The PeaceCow Field Journal

Race Matters: What we CAN do

2012-01-20T16:00:00.001-05:00

Justcame back from a summit on “Race matters.” It was geared to those of us in the child welfare system, includingeducators, social service providers, judges, lawyers, and organizationalleaders. The point was that while the UShas made progress, the absolute fact is that in many ways institutional racism(often unintentional, but real nonetheless) still operates to decrease equalityof OPPORTUNITIES for minorities.

Welearned about the goal of awareness, and of changing institutional biasesthrough that awareness to reach a higher level of equity, which in the end willcreate more avenues to higher incomes and better standards of living for minoritycommunities: NOT by taking something away from the haves, but throughthe tools gained by increasing true equality of OPPORTUNITY (more resources foreducation, health care, etc) adding to the near-nothingness of the have-nots.

Awarenessand education are crucial to dispelling myths and prejudices based on thosemyths. It’s a huge task and seems beyondour ability to control.

LeavingI was reminded of the serenity prayer: "God grant me the courage to change what I can, the serenity to acceptwhat I can’t and the wisdom to know the difference.” We can’t just wave a wand and make everybodysee the whole truth,and to have a perfect political and social system thatreflects that truth overnight.

BUT,what we CAN do is speak truth at every opportunity. To never take part in hateful dialogue andcall it out whenever we’re confronted with it, whether it be racist jokes, idletalk, group discussions, whatever.

Whatwe CAN do is to be the best people we can be every day. Teach our children that it’s not your tennisshoes you or whatever else you wear, but what’s inside you that counts—your character,your ideals. We CAN take the high road, think good, thinkpositive, ENCOURAGE others and look for opportunities, always keeping hopealive. We can share this positivity, wecan live it, we can encourage it. Then,little by little it spreads and spreads and spreads. It starts with me, it starts with you.

Sundayschool basics: think of others as wellas yourself, do good, be honest, work hard, play fair, love everybody, pray foreverybody, help whoever you can. THIS WECAN DO!

My friend Gatewood

2012-01-04T18:16:00.003-05:00

Today I got the news. An old law school classmate came up to me and asked, of our mutual friend, "Did you hear about Gatewood?" Well, "no" I replied, totally uncertain about what would come next. "He died in his sleep last night."

I was saddened more than shocked by Gatewood's untimely passing. He was a third year law student when I was in my first, and we had become friends. He was a larger-than-life character even then. Big smile, constant witticisms, a kind word for everyone he met, (prosecutors excepted :)). He was Jagger-esque in his youth but oddly reminded me of my own father later in his life.

Gatewood was one of the most honest, genuine and sincere people I ever knew. We always shared a good laugh together and had many philosophico-political discussions. We agreed on much (using the power of the state to improve education and provide social services to the most vulnerable, legalization and market maximization of hemp--I once gave him what would become his favorite sportcoat made out of hemp that was actually a good seller in our store); and we were respectful in our divergences.

Gatewood was a fine father to his daughters, a doting son to his mother, a good friend to all who crossed his path, a fearless and effective advocate for clients lucky enough to have him on their side, and a visionary politician whose ideas will gain strength long after his campaigns have ended.

I miss him already, and am so sorry I did not have at least one more slap-on-the-back love in with my old friend, to tell him how proud I was of his spirit, leadership and passion.

If something uplifting can come from so untimely a death, let it be a resolve to reach out, to call a friend or family member I hadn't spoken to in a while, to tell EVERYBODY what they mean to me and to others. To spend time every day truly appreciating the gift of life and the critical importance of using it not just for myself, but also for others.

War and Christmas

2011-12-24T22:35:00.000-05:00

Nothing better proves the American lust for war, theAmerican celebration of war and therefore America’s doomed destiny as eventualvictor-vanquished victims of war than this Christmas season.

It is asupremely sad and uncanny irony that during the celebration of THE Prince ofPeace, Jesus Christ (ostensibly our lord and savior), the most hyped movie is “Warhorse,” the most advertised video games (as usual)are about bullets and bombs and that the favorite refrain of thesuper-religious is once again “the war on Christmas.”

Untilthe masses of everyday American citizens taste the reality of the wars unleashed on the millions of innocents inplaces like Iraq and Vietnam, until they suffer, truly suffer the hard hits ofthe mystique which they now so readily venerate, they will continue down , down, down the inevitable path towardsthat tragic future eventuality.

The inabilityto learn from history, to exercise true faith in the teachings of “the reasonfor the season,” to live in love,charity, mercy and peace, and to therefore reject war and all itsglorifications makes a mockery of every “MerryChristmas, Happy Holidays, and Season’s Greetings” cheer.

Thankyou God for Jesus, the greatest teacher of them all.

Maybe some day we'll learn.

To the lover of wintersweet and Pussywillows, Cattails

2011-12-21T18:42:00.001-05:00

I miss my friend, the lover of wintersweet and Pussywillows, Cattails.

May soft winds and roses rest deep in her soul

From whence they return to make my life whole.

Giving thanks

2011-11-22T14:51:00.001-05:00

I give thanks, lord, I give thanks. I have so much for which to be thankful, THANK YOU.

Not that I needed to see him for this feeling of gratitude, but on this gray, rainy morning as I was pulling off New Circle Rd onto Nicholasville I saw a raggedy man--beard damp with driplets and baggy clothes soaked through to his bones-- who was walking towards the ramp with a homemade sign that I could not read but probably said something like "Homeless, please help, bless you!"

I took a short minute to put myself in his shoes, forced my mind to adopt HIS outlook, HIS feelings--or what I imagined his feelings to be--at that moment, and then what they might have been during the hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades that would lead to this sad, sad moment of desparation.

My God, what chain of events in this man's life could create the condition that had him scrambling on this unforgiving day? It was a mind-numbing abyss, one that had I lingered too long, I imagined, I might never escape.

For the fact that I had the spiritual, mental, and physical health to observe, empathize and reflect, and that I had a nice car from which to do so, that I was able to get a taste of that poor man's life, yet return to my own.... I AM THANKFUL!

For this, for family, for friends, for freedom, for opportunities and and a million things more I give thanks.

Richard Dawahare November 22, 2011

Republicans trash conservative values

2011-11-19T19:26:00.001-05:00

Lost in the ideological headlock that has Republican Congressmen—like pigs possessed—throwing themselves off the cliff of rationality, is the fact that true conservative values are essential to America’s nationhood. The problem is not with the values, but rather with the self-interest of those who have hijacked and warped them to suit their narrow purposes.

True to its name, conservatism should be all about preserving America’s essence, its foundational character. It should be about honoring and strengthening the values our founders followed in forging a union that would become the world’s new great hope.

From the first Thanksgiving to the Declaration of Independence and the drafting of the Constitution collective action was vital not merely for the greater good, but for the nation’s very creation, survival and eventual growth. Working together for a purpose greater than any one individual or group’s special interest is therefore a value worth conserving.

