Drove from Madison, MS to Sevierville, TN today, on the way to DC. Except for some road construction north of Chattanooga, it was an easy drive. Eastern Tennessee is a nice part of the country to drive through. And free high-speed internet at the hotel is very, very nice.
I've constructed a small garden pond - about 5'x9', 2 1/2' feet deep at deepest. This sits between our main deck and a smaller deck that I covered and enclosed as a screen porch area. So I had to remove the walkway between the decks, and built a new walkway between them, somewhat higher, that goes over the pond. The area between the main deck and the house, about 3 feet wide, has always been a problem, in that I could never decide what to do there. So I created a babbling brook that runs along this area, and recirculates the water back into the garden pond. The brook runs for about 20 feet, gently sloping downwards, until it tumbles into the pond. I've finished the pond and the waterway for the brook, set the pump up, and it's running. What's left is the finish landscaping along the brook and around the pond. As soon as that's done, I'll post pictures, but it will have to wait a couple of weeks. I'm headed to Alexandria, VA, to visit my daughter.
Is the blog thing beginning to become yesterday's thing? Burningbird is questioning the whys and wherefores. Real Live Preacher, an insightful blog I read often, decided to shut down for a while. In both of these, there was a feeling that our blog selves had begun to demand more time at the tiller than our real selves. Two blogs don't exactly constitute a movement, but I don't read that many, and two is a significant percentage of that group. Maybe I just read tired bloggers. But Loren at In A Dark Time has a different take, that in blogging we're discovering ourselves. Or at least, forcing our inner selves to self-evaluate more. Certainly, we are more than what we say, or write. But the problem with the blogself is that it is entirely contained in the content of the written words, and the persona contained therein can become one-dimensional, and worse, predictable. Loren is unpredictable, but deep - I often have to read his entries two or three times to make sure I know where he's going - which is why I enjoy In A Dark Time. So I'll work with his view of the blogging thing for a while.
Jammerblog talks about the use of the term "self-appointed moralist". He makes a good point. I think the "self-appointed" descriptor gets tossed out in two situations - either the person being accused of being "self-appointed" holds an opinion very different from the accuser, or is doing it very loudly. Thus, a liberal could say that Roy Moore is a self-appointed moralist, and also that Michael Moore is a self-appointed moralist. I would hate to think of our society without moralists, however. Some are loud, obnoxious, and irrelevant. But there are many who are just quietly going about their business of doing good as they see it. They're the ones who get off dead center; they're the ones who see a bad situation and try to make it better. And if their passion sometimes becomes too vocal, too forward, maybe that's not such a steep price to pay.
I don't care for George Bush as President. This will surprise no one who knows me at all. I think that he's made an incredible mess in Iraq, waging war under false pretenses. I didn't think that at first - although I didn't agree with the war, although I felt that much more time should have been spent trying to build a true international partnership instead of the third-rate 'coalition'; despite this, I thought it was a case of seeing evidence that could be interpreted to buttress the President's case. I no longer believe that. There are too many people who were close to the administration, who have told essentially the same story, one of a President determined to find a reason to invade Iraq. Rewarding that with four more years is unfathomable to me. I'm not crazy about John Kerry, but I'll vote for him. And it won't be a reluctant vote. Again, no surprises there. So, why am I writing this at all? Simply this - I didn't intend, when I started Kudzu Files, for it to be Harry's Political Rant Of The Day. It has been useful, in that vein, since it tended to keep my political rants from other areas, but nevertheless, that wasn't my intent. There are plenty of bloggers out there ranting about Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Kerry and Hillary. Frankly, the noise level is so great that even if I had great political insight, it would scarcely be noticed if at all. It's time for the Kudzu Files to find some direction other than politics. So, I write this as a sort of political wrap-up. End of the beginning. If I can't find other things to write about, the beginning of the end.
Belmont Club has maybe the the most detailed write-up of this incident I've seen. Maybe it was a tragic mistake; maybe it was a wedding party in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it sure looks like the US had another SNAFU somewhere.
Bemusement Park is keeping an unofficial chroncile of the severe weather in the upper Midwest. For instance, here, and here. Sounds like it's time for Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd to show up.
