and thanks to any of you who contacted your senators about this.  We CAN make a difference!

Washington DC-- Today the U.S. Senate blocked the confirmation of President Bush’s most anti-environmental judicial nominee to date, attorney William G. Myers III, who had been nominated to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The effort to cut off debate and force a vote on this controversial and divisive nomination, which requires 60 votes, failed by a vote of 44 to 53.

Myers is the first nominee opposed by Senators primarily on environmental grounds, and the first to be formally opposed by Native American groups. As an activist lawyer and lobbyist for the mining and beef industries, and later as the top lawyer at the Interior Department, Myers launched sweeping attacks against fundamental environmental protections such as the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.

“As his actions as Interior Solicitor demonstrate, Mr. Myers sees nothing wrong with using public office to advance his personal agenda, which happens to match that of the mining and beef industries who employed him for most of his career,” said Buck Parker, Executive Director of Earthjustice. “Fortunately, a sufficient number of Senators saw through the Bush administration’s attempt to turn an anti-environmental activist into a lifetime federal judge.”

As a Ninth Circuit judge, Myers would have the power to turn his pro-industry ideology into legal precedents governing nine Western states that contain nearly three-quarters of our public lands. From his seat on the bench, Myers would effectively have been able to rewrite the laws protecting these states, and undermine these laws’ effectiveness across the rest of the country.

“The only thing that distinguishes William Myers’ record is the very thing that should disqualify him from serving on this court: his unjustified attacks on safeguards for the environment,” said Glenn Sugameli, Senior Legislative Counsel at Earthjustice. “With more than 180 groups from across the political spectrum opposed to Myers’ nomination, it is unconscionable that the Senate’s Republican leadership would try to shoehorn such a controversial nominee into one of our most important courts.”

The Senate has already confirmed more than 200 of the Bush administration’s lifetime nominees to our federal courts, most of whom were not opposed by environmental or other groups. William Myers is a prime example of the handful of extremist nominees that have failed to sail through the Senate, due to their records of judicial activism, personal agendas, and far-from-the-mainstream viewpoints on the law.

“Earthjustice applauds the forty-four Senators who successfully opposed the effort today to divide the American people and force a vote on this controversial nominee to the federal bench,” added Parker. “Their constituents who care about clean water, clean air, public health, and public lands should be aware of the importance of this vote.”

###

Another alert here, for those of you who read this tonight or early tomorrow.  The Reps are bringing perhaps the worst judicial nominee of the Bush regime up for a vote tomorrow in the Senate.  Read about this sterling example of everything most abhorrent in this administration's attitude to the planet we live on.  Please take action via the link at the bottom of the page, send this on to others who might care - if you have time tomorrow give your Senators' DC offices a call to let your actual voice be heard.  If put into office this guy could be influencing environmental policy for the rest of our lifetimes. 

BUSH GREENWATCH, July 19, 2004

Frist Triggers Senate Battle Today Over Controversial Circuit Court Nominee

Apparently determined to set off one more high-visibility battle over a controversial judicial nomination, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), set the stage for a debate today and a floor vote tomorrow on a nominee whose extreme anti-environmental record will be the focus of the debate.

William G. Myers III, formerly a top lobbyist for the beef and mining industries, has been nominated by President Bush for a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Perhaps the nation's most significant appeals court when it comes to environmental precedents, the 9th Circuit covers nine western states which include some 489 million acres of federal public lands.

After serving two years as the solicitor (top lawyer) for President Bush's Interior Department, Myers stepped down amid a departmental investigation of his allegedly giving illegal favors to a politically connected Wyoming rancher. [1]

Myers, who has never participated in a jury trial, nor been a judge at any level, was rated "not qualified" by over one-third of the American Bar Association's standing committee on the federal judiciary. Not one member gave him a "well qualified" rating. [2] Myers is opposed by an unprecedented coalition of some 180 tribal leaders, conservation groups, labor and civil rights organizations. For the first time in its 68-year history, the conservative National Wildlife Federation chose to oppose a president's judicial nominee.

The reasons for such intense opposition are not hard to find. Myers has argued in court that the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act are unconstitutional, and that there is no constitutional basis for the U.S. government to protect wetlands. He has compared management of the public's federal lands to "the tyrannical actions of King George in levying taxes" on the American colonies. [3]

In one of his two formal opinions as solicitor at Interior, Myers argued that the Bureau of Land Management does not have the authority to prevent undue degradation of public lands resulting from mining operations.