As is individual effort and personal responsibility. In a free land that honors liberty and justice for all collective action with individual enterprise combined to create the world’s most successful country, enjoying the highest standard of living for the greatest amount of people and, until recently, providing moral leadership.

Yet today’s Republican leaders are trashing conservative values! They trumpet personal responsibility for the little guy, but the really big and strong ones who need not one cent they instead give trillions. That’s right, Congressional Republicans (and sure, some Democrats too) have repaid their corporate benefactors by giving them obscene tax subsidies, allowing them to escape hundreds of billions in taxes they rightfully should owe.

In the 1950’s, when America was at her zenith, corporate taxes paid for more than a quarter of the federal government’s outlays. Today that has dropped to a mere 6%. In that same period federal corporate tax collections fell from nearly 5% of GDP to a paltry 1.16% now. The sad and unbelievable truth is that most American taxpayers pay more federal income taxes than General Electric, Boeing, Dupont, Wells Fargo, Verizon, (and many others) combined. (But there is one tax increase Republicans not only support, but demand: higher payroll taxes on poor and middle class taxpayers by refusing to extend the small cuts put in place last year).

While using government for their own narrow aims they dis it at every turn. The collective action so instrumental to our nation’s creation and growth they decry as socialism, an evil to be shunned. Yet they are oblivious to the fact that collective action saved America. Whether through FDR’s activism, the GI Bill, Social Security and Medicare, our vaunted military, and a million other ways, collective action through our federal government has created the America we know and love.

So instrumental was collective action to our national heritage that we inscribed the slogan, “e pluribus unum” –literally, ‘from many, one’—on the dollar bill.

Collective action evil? Just the opposite. On the contrary, read Acts 4:32-36.

Go ahead, I dare you.

Burn Strawman, Burn!

2011-10-19T07:07:00.003-04:00

What do you do when you’re locked in a belief, a mindset, or philosophy and the force of fact, truth, logic and justice are so against you that you have nowhere to turn without exposing the error of your position? Hopefully you’d follow truth and adjust your views accordingly. Unfortunately, today’s Republicans continue to re-paint reality into a false portrait that fits their warped view (otherwise known as “creating a straw man” argument). It is their constant fight with truth, with history, with justice and with the saving grace of cooperative action for the greater good that has so locked down our national promise and progress.

Take the latest example, the Wall St. protestors. They are painted out to be rich hating anti-capitalists who want nothing more than a handout from those who industrious few who produce in the open marketplace. What utter rubbish! Back in 2009, as soon as President Obama failed to adequately address the corruption on Wall Street that led to our economic collapse, I myself expressed the sentiments that fuel today’s protest. And by God I AM a capitalist. Lost all the capital I had in our family business when we went out in 2008. That’s okay, it is part of the free enterprise system, and I have no regrets, only fond memories and appreciation for all that system did for me and my family over the last century.

However, what the protestors detest, as do I, is the cheating, the self-dealing, the rancid pay for play lobbying that cares not one damn for the greater public interest, but only, only for their private gain. It was such greed that led to the de-regulation facilitating impossible leveraging that garnered nothing but obscene gains for Wall Street traders, bankers and mortgage brokers but saddled US—particularly the poor and middle class citizen—with all the losses. Yet Obama let the Wall Street chicanery continue nearly unabated. He did not lift a finger to curb the wrongful bonuses, based largely on productive-for-them-but-unproductive-for-everybody-else performance. He did not fight for true reform, perhaps hoping to woo Wall Street’s support, who knows.

So yeah, when the guy who ran on hope instead runs the other way—whether on financial reform, half-hearted health care non-reform, reversing tax cuts that have helped deplete the treasury and help make the gap between rich and poor greater than at any time since the Roaring Twenties—and Congress does NOTHING but continue to aid and abet their larceny, then YES, it is time to take to the streets.

Justice wins out in the end. It always does. The only question remains: how much pain must we all suffer from those who continue to fight against it?

Richard Dawahare 10/19/11

Reverse envy Republicans

2011-09-17T11:03:00.009-04:00

Jealousy of the poor. With their newfound ‘reverse envy’ right wing Republicans have found their true center, their essential core and they are not bashful about it. I’ll give them this: it’s one thing to promote low taxes and extreme wealth concentration for the richest of the rich, but it takes a certain type of “in YOUR face, GOD!” kind of chutzpah to actually justify such hording on how relatively little federal income tax (they conveniently omit all the other federal taxes) the poorest of the poor pay. (Of course, their argument is totally hypocritical and nongenuine--you won't find the first one of them who would trade places with a low earner).

They also forget to mention the share of INCOME the very rich get as compared to everyone else and the share of WEALTH they enjoy, through hard work, corrupt bought and paid-for tax shemes, inheritance or otherwise. The gap in AFTER-TAX INCOME—did you get that, AFTER TAX income—between the top 1% and middle and poorest fifths of America more than TRIPLED between 1979 and 2007 (Congressional Budget Office, the period for which data was available).

This increase in after-tax income inequality reflects the huge increases in PRE-tax incomes, which for the top 1% rose 141%--ONE HUNDRED FORTY ONE PER CENT—from 1979-2007. The top 1%’s share of pre-tax income more than DOUBLED in that same period from 9.3% to 19.4%. Thus, by 2007 the top 1% had before-tax incomes that were 24 times higher than the middle fifth of our population, a share that nearly tripled since 1979.

NOTE to those so envious of the poor who pay little to no INCOME tax (but pay a huge amount, a much, much larger % than the very rich in payroll taxes—something we WILL change when power flows back to the PEOPLE): it is this very GROWTH of the top 1%’s share of total before-tax income that has led to their having a growing share of total taxes.

IN FACT, the ACTUAL percentage Of the income that they paid in federal taxes—the “effective federal tax rate”—for the top 1 percent declined from 33.0 % of income in 2000 to 29.5% in 2007. While the share of total federal taxes paid by the top 1% rose from 25.5% in 2000 to 28.1% in 2007, this rise was due to the fact that they received a growing share of total before-tax income, 19.4% in 2007 vs 17.8% in 2000.

Bottom line: the effective tax rate of the top 1% of household was lower in 2007 than at any time since 1990! Unquestionably and undeniably, their tax burdens DECREASED, a drop that was accelerated by Bush’s tax cuts.

What made America truly great was the utterly essential resort to a higher degree of shared sacrifice/shared rewards that marked our emergence from the Great Depression and then post-WWII. The Greatest Generation didn’t blink an eye with top tax rates of 90%--NINETY PERCENT. Even the last truly great Republican president, Dwight David Eisenhower, knew the critical importance of our social contract, of an activist government that serves the greater good , of a vibrant middle class, and thus never sought to lower the tax rates (Kennedy did, to 70% where it remained until Reagan went way too far in lowering it to 28% before later raising to around 35%, still way too low).

