To Tears Again

To Tears Again

I used to love the political debate. Used to love discussing the parameters of an issue. I fear that ability is gone where most of American is concerned.

I post on a couple of boards, one - The Ed Scultz Show board - started out as a fairly good place to converse. The elections changed that. It's now home to a few hate filled dems who can't talk, can't discourse, and can only manipulate words to fit their smugness.

I am what the country needs. I am a moderate. I have chosen to be republican but I
am more moderate than some dems. So these things hurt because I DO try to see all sides of an issue.

Why do I keep trying?
I'm told I ignore voter fraud
I'm told I don't want to fix the problems.
I'm told I support pedophiles.
I'm told I want to cover them up.
When I protest that these are not positions I've taken
I'm told I'm childish and have a nasty attitude.

There is no hope for us.
America will continue to divide until she dissolves.

Accusations of pedophila was thrown out on the board and
absolutely nothing was done to the poster. There's little fairness left.


A few comments directed at me....

If all the Republicans who have been excusing all these events got off their asses and demanded a fair vote system we wouldn't have these issues. Excusing voter fraud is the same as supporting it.

[I]Yesterday, 09:31 AM
Stop excusing and ignoring the problem

So because vote tampering happens a lot in your state we should just not bother securing the system because someone will tamper with it anyway. Is that your logic?

Are you actually using the “why bother” defense?

You seem to be making every effort to avoid fixing our current system and every effort to excuse those who refused to fix the problem.

Do what you want, the bottom line here has not changed your party is corrupt and now riddled with pedophiles.

There are so many Republican child molesters it's hard to keep track of them all. It goes to the general mentality of the Republican Party

I wonder how many other crimes your precious party is hiding?

The depravity issue points to a much larger picture and the general mentality of the Republican party.

So now that I understand the priorities here missing a link on a page that looks like a parakeet exploded on is by far the worst thing a guy can do but hacking our vote system is apparently no big deal.

Two people on this board admitted to dating children (clarification: they talked about dating 13 and 14 year olds when they were 19 - still in and just out of high school) I voiced my disgust at the notion. I'm sorry if dating children doesn't disgust you but I find it deplorable behavior regardless of weather it's legal in Thailand or not.

Just pointing out the pattern of corruption and depravity that you have come to know and love as the Republican Party

Thoughts on 2006

Part of a personal reflection on 2006

For the past seven or eight years I’ve made a habit of sending out a collection of thoughts on New Year’s Eve to those I consider friends. It’s been harder this year to put ideas to written word. There are times when neither written nor verbal language can communicate everything that’s flitted through this mind.

The world seems to be enveloped in never ending turmoil. We near the 3,000 mark of American lives lost in Iraq. The political arena received a well pronounced wake up call this November and the middle class in America now fear for their jobs and their health in the wake of enormous social and economic changes.

Should it frighten us?

If one dwells on the uncertainties that exist then yes, it should, but as surely as the spirit can be overwhelmed by life; it is also the only thing that can triumph over struggles.


So here’s the diatribe this year. Thoughts on the year and conclusions I’ve come to. They may change before 2008, who knows, but for now they appear to be helping me find my way

Life truly is short and we should live it with as much zeal and gusto as we can.(I miss you, Steve. I wish I’d held to this while you were with us. - No, not all of you will understand that.)

Peace can elude us so easily so when we find it we need to hang on for all we’re worth and cherish it as long as it lasts.

Struggles can sometimes weigh us down but we have to remember that we never walk truly alone. God is with us and often he sends friends to remind us we don’t walk a solitary path.

We need to stop wanting to become someone new and begin appreciating who we already are. Everyone has room for improvement but no one and no essence is without merit.

If you see yourself as lacking the world will echo that vision. If you see yourself as a success no one will ever question whether you are one or not.

“Things” are nice but they don’t determine happiness. They should be icing on the cake and not the mix itself.

No one else is responsible for our happiness other than us, ourselves. If you don’t like something, change it. If you lack the initiative to change then ask yourself if you’re the one unhappy or whether others are influencing you to feel that way.
And if others are the deciding factor on how we see ourselves, ask why you trust yourself so little.