Of all the bad ideas by Democratic presidential candidates the past 4 years, this is maybe the worst. Yes, the Republicans have a huge advantage in campaign funding. But the Democrats had to know, when they chose dates in July, that there was a chance there would be a significant delay before the Republican convention. In fact, it's not at all uncommon: in 1964, the Democrats held their convention 41 days after the Republicans; in 1972, the Republicans were 41 days later; in 1976, the Republicans were 34 days later; in 1984, again 34 days between the Democratic and Republican conventions; and again in 1992. American politics has become filled with chicanery, and this would be just another, although potentially more serious. John Kerry needs to begin concentrating on the rationale for voting him into office, not a rationale for voting George Bush out of office, and not on circus acts to offset Republican money. In March, many people, me among them, were worried that the American voting public would be so sick of political campaigning by fall that they would simply opt out. Now, many are wondering if there will even be a Democratic campaign. George Bush seemingly has one campaign plank - "Stay the course". Perhaps John Kerry is simply waiting, hoping that Bush's one line speech becomes an absurdity. But if that's all we'll get from Kerry, I may want to give Howard Dean another shot.
Some thoughts about gas prices:
- Poliblog is bemoaning the lack of joy among liberals concerning the rise in gas prices. I think he's misguided somewhat, but not entirely.
- When you bought your enormous SUV with the huge V-8 engine, there was a sticker on the window. That gas mileage number on the sticker? It meant something. Stop whining.
- to John Kerry and certain other Democrats: as much as we'd like to think it so, the President of the United States is not a board member of OPEC. He can't make them increase production. I'm sure George Bush has expressed his concerns to OPEC members. Drop it, already!
- also to John Kerry and others: this is not a national emergency. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists in case the Middle East goes nuclear or something, not so Mr. Enormous SUV Owner can buy $1.35 a gallon gasoline. Drop this one, too.
- to George Bush and those drill-happy Republicans: please leave ANWR out this. Really. There's just not enough there.
- if the price of gas really bothers you, drive slower.
Other random thoughts:
- Much as I hate to admit it, John Kerry is a pretty boring presidential candidate. Or I should say, his campaign has gotten boring. If you ask me if I want Kerry to be President, I would say "yes". If you ask me why, I would say "I'm not sure".
- I wonder how many Republicans would replace George Bush on the 2004 ticket if they really had the chance to do it? I mean, do people really like the job he's doing? If an employee was handling his job the way Bush is handling his, how many companies would keep him around?
I caught part of an interview on NPR's Fresh Air today with William Kristol, and found myself, while not exactly in agreement with Kristol, at least conceding that he was making good points. He was discussing his continuing support of George Bush, while at the same time expressing deep frustration with Bush's policies and wondering whether they're as incompetent as they seem. He gave, I thought, a good defense of his position - that overall, he still was more in agreement with Bush policies than with Kerry; that he still agreed with the decision to go into Iraq, although the implementation of the policy has been flawed; that the alternative of liberals to the removal of Saddam Hussein seems to be leaving Saddam in place. I would dispute that last point - I think the debate was over how and when, but he also made the arguable point that keeping 150,000 US troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for a couple of years while waiting for Saddam's government to collapse, wouldn't have been tolerated by either Arabs or Americans. I think of it more this way - although many, many US conservatives despised Bill Clinton, they didn't advocate removing him by force. Why? Because that sort of action would have had ramifications far worse than leaving Clinton in power. I'm not suggesting that there's an equivalency between Saddam and Clinton, only that direct, unilateral military force isn't always the best way to handle things. But that's really beside the point now, since Hussein is gone and we're there. My point is/was, that Kristol was making sense, even if I wasn't ready to sign on. He even gave John Kerry credit for running a responsible campaign in the midst of Bush's stubbornness and stumbling policies. And then he blew it. He contended that the issue of whether the Bush administration misled us by claiming Iraq had nuclear weapons, or could very soon, was not relevant, because most Americans wanted Saddam out of power because of his potential for destabilizing the region, not because he was an immediate threat to the United States. But that's exactly what the general public reacted to. You still see it in letters to the editor of papers throughout the country. "We had to fight them there so we wouldn't be fighting them here"; "Do liberals want another 9/11?". You simply can't build a case that the US populace would have supported spending $125 billion dollars and the lives of nearly a thousand US troops to keep Saddam from destabilizing the United Arab Emirates. No, we didn't like Saddam. But what made us really dislike him, to the point of supporting sending US troops to invade a sovereign nation, was the claims by the administration that Saddam was an imminent physical threat to the continental United States. And pretending otherwise is being as stubborn as Kristol accused the Bush administration of being with the situation in Iraq.