To blame America’s ills, or in this case, the deficit, i.e. insufficient tax revenues, on working-poor families barely making it is not merely cruel and heartless. It is wrong and worse, it does not reflect America’s true values.

The Good Post—to your health and happiness!

2011-08-21T16:40:00.005-04:00

This piece has but one goal: to help you feel, do and be better!

I. PHYSICAL HEALTH

We’ve heard it a million times---“DIET AND EXERCISE” Well, that’s true, but the trick is to turn what are “chore” words to JOY words! Finding food that is HEALTHY and PLEASURABLE to eat, doing exercise that you look forward to doing is the key!

A. FOOLPROOF DIET—this is guaranteed to make you feel better and lose weight.

FIRST—DESIRE! You gotta want it, “it” being a combination of losing weight, feeling and looking better, being healthier.

SECOND—“eye of the tiger!” You gotta have an inner conviction of change that second guesses all you have thought about food, been taught or conditioned to think about food your whole life. YOU HAVE BUT ONE LIFE—max it out!

HERE’S THE DIET:

1) ELIMINATE—
a. ALL transfats (partially hydrogenated oils), which means margarine and just about all processed/packaged foods. PS—when I say “all” I mean ALL!

b. ALL artificial sweeteners—Splenda, Nutrasweet. These are POISON, they screw up your neurology, can make you nervous, cause numbness, give you cancer AND….MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT!! Try Stevia instead if you must have a sweetener (go here for a fuller critique of Aspartame);

c. MOST ALL sugar—meaning granulated sugar, high fructose corn syrup, other syrups and other sugars “raw” or not, including juices, but NOT FRUIT, natural, raw fruit is just fine. PS—“ALL” would be preferable, but settle for “most all”—which for most of you will mean about a 90% reduction of the sugar you are currently taking in. Put simply, sugar is a killer, a robber of long term health at the expense of a few minutes of sublime pleasure. You don’t need it and can enjoy the satisfaction of sweets without it with frozen fruit smoothies and natural, raw fruits!

d. ALL FAST FOOD—there are occasional non-threatening choices at some fast food restaurants but, really, these places are disastrous for long term health. Taste good? Sure, sometimes, but so what? Limit your visits—to something like zero times over the course of a year.

e. EXCESS CALORIES!!! You simply must count calories IF you are overweight and want to shed pounds. If you are more than 10% over your ideal body weight (go here, http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/bmi.htm, to find out) then you must limit your calories to no more than 1500 a day. When you near your ideal weight, eat no more than 1800-2000 calories a day—DEPENDING on how much exercise you get. The more you burn, the more calories you can take in. BUT it is essential to insure your calories come from the right foods, therefore…

2) EAT—here it is, the eating plan that will maximize your health and happiness:

a. Eat whole, healthy foods…that you LIKE! Get lists of healthy foods. Here is one list: http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php. Another idea is to get the book “Eat Right for your Blood Type” which lists foods that are theoretically geared for your particular blood type. On either list CIRCLE THE HEALTHY FOODS YOU LIKE to eat, and forget the rest! THEN, eat only—or at least, mostly—those foods on the HEALTHY lists….THAT YOU LIKE.

By: 1) eating ONLY the healthy foods that you like, 2) ELIMINATING trans fats, artificial sweeteners, and sugars and 3) counting calories to stay under 1500 to lose weight, around 2000 to maintain weight you will lose weight and feel hundreds of times better, I promise! More energy, mental acuity, etc.
b. OPTIONAL--what I did because I had a cholesterol problem and hated the thought of killing animals was to…GO VEGETARIAN (no meats or fish—I will eat fish once in a while), even VEGAN (no dairy either, although I do eat cheese now and then). I can’t tell you how much more energy I have, and how any indigestion and/or constipation and other such disorders DISAPPEARED on a vegetarian diet rich with greens, fruit, beans, lentils….and for me movie popcorn—but without butter!

c. OPTIONAL II—GO GLUTEN FREE! I discovered I had an intolerance to wheat products, soy products and NUTS (and I used to LOVE each of them). The intolerance manifested itself in a horrible, uncontrollable eczema breakout that lasted about 4 years and as many dermatologists. Skin eruptions, up-all-night itching, including my eyes. My own research indicated that many people suffer food intolerances of one sort or another. These are different from allergies, which is something that manifests itself in an IMMEDIATE swelling or shortness of breath. An intolerance will produce symptoms sometimes days after the offending food.

Anyway, I have been 100% better after giving up all wheat products. And have found it easier to stay in shape and retain energy without them. PS--Udi’s is a good brand of gluten free bread I get when I long for good toast, and Amy’s gluten free pizza is superb!

By the way, if you haven't yet discovered it, Dr. Mercola is a GREAT site for overall health information. Here is his introductory post on nutrition. You can sign up for daily informational emails, which I find TERRIFIC!
http://www.mercola.com/nutritionplan/index2.htm

3. DRINK—

Lots of water—and yes, tap water will do (I have a great doctor and I trust his word on this, although I also have two water filters at home, a Nikken water gravity tank and a filter in my refrigerator, so I drink a combo of tap and filtered water).

Coffee and tea are fine, even healthy—WITHOUT sugar and artificial sweeteners.

SMOOTHIES---With fruit (plus whatever whole foods like nuts, etc that you like, and or protein powder) crushed ice, rice milk, unsweetened yogurt or a little fruit juice (3 ounces). Here are two of my favorites for instance—but once you limit yourself to the plethora of healthy ingredients that are available the options are limited only to that of your imagination:

a) STRAWBERRY, BLUEBERRY, BANANA frozen smoothie: Take 1-2 cups frozen strawberries, 1/3 cup or so frozen blueberries, thaw in “defrost” microwave setting for a little over a minute (depends on your microwave). Take blender, add 5 ice cubes, 1 really big banana, or 2 smaller ones. 3 ounces of WELCH’S grape/cherry 100% juice (I have used a number of juices and or rice or soy milk in the past and any are fine, but I this is my favorite!). Blend to puree setting for 15 seconds or so. Unfreakin-believable how good this is!

b) SPINACH, ORANGE AND PEAR frozen smoothie---

Get the Organic baby spinach in the plastic tub at the store—already pre-washed and ready to go! Start with 3-4 ounces of water, one whole orange, peeled, 6-8 ice cubes, half a pear and a BUNCH of the spinach. Put on blender and after crushing ice go to LIQUIFY setting for about 30 seconds. You won’t believe how good this tastes and what a beautiful lime green color it turns out. You just KNOW you are drinking a chloro-phylled glass of pure health and it tastes GREAT to boot. Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

FRESHLY SQUEEZED juice is good but NOT, NOT basic canned/bottled juices. A little (6 ounces or less) is okay, but usually people drink much more and therefore get way too many calories without the fiber from the whole fruit that is so healthy.