Tex Hall, chairman of the National Congress of American Indians, wrote last March in the Billings (Montana) Gazette that Myers "orchestrated a rollback of protections for sacred native sites on public lands, although such places have been central to the free exercise of religion for many American Indians for centuries." [4] This was a case in which Myers interpreted a federal statute to favor the mining industry at the expense of Native Americans, despite specific Congressional language to prevent undue damage to public land.

Newspaper editorials in the western states covered by the Ninth Circuit have been less than enthusiastic. Myers' hometown [Boise] Idaho Statesman said Myers "sounds less like an attorney and more like an apologist for his old friends in the cattle industry." [5]

In an editorial entitled "Unfit to Judge," Tucson's Arizona Daily Star asserted that "Myers' chief qualification for the job rests not in his legal acumen but in the fact that his anti-environmental views match those of the president." The Star went on to describe Myers as "a person who sees no connection between environmental policy and the health of the nation's natural resources." [6]

The San Francisco Chronicle was more blunt: "One of President Bush's worst nominations" with a "long record of ideological extremism" and "open hostility to environmental protection." [7]

When a Myers article warning that "environmentalists...are bent on stopping human activity whenever it may promote health, safety, and welfare" was noted in his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) reminded Myers that "the cases you were discussing" involved logging on national forests, racial discrimination in the siting of waste treatment plants, and protection of irrigation canals from toxic chemicals." [8]

The Idaho Statesman may have caught the spirit of President Bush's choice best when it quoted John Falen, former president of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association: "Bill's our friend," said Falen. "It's been a long time since we had a friend in the solicitor's office." [9]

###

TAKE ACTION
Urge your Senators to oppose William Myers' lifetime nomination through Earthjustice.

###

SOURCES:
[1] Hartford Advocates, Oct. 16, 2003.
[2] Boston Globe, Mar. 22, 2004.
[3] San Jose Mercury News, Mar. 25, 2004.
[4] Billings Gazette, Mar. 7, 2004.
[5] Idaho Statesman, Nov. 22, 2004.
[6] Arizona Daily Star, Mar. 23, 2004.
[7] San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 24, 2004.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Idaho Statesman, Nov. 22, 2004.

TEXAS TRIP: WILDFLOWER CENTER, II

The Wildflower Center is so many things: a horticultural research facility, a place to gather inspiration for one's own gardens, a library, a place to bring children (there is a children's house, and children's garden among the many features), a place to just go get away from urban hustle and bustle.  Most of my day was spent in the company of birds and butterflies (there is also a butterfly house where native butterflies are visible in all their lifeforms, from egg to chrysalis to emerging wings), a few of the gardeners, a family or two.  The heart of the Center is the area known as the Display Gardens:

    
            DISPLAY GARDENS, LONG VIEW WITH GARDENER

Each square bed is an example of a different kind of garden.  They don't look very spectacular at a distance; bear in mind these all are using native plants, not showy hybrid flowers.

 
     SAGE GARDEN, CLOSE UP

SHADED WALKWAY, ONE ON EITHER SIDE OF DISPLAY GARDENS.

                                             
FLOWERS BY PATH

                                                
ROCK ROSE, ON ROCKS!

The Center hosts classes and workshops all through the year.  Doesn't this look like a lovely place place to learn some new horticultural skills? Or wreath-making, or landscape design? 

The designers put in small pools and streams throughout the main area of the Center, providing lifespace for frogs, turtles, acquatic plants and other lifeforms.  They also provide the delicious sound of water trickling over stones, a cooling sound on a hot day.

ANOTHER PLACE TO SET A SPELL

After all my visits here, this time I found a new area.  I don't know if it's new, or if I've just never discovered it on previous trips.  It's another area of trails on the opposite side of the acreage, where a huge experiment is ongoing.  The researchers are playing with what is known as a savannah, trying to approximate nature's own effects.  They are burning some areas, mowing others, letting others stand.  Savannahs disappear easily, turning into either woodlands - if left to grow unchecked - or meadows, if mowed down or cropped by animals regularly.  I did take pictures of this area, but they would only interest serious savannah-studiers.  So I give you just this one, the place where the trail begins - a welcoming place in Texas, waiting for your feet to step out and explore it.