Labels mean nothing in this world. We’re individuals. If you see yourself pigeon holed into a “group” then ask yourself why you are so aware of what others think and believe.

Laughter heals our hearts and makes our souls young. If your day doesn’t begin and end with laughter maybe it’s time to take stock of your life and see if it went astray.

Know yourself. Know your strengths and your weaknesses. There is nothing wrong with failure unless it leads you to blame others and assume knowledge you don’t have. If we don’t fail we never learn.

and here’s the big one I’m working on
Know when to say enough. Don’t bite off so much for others that you don’t have time for yourself. If YOU don’t invest time in who you are and what you can be, how do you expect others to appreciate you?

I’m not making resolutions this year. I don’t personally care for them. The desire to make promises that are often too perfect as to be obtainable isn’t in me. Goals are too easily set too high and often broken so instead of setting myself up for failure I’m just going to keep working on life and see where that takes me.

I hope your day and your new year brings a smile for your lips, laughter to dwell in your heart and love to fill your life.

Tongue In Cheek

Oh but this can't be true! The democrats were going to reach out across the political aisle!! They were going to unite us!! They were going to seek input from the republicans and not ignore them!!!

More proof that they don't mean what they say. Disappointed doesn't come close at this point. Their first step to proving they're as big a liars as the old republican regime.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100784.html

As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.

House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.

But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.

Dear John Roberts...

I understand that we actually do pay our federal officials too little. A federal judge should be making at least 200,000 a year. That being said, please don't expect us to meet private sector wages. It ain't gonna happen.

The fact that private ventures can pay so much more than public offices can afford is an indictment of the judicial system and the run away costs of lawsuits and lawyer fees.

When we as a country stop paying exorbitant fees to lawyers and realize they are highly over rated perhaps public officials won't be so underpaid.

Face Of War

Losing someone is hard. Losing someone in such a violent and contraversial way is, imo, much harder to deal with. Conflicting emotions would have to keep the wound raw. On one hand is the support of the soldier, the brave soul who puts his or herself in harms way for a noble cause, on the other hand is the massive amount of misinformation that took us to this battle.

Here, from an editor of the NY Times is a face on a casuality of war: her husband and father of her infant son.

If this doesn't touch you a re-adjustment of priorities is in order.
Such a perfect example of the sweet love of a father to a son.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/us/01charles.html

He drew pictures of himself with angel wings. He left a set of his dog tags on a nightstand in my Manhattan apartment. He bought a tiny blue sweat suit for our baby to wear home from the hospital.

One of the drawings First Sgt. Charles Monroe King left for his son in a journal.
Then he began to write what would become a 200-page journal for our son, in case he did not make it back from the desert in Iraq.

The journal will have to speak for Charles now. He was killed Oct. 14 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his armored vehicle in Baghdad. Charles, 48, had been assigned to the Army’s First Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex. He was a month from completing his tour of duty.

For our son’s first Christmas, Charles had hoped to take him on a carriage ride through Central Park. Instead, Jordan, now 9 months old, and I snuggled under a blanket in a horse-drawn buggy. The driver seemed puzzled about why I was riding alone with a baby and crying on Christmas Day. I told him.

“No charge,” he said at the end of the ride, an act of kindness in a city that can magnify loneliness.

Even if Jordan will never hear the cadence of his father’s voice, he will know the wisdom of his words.

Never be ashamed to cry. No man is too good to get on his knee and humble himself to God. Follow your heart and look for the strength of a woman. Rainy days have their pleasures, he noted: Every now and then you get lucky and catch a rainbow.


Toward women, he displayed an old-fashioned chivalry, something he expected of our son. Remember who taught you to speak, to walk and to be a gentleman, he wrote to Jordan in his journal. These are your first teachers, my little prince. Protect them, embrace them and always treat them like a queen.

Though as a black man he sometimes felt the sting of discrimination, Charles betrayed no bitterness. It’s not fair to judge someone by the color of their skin, where they’re raised or their religious beliefs, he wrote. Appreciate people for who they are and learn from their differences.

Charles wrote about death and duty.