NO SOFT DRINKS. To wean yourself off them try getting a cold Coke (or whatever you drink—with the sugar, not the “diet” version), get a cold can of carbonated water and mix the two. Start at half and half and gradually add more carbonated water and less Coke until you are able to go without it.

NO MILK SHAKES, FROZEN YOGURTS (wayyyyy too much sugar!!) There is enough good stuff, you don’t need this junk.

YOU CAN DO IT!!

B. EXERCISE—

Do….SOMETHING! Do whatever is comfortable for YOU! Walk, run, exercise or yoga classes, whatever, but do something. A nice walk in the park or in the neighborhood will do just fine.

I do not enjoy health clubs therefore I never frequent them. Instead I follow a wayyyy abbreviated version of my old football days workouts. Pushups, sit ups, and then run for about 30 minutes in the morning. I talk walks in the afternoon wherein I will pray, then mediate (just think about NOTHING, focus on the breath and live fully in the present moment, accepting whatever I experience in that moment without judgment).

YOU CAN DO IT!!

My next installment will focus on tips for emotional health and well being….

Richard Dawahare 8/21/11

Credit downgrade foreseeable result of traitorous partisanship

2011-08-06T10:40:00.005-04:00

Standard and Poor's unprecedented downgrade of the United States of America's vaunted AAA credit rating is yet more proof of what happens when partisans seek their own power, their own agenda, and the satisfaction of their own narrow wants instead of the greater good of America.

Because one faction would for the first time in history hold the nation hostage over a routine raising of the debt ceiling, something they themselves did SEVEN TIMES without so much as a hiccup during the Bush presidency, our great nation has suffered what was an entirely foreseeable consequence: a credit downgrade.

Make no mistake, it was their intransigence, their hypocrisy that was fully responsible for this now irreversible chink in the armor of American strength.

Of course, they will wear their stubbornness as a hallowed badge of honor, oblivious to the harm they caused thereby. In this view one man's loyalist is another man's traitor.

The truth, however, is borne out by acts of consistency and fairness. Since this was an artificially created crisis in their vain attempt to score political points and further hurt President Obama (the nation be damned in the process!), and most importantly since the obligation to pay debts that past Congresses have authorized continues regardless of whatever the debt ceiling is, the weight of this truth is 100% AGAINST their warped stand.

Therefore, since the one possibility, that their stand was one of loyalty and honor, is refuted by facts, history and logic, the other possibility--that they engaged in a treacherous betrayal of their duty to the nation's welfare--is the only one remaining. We must vote them out, and with them anybody, regardless of party, who puts anything ahead of our national welfare.

Our downward descent will not end without a fundamental improvement of our national attitude. We must somehow return to the solidarity that made WWII era Americans the “Greatest Generation.” Nothing less than this single-minded focus of unity will put America back on an upward trajectory. We must therefore emulate the Greatest Generation, their noble pursuit of our greater good and their embodiment of the high-minded qualities so essential for such a quest: self-sacrifice, empathy, compassion, truth, duty and honor.

Coincidentally, not only are these the teachings of all mainline religions, they are also qualities consistent with secular principles of Universal Morality—no difference at all. Unfortunately they are nearly entirely missing in our highest halls of office, and are all but forgotten in our everyday discourse, on our televisions and radios, and quite possibly in many of our homes.

Every American, every school, every civic club, every church, mosque, temple, synagogue and meeting hall must preach with a common voice this message of unity, and of returning to the values so synonymous with Greatest Generation. Our future absolutely depends upon it.

Facts prove the Republican assault on America

2011-08-04T11:01:00.006-04:00

Republicans, in a futile effort to deflect from the truth, continue to paint Democrats as anti-private enterprise socialists. The fact is that Republican policies—eight long years of the Bush administration, the first six with a Republican-controlled Congress—were disastrous for private enterprise and the nation as a whole. Here are the FACTS, undisputable, 100% accurate FACTS:

BUSH’S ECONOMIC RECORD (from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics):

1) Under George W. Bush the nation LOST 673,000 private sector jobs! That’s right—LOST jobs, first time since before the Great Depression. Net employment was up by 1.08 million jobs ONLY because of government and federal employment increases---ahhhh, the dreaded, hated government bails Bush out, ever so little. His job creation/loss is the worst record by far since WWII. (Under Bill Clinton, for example, the nation created 23 million jobs, 21% payroll expansion compared to Bush’s paltry 2.3%). SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics

2) MEDIAN INCOME: Beginning of Bush’s term it was $52,500. At the end, $50,303, a DECLINE of 4.2%. Bush therefore is the only president in modern times to preside over an income DECLINE through his two terms in office. Under Bill Clinton median income GREW from $46,603 to $52,500.

3) NUMBER IN POVERTY: Beginning of term 31.6 million lived in poverty. End of his term—39.8 MILLION, an increase of 26.1%! Under Clinton poverty declined 16.9%.

4) CHILD POVERTY: an increase of 21% under Bush. Under Clinton declined 24.2%.

5) AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE: Under Bush those numbers rose by 20.6% (flat under Clinton).

Regardless of what quality of life measure you use it is beyond dispute that Republican policies have lowered them for all Americans EXCEPT the very rich. The richest 10% now control over 73% of our nation’s wealth. Income disparity is now the greatest that it has ever been since the 1929 market crash. Bush tax cuts HURT America helping only a scant few of the very rich (although they are very short-sighted, a weakened America will imperil them just as happened after 1929!).

Clinton’s tax increase, conversely, helped ALL Americans and made America stronger and better. The numbers prove this truth beyond any shadow of a doubt. We ARE all in this together. E pluribus Unum—“from many, ONE.” Collective action for the greater good. It is the only proven way for our long term national welfare.

Rebuilding our infrastructure

2011-07-26T01:52:00.001-04:00

A house divided cannot stand. While Lincoln spoke of slavery, today it is a different sort of bondage that threatens to tear our nation asunder - blind allegiance to ideologies thoroughly at odds with our social contract and with the spirit of collective action as embodied in our time honored motto, “e pluribus Unum” (literally, from many one), is splitting America, eroding its democracy and with it our infrastructure, the very physical constructs that comprise a great nation.

America’s spending on infrastructure has declined over the past 40 years and is now just 2.4 percent of its GDP, far less than other developed nations. Europe spends 5 percent, for example, and China 9 percent. The American Society of Civil Engineers says that it will take $2.2 trillion over the next five years to keep levees from buckling, bridges from toppling and our schools from crumbling; for maintaining our roads, airports and rails; for cleaning our water and modernizing our electrical grid.

Yet nearly half of our political leadership pledge their loyalty not to the Constitution and greater good of the nation, but rather to their selfish ideals. They’d as soon have fields flood or forests burn, children starve or the sick suffer before they raise a nickel of taxes, which are lower than at any time in the last 60 years and are the lowest in the Western world.