TEXAS TRIP: LADYBIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER CENTER, I

WILDFLOWER MEADOW NEAR ENTRANCE TO CENTER

Every time I go home to Texas, I have to make a visit, no - a pilgrimage - to this place:  The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.  On the site you can learn the history and mission of this marvelous place, and I do hope you will visit there and read more than I can put in this post.  Two of my favorite Grande Dames, Ladybird and Helen Hayes, were the founding mothers back in 1982.  My first visit there was several years after that, but long before it was the horticultural and architectural wonder that it is today.  I've visited it many times over its years of expansion, and I am ever more amazed at its scope each time I leave.  If you have visited this journal with any frequency, you know my focus here has often been the environment, you know how important it is to me - so you will bear with me if I give you, in brief, the reason for the Center's existence, from the mission statement:

We honor and respect the natural beauty and biological heritage of each region of the country
We commit ourselves to conserving and restoring wildflowers, native plants, and the biological communities on which they depend
We encourage native flora through artful, naturalistic plantings in public, private, urban, and suburban landscapes
We use native plantings with regionally appropriate architecture to integrate the human community into the natural world in a responsible and respectful manner
We recognize that the health and well-being of human communities is directly related to the health of the land which sustains human life.

(That last sentence seems to me to be the best short statement I've come across anywhere re why working for the environment should be the first and most important consideration of any human being.)

When the Center began it was "in the country" way outside Austin.  Now the urban sprawl has spread south, and the surrounding area has been gobbled up by housing developments and shopping plazas.  So the chunk of land that will remain forever wild is even more miraculous.  When the present Center was established great care was taken to hire architects who understood Mrs. Johnson's vision - the buildings are connected to the landscape, not just complementing it but part of it.  All of the buildings play a part in a water collection scheme involving aquaducts, collection tanks, cisterns, and water recycled in pools, streams and fountains.  This year the Hill Country has had more than enough rain, but such is not always the case.
This is an aquaduct running along the walkway into the Center, you can almost see the cistern it empties into at the far end.

Another water collection cistern.  All the buildings and outbuildings are made of native limestone, all are patterned after vernacular architecture of the old farms and ranches in the area.

This is the café, a cool and pleasant space both inside and out.  But, behind it is one of the most interesting architectural features of all.  I was too tired and hot by the time I was taking this picture to go all the way around the buildings and get a good picture of this tower.  My very bad.  It's a tower spiraling around a cistern, part of the water collection system.  There are stairs winding up, plants growing from nooks and crannies.  Children love it.

Just a charming element, a window in a solid rock wall, allowing a glimpse into the display gardens.

A quiet place to sit and contemplate just about anything.  Stretching away from this little patio is an area of several miles of trails through meadows, savannahs, groves of trees.  In spring this area is glowing with the colors of the native Texas wildflowers.  July is really not the month to visit, the full glory happens in March and April.  You should plan not to die without seeing rural Texas in wildflower season.

That's enough for one entry, I hope to finish up tomorrow or Monday, with more pictures from the Center, and a few more of the kids. 

TEXAS TRIP: COOL GREEN WATER

From Austin i went, on Monday, to San Antonio - the place i was born, and still one of my very favorite places.  it's one of those American cities that feel like Someplace Else, not cooky-cutter nor stereotypical.  of course, most of our cities at their hearts reveal their innate personality.  Chicago is not Boston is not San Francisco is not Kansas City.  it's the suburbs and outskirts of all of them where chainstore/fastfood/monolithic culture and patterns take over.  If i were driven blindfolded into any city or town in this country on an Interstate, I'd have no idea where i was.  okay, the landscape would give some of them away.  but not the architecture, the brand names, the neon signs.  Anyway, i digress.  These things are even true when you drive into San Antone.  but once you get past the Wal-Marts, McDonald's, car dealerships, Targets, you could just as easily be in a tropical country as in the USA.  there has been so much rain this spring, the wettest June on record, that everything is lush and thick and green.  the neighborhoods are bursting with gorgeous flowers, the crape myrtle has never bloomed so hot and vividly. 

while there i watched a lot of Rob's soccer practice and scrimages, a pleasant way to while away some afternoons in a camp chair in the shade of old pecan trees.