Better Angels is talking about this; I haven't seen it elsewhere, although I'm sure it's out there. I know illegal immigration is a problem, but this is wrong on so many levels. What's next, revoking the tax-exempt status of churches that don't report illegals in their worship services? This won't just affect the 30-year-old construction worker; it will affect his 3-year-old daughter, who starts running a fever, and forces her father into a choice between getting medical care for her or keeping his job. A parent shouldn't be put in that position. You might say he wouldn't be in that position if he'd stayed in his country, and that's true. But these people aren't here to subvert the United States, they're here because the low-wage jobs they get here are still much, much better than what they can find in their own country. Use the resources and power of the government to deal with them, but don't turn doctors and nurses into border patrol agents.
It's not often that I'm more in agreement with Bush than Kerry, but if I understand the issue, in this case I am. I don 't remember a buy-out being offered to corn farmers, or dairy farmers, or cotton farmers. We've spent enough money supporting tobacco farmers, and I think maybe it's just time they found something else to do, without expecting the Federal government to fund the transition.
It's been a long weekend, mostly frustrating except for my daughter's Mississippi Girlchoir concert last night. I'm tired, my knee hurts, my shoulder hurts. The past couple of weeks haven't been great. So maybe psychologically, I'm just low on zing. But I can't muster much outrage about the new MT 3.0 pricing. Maybe if I'd spent some time upgrading and then found out about the charges, like Dylan, I'd feel differently. But sometimes I think the internet generation is just a bunch of spoiled geekbrats, wanting everything for free. The reality is, companies that can't figure out a way to bring in money don't last long. And there's still not a broadly-applicable model for internet companies.
One of the things I do sometimes when I'm bored is drop by the main Jackson library and look through microfiche of old news magazines. A couple of days ago, I dragged out the US News And World Report film from January-June 1974. Here's some of the things that were newsworthy then:
-hospital costs were rising, and there were concerns that one day drug costs might become unaffordable
-there was talk of gasoline rationing, possibly some sort of alternate-day availability
-but, it was projected that there was enough oil in shale beds in Colorado and Wyoming to supply the US with oil for 15-20 years
-Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev was rumored to be in poor health and losing support in the Kremlin
-the Pentagon had concerns about whether the South Vietnamese Air Force could meet the challenge of an expected North Vietnamese campaign
-an explanation of why the Pentagon was shutting down major anti-aircraft installations at 7 US locations
-sources close to Ronald Reagan speculated that he was considering a run for the Presidency in 1976
-much, much speculation on how Watergate would affect Nixon's ability to govern
-some people thought computers would not be useful to the population at large unless/until they were able to recognize English speech.
President Bush said it. Lots of people are saying it. They hear of the events at Abu Ghraib, and they say this isn't the way we are. Cal Thomas wrote today that the United States is being held to a higher standard. And that's probably true. But it's true because we have proclaimed to the world that we live by a higher standard. And we proclaim that, because the foundations of this nation rest on the principle that we are indeed "that way" - that we are capable of doing the things done at Abu Ghraib. Because we are first and foremost endowed by our Creator with humanity, and humanity is essentially imperfect and prone to acts that hurt others. The difference, proclaimed by the ideas and documents that gave life to the United States of America, is that we are a nation of laws, laws that seek to lift us above the lesser angels of our nature and when necessary punish our actions that fail to rise to that standard. The rightness of our actions isn't paired against the measure of any one man's opinion, or that of a group of men. Rather, our actions are deemed right or wrong by a set of ideals embodied by a document that sits higher than any citizen - the Constitution of the United States. It is the essence of life for our nation. And our history has been one of challenges presented and met to the meaning, integrity, and strength of that document. But the laws that protect and preserve us can only be effective if those whose role it is to enforce those laws do not place obstacles in their path. The Abu Ghraib scandal represents yet another challenge to our ideal - whether the response of authority will be concentrated on the soldiers pictured in the photographs, or in a search to find out why and how this happened. But it does no good to maintain that this isn't the way we are. We know we can be. There are too many instances in our past that demonstrate that. But there are also many, many instances that demonstrate that the better angels of our nature rise above the lesser ones, that we hold our laws above ourselves. We should, and do, judge ourselves by a higher standard. That is the essence of the words that make up the preamble of our Constitution:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
(Submitted for today's Beltway Traffic Jam)
Poliblog refers to a piece in the New York Times about the crisis in Colombia (free subscription required):
"Colombia's drug wars have created the largest crisis for civilians in the Americas, driving two million people from their homes and threatening Indian tribes with extinction, a United nations official said on Monday.