Regardless, America simply must invest in its infrastructure. We can raise the necessary funds through a variety of sources, including direct user fees and energy taxes, bonds and in some cases public-private partnerships. In order to minimize politicization, we must devise a system that prioritizes projects using cost-benefit analyses and non-interested outside evaluators. These could be arbiters from other countries, or authorities from one state could evaluate projects in another state.

The federal government itself should do most of the work. The greatest nation on earth can surely hire all needed personnel — the designers, engineers and workers — to get the jobs done. These federally funded and operated projects will create wonderful job opportunities for our troops returning home and for the many unemployed across the land.

The preservation of America for ourselves and our posterity may be the one goal that can once again unite us all. Together, truly together, we can do anything.

The Boehner Republican Fraud

2011-07-23T09:55:00.005-04:00

The Republican fraud continues to get more bold and blatant. House Speaker John Boehner just said that now was not the time to raise taxes, that doing so would hurt the national interest.

TWO QUESTIONS: 1) Does he realize the taxes talked about being raised are on the top 2%, the ones who raked in trillions from the Bush tax cuts (on top of the trillions they already control) and NOT the middle and lower income earners--the 90% of Americans on whom our nation's economic success positively depends for we live in a post-production society whereby consumerism, i.e. people buying things, drives the economy. It is from these people that wealth has flowed upwards, leaving too little dollars (and way too much debt from past spending) to continue the necessarily high pace of spending required to reach full employment.

2) If not now when is EVER a good time to reverse HIS party's tax cuts (these aren't really tax increases, just a reversal of their horribly misguided cuts that contributed TO our current ills). Why on earth--WHY ON EARTH--would they ever needed to have cut taxes after a Clinton term that saw the rich get richer than ever, that had left us with a federal budget surplus and when things were for most Americans going swimmingly well?? (Answer: to starve govt so as to reduce social programs--they simply hate the poor and downtrodden--notice how quick Bush got rid of that flagrantly false slogan "compassionate conservative?" Hah, what a joke!).

Today's Republican leaders are a bankrupt lot --politically, morally, intellectually. Using outright untruths they play to the worst in our world, to fear, to hate, to selfish greed. These people now obstructing America's recovery, now obstructing true job CREATION and now spending their time on nothing but obstructing a president they don't like are after all the SAME people who PUT US IN THIS MESS--with de-regulation, with tax cuts, with record spending way before Obama took office (they raised the debt ceiling 7 times and by $4 TRILLION) and worse of all...with illegal and immoral WAR! They have no standing whatsoever.

They are and have been the problem, not even close to the solution. (Not that the Democrats have all the answers--too many have sold out or otherwise capitulated to moneyed interests that also influence them away from doing what is best for the greater public interest, but still, there is a major difference between the parties.)

President Obama MUST and WILL act unilaterally to raise the debt ceiling so that we can honor our obligations and then move forward. Congress be damned.

Ground NASA, focus on human needs right here at home

2011-07-18T10:41:00.005-04:00

From its first liftoff, the U.S. space program has been a source of pride and technological innovation. Yet it has flown beyond the point of (beneficial) return and should therefore be grounded.

We’ve been learning more about the universe from the Hubble than a galaxy of NASA missions. And the only real game-changing spinoff contribution — and it’s a biggie — was the development of satellite transmissions. But that was 50 years ago. Sure, there’s Tang, Velcro and Teflon, but these were developed independently of the space program even though they were popularized by it (although I think it does get credit for the pen that writes upside down).

America’s next frontier is closer to home — in fact it is right under our feet. Our infrastructure is crumbling — literally crumbling. We have dire human needs that need not only our dollars but our focus and energy. For instance, do you realize that as we soak and as the Midwest flooded, nearly 25 percent of our country is suffering the worst heat and draught since the “dirty thirties” Dust Bowl? The whole state of Texas has been declared a natural disaster area, and more are sure to follow. Why not focus our efforts on creating a water pipeline all over our great nation, so that we can move water just as we move gas? Surely, this necessity will spur innovation just as much or more than the space program — all while tackling a need that will benefit Americans right here on earth.

We already have all the technology we need. In fact we have too much of it, more than we can responsibly handle. Until we can keep the likes of Fox news owner Rupert Murdoch from running a company that for many years committed the most heinous criminal abuse of technology in our modern history, we have no business making more of it.

The space race we’ve won. It’s the human race we’re losing.

A conversation with the president

2011-07-04T22:57:00.000-04:00

This is a real honor, sir, and I thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Mr. President, I know that we share the same philosophy regarding government’s positive, essential role in forming a more perfect union. I also realize that compromise is the only way forward in such a divided political landscape. However, I wonder if you perhaps have missed some opportunities to use the power of your pulpit to educate, to sway and ultimately to steadfastly hold your ground on the most important, nation-defining issues.

Take health care. Based on your earnest campaign avowals, I thought you would use your power to stand firmly on the immutable principle that public health comes before private profit, and to that end you would not settle for anything less than the only real solution, a single-payer Medicare-for-all system, which as you know is essentially one big self-administered health insurance program that cuts out the unnecessary middle man. Mr. President, forcing me to buy insurance from the private insurance industry — without the competitive counterweight of a public option — leaves me at their mercy, of which they have shown none. Indeed, my rates, which were high before, have gone up nearly 40 percent since this so-called reform. I am blessed to be able to pay it; many cannot.

I was surprised as well that after bailing out Wall Street and the bankers — which I totally agree was essential to preventing a catastrophe even worse than the Great Depression — you settled for halfway reforms, some of which have still not been implemented. Instead of putting the power of your position behind real reform, you let the financial industry continue on their merry way, doling out huge bonuses and re-engaging in the type of reckless behavior that nearly destroyed us all.

And compromise is one thing Mr. President, but total capitulation is quite another. You caved on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich while Republican leaders continue the lie that reversing them will cost jobs and ruin the economy. You need only cite the truth that 670,000 private jobs were lost during Bush’s term in office, and that eight years of Republican all-for-business policies nearly destroyed our economy, the same as they did in the pre-Depression 1920s, when President Calvin Coolidge famously said, “The business of America is business.” Your relative silence gives me little confidence that you will stand strong for our social contract, and not merely for the protection of Medicare and Social Security, but also for programs that literally extend a lifeline to our most vulnerable citizens.

Finally, Mr. President, the wars. It is hard to believe that such treasure, both human and financial, continues to be so wasted. Al-Qaida is long gone from Afghanistan, and in any event the criminal perpetrators of 9/11 themselves died on that fateful day. We face no hostile nation-state that truly threatens our survival, as in World War II, which was a defensive war of necessity. There was therefore never a reason to create this now decade-old war of choice, and if there ever was it is long past the time for it to have ended.

If it is not too audacious, Mr. President, I hope you will end the wars now and always put the people ahead of power and politics.