 Rob, hot and tired after a day of soccer camp. i don't know how they maintain life functions after hours of exercise in the south Texas sun.  they do swim in the middle of the day, but....still.

  i caught up with my sister, lots of time to just talk - it's been two years since we've seen each other.  the highlight of the days spent there was our afternoon at Guadalupe River State Park, about 40 miles north of the city.  Rob grilled ribs for us, we brought salads from Central Market, A (my sister) baked chocolate chip cookies for our desert (yes, i ate some, South Beach be damned.  she makes great cookies.)  again because of the heavy rains the river was running very fast, and Rob and I spent considerable time zooming down it, sometimes on boogie boards, sometimes just body-floating. 

these are the bluffs overlooking the river, close to our picnic sight.  this park gets a lot of day use from people in the city, but there are also campsites for longer stays.  there weren't many people there that evening, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  the river is wide and green and cool, the current is strong, it's altogether a peak experience to plunge in and go downstream.

This is one of the bald cypresses that line the river on the side where we were.  they are pretty impressive bits of creation, if you ask me.  without these trees i don't think i'd be here now writing in this journal.  i'd probably still be whirling down the Guadalupe River, or bashed to death on rocks downstream.  it was only by forcibly heading to the side of the river and grabbing hold of cypress roots that i was able to stop my downstream surge.  even where the water was shallow enough for me to stand up, the current was so strong it would immediately knock me off my feet and keep sweeping me along.  scary, exciting, exhilarating, breath-taking, all at once.  i'd really love to tube this park, start as far up the river as i could get, and go as far as i dared.  with someone there with a vehicle to pick me up at the far end, of course.

I couldn't resist adding another one.  They grow like this all along the side of the river across from the stone bluffs.

my other important activity in San Antonio was eating.  remember peace, love and fajitas?  i had them all.  wonderful fajitas at La Fonda, followed by my share of a piece of dulce de tres leches, the best cake in the entire galaxy, i promise.  we shared it three ways, and it was small to begin with.  i also had snapper veracruz while in Dallas - so my Mexican eating was entirely within the limits of life on South Beach, amazingly enough.  the ribs that Rob barbequed for us at the park were, however, perhaps the best thing i had to eat the whole trip.  the kid wants to be a chef, and he's well on his way to learning his craft.

I'll finish this trip recounting with my stop in Austin at Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center tomorrow, or Sunday.  or maybe even Monday.  lots of political activity planned for this weekend, so I don't know if i'll have much computer time.

THOMAS FRANK ON THE CULTURE WARS

A piece this morning, from the NYT Op-Ed page, by one of my newest heroes:  Thomas Frank.  i saw him on Moyers NOW last Friday almost as soon as i got out of the car from the Long Trip Home; Tom Engelhardt linked to an excerpt from his new book yesterday, and now i find this morning's commentary on Wednesday's Senate vote on the FMA.  His book, What's the Matter with Kansas?, will be out next month.  from all i've heard and seen about it thus far, it could as well be titled What's the Matter with America?  and it addresses perhaps the most important issue for this election:  how to get the "culture wars" out of the foreground of the political picture.  these are issues such as abortion, gay marriage, flag burning, school prayer, ten commandment plaques in state offices, etc. -  the issues that are creating the strange situation in this country where people vote against their own real interests, both short and long term, in the mistaken opinion that the Republican rightwing is On Their Side, In Their Corner, that someone like GWB is One of Them.  when nothing could be further from the truth. 

July 16, 2004

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Failure Is Not an Option, It's Mandatory

By THOMAS FRANK

ASHINGTON

For three days this week the nation was transfixed by the spectacle of the United States Senate, in all its august majesty, doing precisely the opposite of statesmanlike deliberation. Instead, it was debating the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would not only have discriminated against a large group of citizens, but also was doomed to defeat from the get-go. Everyone knew this harebrained notion would never draw the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment, and yet here were all these conservatives lining up to speak for it, wasting day after day with their meandering remarks about culture while more important business went unattended. What explains this folly?

Not simple bigotry, as some pundits declared, or even simple politics. While it is true that the amendment was a classic election-year ploy,it owes its power as much to a peculiar narrative of class hostility as it does to homophobia or ideology. And in this narrative, success comes by losing.