The 18th was a long, solemn night, he wrote in Jordan’s journal. We had a memorial for two soldiers who were killed by an improvised explosive device. None of my soldiers went to the memorial. Their excuse was that they didn’t want to go because it was depressing. I told them it was selfish of them not to pay their respects to two men who were selfless in giving their lives for their country.

Things may not always be easy or pleasant for you, that’s life, but always pay your respects for the way people lived and what they stood for. It’s the honorable thing to do.

When Jordan is old enough to ask how his father died, I will tell him of Charles’s courage and assure him of Charles’s love. And I will try to comfort him with his father’s words.

God blessed me above all I could imagine, Charles wrote in the journal. I have no regrets, serving your country is great.

He had tucked a message to me in the front of Jordan’s journal. This is the letter every soldier should write, he said. For us, life will move on through Jordan. He will be an extension of us and hopefully everything that we stand for. ... I would like to see him grow up to be a man, but only God knows what the future holds.


Take the time to read her story in the NY Times

The Death Of Saddam Hussain

Seriously

Is there anyone out there that believes the death of Saddam wasn't expedited by the Americans?

Saddam was an American pawn in a sad game. Starting as far back as Reagan, Saddam was courted and manipulated by the Americans. He enjoyed their favor as long as he did what the powers that be asked and danced their tune. When he took control of his own aspirations he lost that favor and became a pawn in a different way.

I can't quite put my finger on why his execution was rushed. I'm very certain Bush will use this in 20 days in his state of the union address. He'll attempt to use it as a success in the "war on terror".

But Saddam was never part of this war. He had been neutered by observers and UN inspectors, a fact Bush refused to admit. Saddam may have wanted the US destroyed, he isn't alone in that desire, but he hadn't the means or support to actually make the effort.

US officials are "questioning" the haste in Saddam's execution. They may be asking the wrong people.

From the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html

The American role extended beyond providing the helicopter that carried Mr. Hussein home. Iraqi and American officials who have discussed the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows have said that it was the Americans who questioned the political wisdom — and justice — of expediting the execution, in ways that required Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to override constitutional and religious precepts that might have assured Mr. Hussein a more dignified passage to his end.

American officials in Iraq have been reluctant to say much publicly about the pell-mell nature of the hanging, apparently fearful of provoking recriminations in Washington, where the Bush administration adopted a hands-off posture, saying the timing of the execution was Iraq’s to decide.

While privately incensed at the dead-of-night rush to the gallows, the Americans here have been caught in the double bind that has ensnared them over much else about the Maliki government — frustrated at what they call the government’s failure to recognize its destructive behavior, but reluctant to speak out, or sometimes to act, for fear of undermining Mr. Maliki and worsening the situation.

But a narrative assembled from accounts by various American officials, and by Iraqis present at some of the crucial meetings between the two sides, shows that it was the Americans who counseled caution in the way the Iraqis carried out the hanging. The issues uppermost in the Americans’ minds, these officials said, were a provision in Iraq’s new Constitution that required the three-man presidency council to approve hangings, and a stipulation in a longstanding Iraqi law that no executions can be carried out during the Id al-Adha holiday, which began for Iraqi Sunnis on Saturday and Shiites on Sunday.

“The Americans said that we have no issue in handing him over, but we need everything to be in accordance with the law,” the Iraqi official said. “We do not want to break the law.”

The American pressure sent Mr. Maliki and his aides into a frantic quest for legal workarounds, the Iraqi official said. The Americans told them they needed a decree from President Jalal Talabani, signed jointly by his two vice presidents, upholding the death sentence, and a letter from the chief judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal, the court that tried Mr. Hussein, certifying the verdict. But Mr. Talabani, a Kurd, made it known that he objected to the death penalty on principle.

One participant described the meeting this way: “The Iraqis seemed quite frustrated, saying, ‘Who is going to execute him, anyway, you or us?’ The Americans replied by saying that obviously, it was the Iraqis who would carry out the hanging. So the Iraqis said, ‘This is our problem and we will handle the consequences. If there is any damage done, it is we who will be damaged, not you.’ ”

None of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Mr. Maliki had been unwilling to allow the execution to wait. Nor would any explain why those who conducted it had allowed it to deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.


The full story on the website.