Sincerely, Richard Dawahare

Pursuing Justice for...ALL

2011-06-18T16:09:00.003-04:00

Justice for all is America’s essence. The more justice we do, the more “American” we become. Conversely, our known and willful failure to do justice is the very antithesis of America. It rips the heart and soul out of all that America is, and all it ever hoped to be. Such injustice mocks lady liberty, turning her instead into a statue of shame, for freedom means nothing without justice. Indeed, for those who lack access to justice, there is no freedom.

“Pursuing Justice in the 21srt Century” is therefore the perfect theme for this year’s outstanding Kentucky Bar Association Convention being held this week in Lexington. Too many Americans cannot afford access to justice and the system is failing them. 80% of the legal needs for working poor Americans are unfulfilled. And while we pride ourselves on what we believe is the world’s leading judicial system we must bear in mind these humbling statistics: we spend less than one fifth on legal aid to the poor than New Zealand and less than one half of what Britain spends. Worse, in the 2010 Rule of Law index the United States was dead last among developed nations in regards to access to legal justice.

Kentuckians can take some solace that for once we are actually ahead of many states. We mandate court-appointed attorneys for indigent parents in Termination of Parental Rights and DNA (Dependency, Neglect and Abuse) cases. But across our great land aggrieved citizens whose basic rights are threatened stand no chance in a legal system that demands competent representation for they simply cannot afford to hire a lawyer. Homes are lost, families destroyed, and what little safety net remains gets shredded, all because we failed to live up to our heartfelt motto of “justice for all.”
The fix is to more fully fund legal aid for certain civil proceedings—those involving basic human needs—for those who are truly indigent. Locally, Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice John D. Minton, Jr. formed the Kentucky Access to Justice Commission to engage the delivery of legal aid to low income citizens. Hopefully, the legislature can be persuaded to allot funding to this critical need.

California leads the nation in this regard. Even though it is among the most cash-strapped states in the union they figured out that funding indigent access in civil cases actually saved the state money. Proper representation can prevent homelessness, lower domestic violence, protect children and prevent medical crises, all of which end up costing the state much more in the long term.

Better access to justice is affordable, it is moral, it is Constitutional and it is time. The sacred screeds of Deuteronomy ring as fresh and true for us today as it did for the ancient Hebrews then: “Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

Richard F. Dawahare 6/16/11

God and the Politics of Rich and Poor

2011-05-13T17:55:00.002-04:00

Few things are more unholy than politicians who trumpet “God” at every opportunity, yet legislate in ways that would make even the Almighty blush. That’s what’s happening now in Washington as God-touting Republicans are exploiting a fiscal mess of their own creation, twisting it into an attack on the poor and using it as an illogical excuse for enacting their most ungodly agenda.

Would God approve of their planned cuts to social services for poor and middle-class Americans who absolutely depend upon them, while leaving in place the Bush tax cuts that helped lead to the widest disparity between rich and poor since the Gilded Age? It’s easy for them to curry favor with the rich and powerful while cutting essentials for the poor and voiceless.

Republican cuts to food stamps, shelter and heating assistance, and education and training mainly affect the poor, a defenseless group, one without full wallets and the sway they provide. Cuts to investments in infrastructure, research and development and small businesses will diminish life for us all.

Just as enough of their constituents caught on to the pain of their proposed cuts to Medicare, Republicans switched course and focused on Medicaid, a program that provides services mostly to — you guessed it, the poor, the disabled and the elderly. God shrugged.

Many of these politicians undoubtedly perform many acts of individual godliness, whether through random acts of kindness or charitable contributions or a million other ways. But for some reason they form a coalition that prizes personal power over united action for the greater good. Certainly, what is good and godly on an individual basis is ever more so on a collective one.

An old Spanish proverb goes, “The rich break the laws, and the poor are punished for it.” But in today’s America, the rich rarely need to break the laws.

Instead, they just make them.

Richard Frank Dawahare 5/13/11

Default is unthinkable!

2011-04-22T15:17:00.001-04:00

Default is unthinkable. U.S. bonds are the gold standard, the unsinkable vessel of trustworthy, sleepeasy investing. Even the slightest crack of doubt about the government’s resolve and ability to keep it so will have devastating consequences to our economic and social well being. Congress must therefore raise the debt limit so that America can meet her obligations.

If not, interest rates will soar, and as the costs to government rise, so will the misery of an already distressed citizenry. Worse, America will lose the confidence of other nations, not only as a safe financial harbor, but also as the rock steady repository of its historic values. The American ethic, which has heretofore always drawn worldwide adoration, will forever be diminished.

The desire to cut the deficit and improve our fiscal condition is not merely commendable, it is essential. However, the means to do so is not through a rigid refusal to raise the debt limit, but rather through the laborious legislative process that must increase revenues as it decreases expenditures. The debt limit has nothing at all to do with budget discipline. In fact, it has been changed 74 times since 1964 to allow for the continued financing of government operations as willed by the people through their elected representatives. It is the budgeting process itself that determines the obligations we absolutely must fulfill.

Rand Paul Republicans who won’t raise the debt limit are most hypocritical. They make a big show of pretending to be responsible, yet lift not one finger to address the true roots of the problem. They refuse to take the timid step of repealing the Bush tax cuts, much less the much bolder one of finding new income sources by closing loopholes and increasing rate progressivity.

They refuse to reduce spending on their favored special interests, the ones that bankrolled their fiction-fueled road to power. They refuse to undertake the hard work of selling their flawed vision of a pre-Depression do nothing government so that their colleagues will budget accordingly. Indeed they can’t do so for the factual precedent of history is impossible for them to overcome. Yet still they rush like a bull in a China shop, not merely careless about destroying America’s welfare and standing, but seemingly anxious to do so.

America's financial condition is certainly important. But in the process of determining our national priorities—i.e. the strength of our safety net, our true defense needs, national health care, etc—it is crucial to understand that government is not a business. Only government can protect our constitutional rights and liberties. The purposes and methods of government, which operates under a democratic system of checks and balances and equality under the law, are often directly opposed to that of business, which is often under authoritarian rule and exists solely to make a profit for its owners.

In America we citizens are the shareholders. Yet our goal is not profit. Rather, it is the sustenance of that sort of stable and secure society within which we can fully enjoy the blessings of liberty. It is also the preservation of the heritage handed down to us by our founders, who created a Constitutional system of government consistent with values revered the world over.

America must not, therefore, leap headfirst into the shallow waters of default, defeat and despair. On the contrary, the sky’s the limit for a nation that stands united behind the truth of its world-leading values.

Attack on Libya seems right, is terribly wrong

2011-03-21T19:45:00.002-04:00

Prior to Obama's decision to bomb Libya, I had posted an argument opposing armed intervention (http://blogs.courier-journal.com/pointtaken/2011/03/17/reality-demands-restraint). The argument has grown only stronger in the days since our attack.