For more than three decades, the Republican Party has relied on the "culture war" to rescue their chances every four years, from Richard Nixon's campaign against the liberal news media to George H. W. Bush's campaign against the liberal flag-burners. In this culture war, the real divide is between "regular people" and an endlessly scheming "liberal elite." This strategy allows them to depict themselves as friends of the common people even as they gut workplace safety rules and lay plans to turn Social Security over to Wall Street. Most important, it has allowed Republicans to speak the language of populism.

The amendment may have failed as law, but as pseudopopulist theater it was a masterpiece. Each important element of the culture-war narrative was there. Consider first its choice of targets: while the Senate's culture warriors denied feeling any hostility to gay people, they made no secret of their disgust with liberal judges, a tiny, arrogant group that believes it knows best in all things and harbors an unfathomable determination to run down American culture and thus made this measure necessary.

Sam Brownback, senator from my home state, Kansas, may have put it best: "Most Americans believe homosexuals have a right to live as they choose. They do not believe a small group of activists or a tiny judicial elite have a right to redefine marriage and impose a radical social experiment on our entire society."

What's more, according to the outraged senators, these liberal judges were acting according to a plan. Maybe no one used the term "conspiracy," but Mr. Brownback asserted that the Massachusetts judges who allowed gay marriages to proceed there were merely mouthing a "predetermined outcome"; Orrin Hatch of Utah asserted that "these were not a bunch of random, coincidental legal events"; and Jim Bunning of Kentucky warned how "the liberals, who have no respect for the law" had "plotted out a state-by-state strategy" that they were now carrying out, one domino at a time.

Our age-old folkways, in other words, are today under siege from a cabal of know-it-all elites. The common people are being trampled by the intellectuals. This is precisely the same formula that was used, to great effect, in the nasty spat over evolution that Kansans endured in 1999, in which the elitists said to be forcing their views on the unassuming world were biology professors and those scheming paleontologists.

And, as do the partisans of each of these other culture-causes, the proponents of the marriage amendment made soaring, grandiose claims for the significance of the issue they were debating. While editorialists across the nation tut-tutted and reminded the senators that they had important work they ought to be doing, the senators fired back that in fact they were debating that most important of all possible subjects. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who took particular offense at the charges of insignificance, argued that this was a debate about nothing less than "the glue that holds the basic foundational societal unit together." Wake up, America!

Of course, as everyone pointed out, the whole enterprise was doomed to failure from the start. It didn't have to be that way; conservatives could have chosen any number of more promising avenues to challenge or limit the Massachusetts ruling. Instead they went with a constitutional amendment, the one method where failure was absolutely guaranteed — along with front-page coverage

Then again, what culture war offensive isn't doomed to failure from the start? Indeed, the inevitability of defeat seems to be a critical element of the melodrama, on issues from school prayer to evolution and even abortion.

Failure on the cultural front serves to magnify the outrage felt by conservative true believers; it mobilizes the base. Failure sharpens the distinctions between conservatives and liberals. Failure allows for endless grandstanding without any real-world consequences that might upset more moderate Republicans or the party's all-important corporate wing. You might even say that grand and garish defeat — especially if accompanied by the ridicule of the sophisticated — is the culture warrior's very object.

The issue is all-important; the issue is incapable of being won. Only when the battle is defined this way can it achieve the desired results, have its magical polarizing effect. Only with a proposed constitutional amendment could the legalistic, cavilling Democrats be counted on to vote "no," and only with an offensive so blunt and so sweeping could the universal hostility of the press be secured.

Losing is prima facie evidence that the basic conservative claim is true: that the country is run by liberals; that the world is unfair; that the majority is persecuted by a sinister elite. And that therefore you, my red-state friend, had better get out there and vote as if your civilization depended on it.

Thomas Frank is the author, most recently, of "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America."

TEXAS TRIP: FAMILY, FUN, FIREWORKS!

Back to the Texas tribe:  Friday's main event, and one of the chief reasons i went when i did, was that this was N's second summer with the Junior Shakespeare Players.  i had missed the performance last summer, and didn't want to miss this one.  she was Lady Capulet in a much abbreviated version of Romeo and Juliet, on a stifling Dallas evening in the full sun.  Now, of course you know i am less than objective  - way less when it comes to this kid -  but i am also a pretty good drama critic.  and Lady Capulet walked away with this performance.  she was acting from her gut, using body, face, every fibre of her being.  i was blown away, to tell you the truth.  she's been a drama queen since she was a tiny girl, and now she's learning how to really use her natural resources.  i wrote about my own drama experiences in a book journal entry some time ago, and i see that this child of my heart seems to share this particular gene.