The official, Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator, said the country was mired in debt and reluctant to divert military funds to an army of uprooted people escaping the fighting or forced off their land by cocaine traffickers.
"Colombia is therefore by far the biggest humanitarian catastrophe of the Western Hemisphere," he said at a news conference.
"It has the biggest number of killings in the Western Hemisphere. It's the biggest humanitarian problem, human rights problem, the biggest conflict in the Western hemisphere."
He said that only Sudan and Congo had more displaced people."
With the latest, and apparently the only remaining, justification for the war in Iraq being the need to save the Iraqi people from the oppression surrounding them, it makes me wonder if we shouldn't be considering intervention in Colombia. The Monroe Doctrine surely could be stretched to cover the move, if the Iraq thing didn't suffice.
Obviously, I'm not recommending US intervention, but this could expose the administration's Iraq justification as the farce it is, should someone choose to pursue it. Bush has ridden the post-9/11 emotion and desire for revenge against somebody, anybody for all it's worth, and it's past time that the American people demanded an accounting from him, something more than the platitudes and smug arrogance he's thus far given. The servicemen and women who have served, and in some cases died, and their families deserve nothing less. And here we have a situation close to our shores, where a nation and a people are suffering, and the Bush administration has been utterly silent.
Kevin Drum and Andrew Sullivan both are addressing the "renewed" possibility of a Kerry-John McCain ticket. While the idea is intriguiing on a certain level, it just isn't realistic, for a couple of reasons. First, I believe John McCain still has presidential ambitions, and joining a Kerry-McCain ticket would put an end to those. He would be anathema to Republicans, and would not have enough of a base among Democrats to run on his own. He knows that even if Bush wins in 2004, the Republican nomination in 2008 is wide open. There are many possible candidates - Jeb Bush, Colin Powell, Rudolph Guiliani, Bill Frist, to name a few - but there is no favorite, nor will there be, in all likelihood. McCain would be a strong contender. And a possible 2008 candidacy aside, there simply isn't the scale of national crisis that would be required for McCain to put aside his loyalty to the Republican Party.
One thing that hasn't been, to my knowledge, in the public speculation, is the possibility that John McCain could end up running for Vice President in 2004 - but on the Republican ticket. Certainly, it's late in the game, but if Bush perceives before the convention that Dick Cheney has become a serious drag on his re-election chances, that vaunted loyalty would receive a serious challenge. And McCain would be a popular choice among the electorate at large as a replacement. Cheney could step down for health reasons and clear the decks for an orderly transition.