As I wrote earlier, sure, Gaddafi's a bad guy. Perhaps he stayed a bad guy even after his "rehabilitation" after he renounced Libya's nuclear ambitions back in 2003. But the fact is there was pretty much nothing of interest coming out of Libya until the wave of protests swept the Middle East this winter.

The problem with the Libyan protest movement is that unlike that of Egypt and Tunisia, Libya's turned violent. It was at this point that Gaddafi and the Libyan military pushed back. No question, Gaddafi's threatening to "burn all Libya" if the protests continued poured much fuel to the fire of humanitarian intervention. The UN Security Council's No-Fly Zone approval certainly considered Gaddafi's penchant for peculiarity as justification for its vote.

However, the UN Security Council is not the United States of America. American attack on foreign nations must have the support of Congress, but they were totally ignored. Perhaps if Congress had truly considered it we would have refused to support an attack on Libya (but as Iraq shows this is no guarantee, not by a long shot).

The President, echoing Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, says the attack was necessary to protect the protestors and that the goal is not removal of Gaddafi, but protection of Libyans. However, surely he knows that mere bombing of airfields and other strategic targets will do nothing to stop Gaddafi’s boots on the ground from doing whatever they want. Also, can Obama guarantee none o four missiles will kill innocents? Indeed, reports are that we have killed non combatants already.
Further, this mission has no end game. Rarely have we blundered into attacking another nation with so little definition—of purpose, of plan, of possible outcomes, etc.

This smells like another neocon end-run using the veneer of humanitarianism as a smokescreen to hoodwink--ONCE AGAIN—an unwitting public. This attack on Libya may not be as bad as the hugely immoral, illegal and counterproductive full scale war in Iraq, but that does not mitigate the wrong.

Richard F. Dawahare 3/21/11

Today's newest superheroes: Japanese workers at Fukushima nuclear power plant

2011-03-16T21:11:00.005-04:00

The world's newest superheroes are the Japanese workers risking their lives at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. With radiation levels many times higher than normal, at at time where the Japanese government has evacuated every living soul within 20 miles of the plant, these brave men and women are risking all for their fellow human beings. It is truly breathtaking, this effort, at once as spiritual as it is virtual, by otherwise regular human beings, who for years just went to work and anonymously did their jobs.

Some of these workers were ready to retire, others had no obligation to go. But go they did, the retiree urged on by none other than his wife!

It is said that the Japanese culture inculcates the attitude of collective well being over personal comfort. These living saints are proving it. And no matter the eventual outcome, and with humble attribution to one of my heroes, Winston Churchill, rarely have so few done so much for so many.

How the hell of Japan will heal the world

2011-03-13T13:17:00.001-04:00

Japan. I know you feel the same: lucky we are here, our lives not disrupted by yet another natural disaster, praying for those over there who are, wondering just what we can do to help, especially considering our good fortune to be spared such calamity (flood victims excepted).

Just when it seems that it could not be worse we hear about a possible nuclear meltdown. Maybe the heartfelt concern for them turns into a twinge of worry for ourselves. Some additional thoughts:

1) This natural calamity, like Haiti, Indonesia, New Orleans and many more, show yet again how much more destructive the hand of mother nature can be than that of humanity, at least as to land and property;

2) But unlike human conflict, natural disasters actually build bridges of cooperation, friendship and therefore longer term prospects for peace among nations;

3) Perhaps the most heartwarming, reassuring gesture is the headline I just saw on CNN, "China to send aid to Japan." No country suffered the horrors that China did from Japan during WWII. Chinese leadership still to the present day does not feel that Japan has apologized or made reparations. Many Chinese people do not have warm feelings towards Japan. Yet despite all this, the uniting bond of human compassion is overcoming the pain of an inhuman past; and -

4) So much for "Godless Communism". As JFK said, "-On earth God’s work must truly be our own." Of course, the Chinese weren’t following JFK, most never heard of him. But they were following the Golden Rule, first enunciated by their most celebrated figure, Confucius, around 500 BC;

5) The nations of the world are rushing to help. Hopefully this will be well coordinated. The US should move all resources away from destructive wars and to life saving missions wherever they are needed, starting with JAPAN;

Rand Paul to get potty training!

2011-03-13T00:38:00.000-05:00

Rand Paul is about to get potty trained! In response to his complaint that he could not find a toilet that works, Department of Energy Deputy Assistant Kathleen Hogan, said “I can find you a toilet that works.”

Rand’s rant was part of his longer harangue against government regulations, this time over the 2007 law requiring the phase-in of energy efficient light bulbs and also toilet regs (presumably the 1994 standard of 1.6 gpf, gallons per flush). Paul argues that these regulations restrict consumer choice.

Well, YEAH, that is what all public interest regulations do, restrict certain choices that are on balance harmful to our long term welfare. Yet Paul cannot see through the dark lens of his hard held libertarian ideology. That is why he said private business owners should be able to discriminate. It is why he opposes most all government—EXCEPT when it benefits him, like Medicare/Medicaid, which contributes more than half of his income.

And that is the problem when people in a policy making position see issues only through their ideology. Their egos and biases prevent them from looking rationally at the problems, the root causes and the solutions, most of which come as the result of much research and collaboration among those most qualified to address and resolve the issues—in this case, conserving energy through technology-enabled efficient light bulbs and water conservation through toilet flush limits.

Paul incredibly compared women’s reproductive rights with light bulb choices, asking Ms. Hogan if she was pro-choice. He then said, “"The point is that most members of your administration probably would be frank and would be up front to characterize themselves as being pro-choice for abortion. But you're really anti-choice on every other consumer item that you've listed here."
http://www.kentucky.com/2011/03/11/1666049/rand-paul-rips-energy-department.html.

That is the problem with America: too many people in the top positions of leadership who have no business being there. First, like Paul, they spend time on issues that have already been resolved in a manner that benefits us, yet because of their prejudices (see discussion about ideology, above) they seek to wreck them. Second, they make such illogical arguments designed only to divide and weaken us. Sure, he will score more points with anti-abortionists,, but there is not a hair’s width of relevance to raise the issue in this context.

Maybe he’s just pulling a Charlie Sheen by orchestrating hilarity to get publicity, possibly with an eye (unbelievably!) to the 2012 Presidential race. What’s really sad is that what works for screen entertainers—who operate in a true make believe world—may end up working in politics, where people like Paul use “make believe” to not only get elected, but make policy.

Hmm, Paul may be right after all about toilets, it’ll take two flushes to get that stink away.

Government shutdown? "So be it!"

2011-02-25T21:20:00.002-05:00

The battle is now.

It had been brewing with every Tea party, every GOP fundraiser, and every billionaire backed think tank spin job that culminated in the Republicans’ fiction-fueled takeover of the House.

President Obama has stretched his politically sensitive neck rightward in conciliation. In swift order he deftly diverted any hint of blame for the Arizona massacre on right wing fervor, he wooed, even wowed, big business at the US Chamber of Commerce. He even went so far as to sacrifice the poor (proposing to cut $2.5 billion from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) on the altar of bi-partisan compromise.