LADY CAPULET CONFRONTING DAUGHTER

LADY CAPULET AND NURSE FIND JULIET DEAD

LADY C. DESCENDS FROM STAGE

okay, i'm supremely biased.  but i really never expected what N gave her audience.  and she loves it.  that's what really matters.  at this age to have something like this that you love and are really good at and can get some recognition for - well, it's a big bonus. 

after the kids' play the adult Shakespeare Players performed As You Like It.  i took my sister home after the first act, she had a bad headache; but all the kids (my nieces and one of N's friends who was spending the night)  stayed for the whole thing and came home with a neighbor.  they loved it.  how can i tell you how happy this makes me?

The next event was going to Austin, to meet another sister, Rob's mother, and Rob, who came up from San Antonio.  we met at Zilker Park, where we hoped to spend the day swimming in Barton Springs.  if you know Austin, you know these places and probably have fond memories of them.  however, Barton Springs was closed and the pool emptied out for cleaning because of all the rain/flooding/debris washing down the creek.  so, we played in Barton Creek instead.  we found a place where the current was running really fast, and with the older kids i establised a float-run from one overhanging tree to another overhanging branch so we could stop ourselves before we tumbled over the spillway.  this made mothers fairly anxious, and LL very jealous that she was too little to play the dangerous games - but we were safe and had hours of water fun.   as well as a delicious picnic and lolling around in the breezy shade.  even on July 4th you can cool off in Texas if you have:  water, shade and a breeze.  then we picked up our camp and moved to the section of the park where the concert and fireworks happened.  we enjoyed the music, the crowd (and what a diverse crowd it was, too:  students, aging hippies, people of every nationality, color, age, lots of bikes and babies and dogs - Austin remains itself, despite its growth in recent years), and most of all the colorful display of light and noise.

RIVER RATS

THE GUYS, RELAXING AFTER PICNIC

and is this way more than you bargained for?  but WAIT, there's more.  but not until later.  all that's left is the Guadalupe River and the Wildflower Center.  really.  and they're both so beautiful. 

TURNING IT OVER TO TOM

Because i am heading for a meeting of the Sussex Cty for Kerry issues committe in Rehoboth Beach shortly, and because it brings together so many disparate cries and whispers that are currently drifting around the internet, the alternative press, even sometimes the aboveground press, NPR, etc. in a way that i never could - i'm interrupting my Texas journey chronicles to ask you to read yesterday's TomDispatch column.  you should, of course, read him EVERY day, but yesterday's really will make your hair stand on end.  i tried to post the column here, to make it easier for people to read it, but i finally went beyond the 25,000 character limit because of all the terrific links in the column. 

the administration is trying to distract us from all this by making things like a Federal Marriage Amendment seem like important news.  americans can't be this stupid, can we?  (don't answer that!!)  homosexual people who care about each other and want to throw in their lives with one another legally aren't what is dividing and disturbing the fabric of this country. 

and to think i used to sneer at conspiracy theorists. 

TEXAS TRIP: DALLAS CUTIES

Dallas was the first stop, where one of my many sisters (we are five sisters, one brother for siblings) lives with her husband and two daughters.  I got to their house around five thirty Weds evening, we all had dinner and i stayed up as long as i could, but that was the night i slept for something like 14 hours.  this is the next day, the two girls in a pretty usual formation:  the older one is 13, and the darling of my life since the moment she was born.  G and i spent the night in Baylor Hospital, sometimes in the birthing room, sometimes in the waiting room (i found the birthing room difficult, i was terrified my sister and the baby both were going to die, that monitor scared me to death.  having gone thru it twice herself, G was a lot less anxious).  but when N finally arrived on the scene, with her little screwed up face and crooked head, she became the most important person in my life, in her own special way.  the younger girl (she's seven now) arrived in our family and our hearts two and a half years ago.  my sister was supposed to fly to China on Sept. 12, 2001.  needless to say, she didn't.  but she flew out on the first plane to China out of DFW Airport, a few days later.  G and i went to Dallas to meet our new niece that Christmas, and she immediately became one of the most important people in our lives.  we have a lot of them. 