Dave comments on the desirability of social democracy in the United States, reacting to comments by Crooked Timber. What Dave is saying echoes, somewhat, something I've thought and said for years - that US government policy is a never-ending reaction to previous US government policy. Currently we're on a swing through the land of lower taxes and (theoretically) smaller government, although I would challenge anyone to give examples of real reduction in the size of government. 25 years ago, the United States was at possibly the peak of "big government". It hasn't always been a "big government" vs. "small government" thing - the late 1800s and early 1900s saw a swing from toleration of excesses by business barons to governmental enabling of labor strength. This isn't any deep truth; it's pretty obvious to anyone who observes the US over a period of time, or spends any time at all learning the history of out government. Why it happens is maybe a little more subtle, however. Probably 5-10% of the voting population would, if given their preference, institute a minimalist government, something along the libertarian principle. Another 5-10% would put in place a democratic socialist system like that found in the Scandinavian countries. There's a 30-35% segment that favors what passes for mainstream Republican policy - they don't like government involvement (or at least Federal involvement) in schools, health care, and social programs. And about a 30-35% segment that wouldn't favor what they would call socialism, but do want Federal intervention in social issues like welfare and food programs, and environmental protection, and to some extent, health care. These two blocks tend to vote pretty much the same way election after election. Even a landslide election like the 1984 Reagan-Mondale contest showed Mondale getting 40% of the vote - meaning 4 in 10 of American voters voted against a sitting president, in what is maybe the biggest landslide in US presidential election history. The swing in government policy occurs because of a middle group that makes up maybe 10% of the electorate. Recent elections have shown that political professionals have figured this out, and they are targeted mercilessly in presidential campaigns. And they're targetted because their opinions, and their votes, change. And when they change, the direction of US policy changes. They are the rudder of American politics, and the reason that the United States will always be moving back and forth between right and left, never sitting calmly on that center line.
I listened to about an hour of the hearings today. I heard part of Rumsfeld's defense/explanation/apology, and was pleasantly surprised to hear Rumsfeld issue an apology and take responsibility. It certainly doesn't excuse the actions, and doesn't resolve the issue, but it's nice to know at least one senior member of the administration knows how to say "I'm sorry" and "it was my fault", even if his mea culpa was mostly symbolic. (I don't mean that to denigrate Rumsfeld's appearance and statements, but simply to say it was not, strictly speaking, his fault). There were no riveting revelations, as far as I can tell. And it does appear that the military was investigating this as early as January. But what Rumsfeld characterized as a "press conference" in January was actually a 5-line press release, so his statement was more than a bit of exaggeration. But what struck me most was the amount of posturing and preening done by the senators, on both sides of the aisle. Several senators opened their questions with mini-speeches that resembled the openings of political campaigns. Proof, once again, that a public microphone is to a politician as a light is to a moth.
Turns out there was a power outage in the downtown Jackson area, which killed off the local NBC affiliate. Around 8 PM, the power came back on and 'Friends' was on the air. Better late than not at all, I guess. And although I rarely watched the show, I watched this one with my wife and daughter. As a last episode, it was..... ok. Not that great, not that bad. Definitely didn't challenge for best finale of all time. The best two on my personal list:
1) St. Elsewhere - where at the end of the final episode, we find out the entire thing has been in the imagination of an autistic boy.
2) Newhart (second series) - where Bob Hewhart wakes up at the end of the last episode in bed beside Suzanne Pleshette, who played his wife in the first episode. The second series was all a dream. Other shows had relied on dreams to work out plot lines, but never before or since has a show used it so well.
'M*A*S*H', as much as I loved that show, had only a fair last episode. I don't even remember if 'X-Files' had a final episode - it had effectively ended so long before it's final season that I only stayed with it out of habit and determination.
My great-grandmother is buried in a small cemetery behind a church that is no longer used, in a tiny, old east Mississippi community called Beech Springs. For many, many years, just before Mother's Day, my grandmother would make the 35 mile drive from her home in Newton to put flowers on the grave. My grandfather accompanied her until he died, then my mother and father would go with her. It's remote, down a winding country road, and the cemetery is behind the church, almost hidden from view, so my grandmother, and my mother, didn't want to go alone. After my father died, my uncle, who also lived in Newton, went with them. He died earlier this year, and so the role of escort has come down through the years to me. This morning, my mother and I made the trip.
As I said, Beech Springs Cemetery is remote. We drove 60 miles to Newton, then about 20 miles north to Union, then headed northwest on a small country road. We drove about 15 miles, up hills and around curves, all the while immersed in the scents of sweetshrub, honeysuckle, and Virginia Sweetspire. The last ten miles or so, we didn't see a single car. I understood why my mother was reluctant to go there alone. We got to the church, drove down the short dirt path, and parked. It was a beautiful day, bluebird sky, no clouds, yellow sun, and a warm, gentle breeze brushing along the clearing at the top of the small hill. While my mother tended to her grandmother's grave, I walked among the other graves and read the headstones. It always strikes me how sterile the new cemeteries are that have only gravestones, lying flat on the ground. Something not quite identifiable is lost. But here, there were headstones, some very old. I found one for a woman born in 1799. Others looked as old or older, but were so worn the dates were no longer legible. Many, many were for children, who lived 4 months, 1 year, 2 years. We take for granted now that our children will be born and live a long healthy life. But even one hundred years ago, birth began a harrowing period for a child. On both my mother's, and father's, side of the family, there were numerous deaths of children under 2 years of age. Yellow fever, typhoid, some mysterious stomach ailment. We take so much for granted.