My sister and her husband were both too old to consider having another child (we're all old in my family now), and another sister had adopted a child from China as an infant, whom we all adore.  here they wanted an older girl, to be a companion and sister right away for N.  N is very much the Big Sister now, after a rocky introductory period, and is beginning to move into her cynical teenage phase, as perhaps you can tell in this photo.  both these kids have fabulous senses of humor, actually fairly sophisticated senses of humor for their ages. LL, the little one, is a ray of delight and sunshine.  everything pleases her, she is affectionate and loving with everyone, has learned English in warp-speed time, and is doing well in school.

Here's LL on the front porch, a Texas summer day.  can't you just feel the joy radiating out of this kid?  she'd make you come in off the ledge without jumping, just to watch her smile.

That afternoon N and i and a friend of mine (my longest-time dearest-in-all-the-world friend) went to see Harry Potter 3, the Prisoner of Azkaban.  it was N's third time to see it, and we all loved it enormously.  i think it is definitely the best of the three movies about Harry. 

more to come - i've only started!  can you stand it?

TRYING TO FIGURE THIS OUT

What's happening here and now is that i'm trying to figure out how to resize photos and get them into entries from my picture CDs.  thanks to SunflowerKat i have found some free (for 30 days) software to help me with this process.  this photo is Rob while he was here, our day out on the water in a headboat, fishing for undersize seabass.  cute, isn't he?  he doesn't like being small and cute, at fifteen it isn't funny.  behind him is the ship captain's dog, Buoy (Booee, for you landlubber types).  all the fishing boat captains seem to have them.  the one that came in while we were waiting had a Chesapeake Retriever named Tug.

so, now down to the serious business of doing this with my photos from the trip.  WIP, my dears.  be back ASAP. 

ITCHY UPDATE

Poison Oak in summer form.

So I DID, i went to the doctor this morning.  it is just what we thought it was, contact dermatitis from plant life of some sort.  quite surely with three leaves growing together, the evil little things.  i now am taking prednisone, have a heavy duty prescrip cortisone cream, and zyrtac samples for the itching.  altogether a vast improvement in just a few hours.  though the insidious rash has crawled over my left eyelid, and up and down my hairline on both sides.  and this may last for a couple of weeks!!!   i can hardly contain my joy.  this is actually the first time in my life i've had anything like this, have always been the one to spot the poison ivy and warn others away.  i've been exposed to lots of p.i., this has to be one of the other poison threeleaves.  and the doctor said it certainly could have been airborne.  so, thanks for all your sympathy and feeling sorry for me.  feel free to continue it, i certainly am.                                                 

i was going to start journaling of my trip, now i have the pictures - but a big storm is brewing up, lightning and thunder rumbling around out there, sky growing very ominous.  time to turn off this machine and finish Good Omens, my latest Neil Gaiman gourmet treat. 

Please, if you haven't yet, read the previous entry.  my two comments so far are from Tim and Duane, both of whom had already taken action on this.  C'mon, you guys, this is an important thing.  let's not let Them make all the phone calls, write all the letters.  Tim's remarks in his comment about Jews in Nazi Germany was wonderful.  i wish i'd thought of saying that.  you can steal it though, the more the merrier.

CALLING ALL PROTECTORS OF THE CONSTITUTION

For anyone who has been living under a rock recently – this is an alert. The "Federal Marriage Amendment" will most likely be brought to a vote this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday. This, as surely everyone now knows, is the Christian Right’s answer to equal rights for all: an amendment to the Constitution of the United States LIMITING THE DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE AS BEING BETWEEN ONE WOMAN AND ONE MAN. OR, ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN, AS THEY PROBABLY PUT IT. In any case, definitely nothing in which us queers have any right to partake. Dressed-up cats (please go read this, it's really very funny.) either.

So, here’s what to do: all of the following sites have information and ways you can quickly direct your thoughts and words on this to your President and Congresspeople; petitions, phone numbers, etc. Please choose one of the sites (or, why not ALL of them?) and take action to let our leaders know that this is a nation of diverse peoples, most of whom believe that we all deserve the same rights no matter our differences of race, creed, national origin, OR sexual preference/identity.

Sites: MoveOn.Org/unitednotdivided

         Actforchange.com

         People for the American Way