But what struck me most, what always strikes me in these small country cemeteries, was the sense of separation from the world. There is a stillness that seems to insulate the place. And I'm always drawn back to the headstones. People were born in 1814, and died in 1859, and were thought to have lived a full life. I'm four years older, and think of myself as young. But a headstone for a young man who died at the age of 14 still has the same aura of grief that a stone laid today would have. The difference, though, is that the stone laid today won't tell the story the same way.
is not being seen in central Mississippi, because WLBT, the NBC affiliate in Jackson, has been off the air all afternoon. I would not want to be operating their switchboard tonight.
President Bush had earlier said there would be no further requests this fiscal year. But in yet another implied admission that his Iraq policies aren't exactly on track, Bush has asked for $25 billion now, with another request expected some time after the election. This is on top of the $87 billion that's already been appropriated.
But how much is $25 billion? I mean, we all know it's a lot of money. But it's so much that the reality is a bit removed. So I did some quick research, and came up with some equivalencies.
$25 billion would:
-completely fund the federal Departments of Agriculture and Commerce for a year
-fund the Department of the Interior for 2 1/2 years
-fund NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency for a year, with enough left over to pay most of the budget of the entire Judicial Branch
-build another nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and most of the necessary escort vessels to create another attack group
-pay for the budget of the State of Mississippi for 12 years
-buy 1 of every 3 vehicles sold by Ford of North America in 2003
-buy enough McDonald's Double Cheeseburgers that if you stacked them up, they would extend out into space 4 times farther than the orbit of the Moon
-pay ARod's salary for 100 years
Any way you look at it, that's a bunch of cash.
I may be the last person to have seen this, but I thought it was pretty cool. It's an 18-wheeler painted as a tribute to those who died on 9/11.
The Mississippi legislature is trying to finish up the 2004 legislative session this week. Adjournment is set for May 9. There's only one problem: there is no state budget yet. They're not even close. And state law says no budget bill can be passed within 5 days of the end of the session. At this point, there are two options - extend the session by 30 days, or go home and let Governor Barbour call a special session. They're at such a gridlock at the Capitol that extending the session might not accomplish anything. Basically, everything sits where it sat on January 6, when the session began. Ending the regular session and coming back for a special session makes sense to some - it would allow a cool-off period, and perhaps would bring the legislature back more focused and determined to get this thing done. But there are two problems with a special session. First is timing. The state fiscal year ends June 30. That's a real time crunch when you're talking about starting over on the budget negotiations. But it's doable. The other problem is potentially much bigger. Mississippi's governor has few weapons at his/her disposal. Constitutionally, our governorship is pretty weak. No cabinet of political allies. No equivalent of the vice president to push his platform. There's not much our governor can do directly. But there is one weapon. When the governor calls a special session, the legislature can only consider the topic(s) the governor specifies. William Winter used this like a club in the early 80s to get the first education reform legislation pushed through here. The legislative leadership let him know that if he called a special session (the legislation had failed in the regular session), they would simply adjourn the first day without taking up the bill. He quickly let them know that he was prepared to call them back, time after time, as long as it took. And he meant it. He got his education reform.
I don't know how Governor Barbour would frame a special session. It would be a challenge for him, knowing the stakes. Some sort of budget has to get done by June 30, or on July 1 state government shuts down. Some people would probably like that. But their joy wouldn't last long, I suspect.
Regardless, there's much more honesty in government budgeting at the state level than at the national level. Deficits don't exist down here. If you don't want to cut services and programs, you find more money somewhere. Mississippi is paying the price for too many legislative quick tricks over the past decade, pulling money from special funds and reserves and one-time windfalls. Now those are gone, and the piper is playing on the front steps of the Capitol.