All to no avail.

It is time for him to straighten up and fly left-- fast, hard and unyieldingly left, until we center our course in the manner of Dwight David Eisenhower, the last great Republican president, who heartily embraced government’s role in creating the vaunted--yet now quickly shrinking-- American middle class.

Job-killing Republicans have drawn a sophomoric line in the sand, calling for $60 billion in spending cuts over the next 7 months that would destroy 600,000 jobs, crush poor and middle class Americans and gut regulatory oversight. Not only would they defund protection of our air, land and water by thwarting the EPA, incredibly—but not surprisingly given that they are bought and paid for by Wall Street—they would cut the Security and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Commodity Future Trading Commission, the very agencies responsible for protecting us from the runaway greed and corruption that caused our recent economic collapse.

President Obama must not budge, not one nickel should be cut from programs for those most in need. Agencies that protect our welfare must be sufficiently funded. Job training, health care, housing, legal aid, global hunger relief, renewable energy, and National Public Radio must all be preserved, if not strengthened.

There can be no compromise on any of this. If this means a government shutdown—and no social security check for mom, or unemployment for cousin Bob, or tuition for sis, or surgery for Aunt Millie, or food for millions who depend on food stamps—then, in the words of Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, “so be it.”

It is time to bring this conflict to a head. Enough with Republicans’ bogus concern for deficits. They had not a whit of concern in running a Clinton surplus into a historic multi-trillion dollar deficit when Bush was president and they controlled both houses of Congress. The spending over the last two years was essential to prevent an even worse Depression after a collapse that had it roots in the corruption -laden policies of the Republicans while they were running up the deficit.

They may truly believe that their way—i.e. passive government, extreme wealth concentration at the top, anything goes for the powerful—is what is best for America. But history has utterly disproven that premise beginning with the 1929 crash and ensuing Depression and our recent turmoil, again brought on by Republican incentivized greed and corruption combined with government de-regulation.

That Americans not in the top tax brackets seem so willing to return power to Republicans, who crashed their economy, slashed their wealth and smashed their world standing, is a cry for leadership. Instead of aiding and abetting their fraud, President Obama must with every speech, every meeting and every appearance teach the fact-based truths of history. Better that we learn from our past, than suffer anew the retched realities of wayward Republicanism.

Richard Dawahare 2/25/11

Frankfort Infested with E-COAL-I!

2011-02-19T13:33:00.001-05:00

There’s an E-Coal-I outbreak in Frankfort! The power brokers for the profit seekers in the EYE, COAL and usurious INTEREST industries have infested state government. Power Brokers “A” are those wanting favorable legislation and who therefore employ legions of lobbyists and lavish generous dollars to Power Brokers “B”, the legislators with the power to write the laws the way “A” wants them. Unfortunately too many legislators take the money and give their allegiance more to industry-donors than to the constituency they are supposed to represent: we, the people and the land on which we live. They are to do all they can to protect and promote the “common wealth” of our Commonwealth.

Collectively, the current mechanizations of the optometry, coal and payday lending lobbies provide a textbook example of the failures of our current political system, both here and in Washington, a failure which is and has been destroying our democracy and in the long term will destroy our nation.

It is not that there are two sides to each story, there are. Yet it is our legislators’ job to look at the facts, and weigh all the consequences, pro and con, of action or as the case may be, inaction. They are to do their own research and not just take what the big money lobbyists throw at them. They then must study issues coldly and objectively—like James Bond—then do what is best for the people and the greater public interest. They are, in short, supposed to lead and to do so in a way that reflects our highest values, chief among them truth, justice, compassion, and the Golden Rule.

But too often, and on these three issues, they have fallen short:

The OPTOMETRISTS:
The problem here is that Frankfort is rushing through the agenda desired and paid for by the Kentucky Optometric Association, which made more than $400,000 in contributions to the campaigns of 137 out of 138 legislatures and to Governor Beshear’s re-election campaign. The optometrists want to be allowed to perform certain surgical procedures and prescribe drugs, arguing that it will provide better service, particularly to rural patients who have less access to ophthalmologists. On the merits the half of the equation allowing for the prescription of certain medications seems appropriate—Kentucky is one of few states that does not allow it.

However, the provision allowing surgery—no matter how limited—is inappropriate and downright dangerous. The current accreditation system that has served us well insures that those who wield a knife or laser on our bodies are doctors who have undergone the requisite training and board certification. This time honored system should not be discarded lightly, if a t all. Indeed most states do not allow optometrists to do such surgeries.

Yet the bill has breezed through the House Licenses and Occupation Committee and will get a full House vote on Friday. You can be 100% sure that had those donations not been made there would be no movement at all on this matter, which is certainly not at the top of the list of items the legislature could and should be addressing on the people’s behalf.

COAL:
I get that coal is important—indeed I owe my life to it (my grandparents would not have immigrated to Eastern Kentucky if not for the coal boom in the late 19th/early 20thcentury). But mountaintop removal, unsafe mining practices and operations that run afoul of federal law must be stopped. The coal barons have had their way forever, now finally the Obama administration is re-asserting the federal government’s rightful regulatory role, which governor Beshear is doing all he can to obstruct.

Additionally, two bills have been submitted that have no chance of succeeding and if passed will only result in potentially millions in legal fees. Both seek to prohibit the federal government from enforcing its laws in the Kentucky. House Bill 421 exempts coal mining from the federal Clean Water Act and other EPA regulation if the coal is used inside Kentucky and does not cross state lines (but 20% of mine sediment goes into rivers that flows outside Kentucky which makes all mining subject to federal regulation) and Senate Joint Resolution 99, which declares that Kentucky should be a "sanctuary state" for the coal industry, free from "the overreaching regulatory power" of the EPA.

We fought the civil war to establish for ALL TIME the Constitutional principle of federal supremacy, and thank God for it, so that we are protected from the excesses of self-proclaimed fiefdoms who want nothing more than to do what they want the way they want to do it. Kentucky legislators who try to turn the clock back and who want to de-regulate the most hazardous industry around are violating their public trust.

PAYDAY LENDERS
Unbelievably HB 182, which would have capped yearly interest rates on pay day lenders at 36%, died in the House Banking and Insurance Committee. Those voting against the bill say that many poor people have no other access to emergency funds and that the payday industry employs 2000 people.

However, these lenders now charge what amounts to 400% annual interest. This is truly unconscionable and simply unbelievable in a supposedly “Bible Belt” state that is surely aware of the famous ancient screeds against usury. With interest rates as low as they are now, I would say 36% is approaching usury much less 400%. There is no justification for it whatsoever and the fact that our legislature lets it continue is an outrage.

The problem here, again, is twofold. The first is the undue influence of contributions from the industry. The second and perhaps more lethal problem is the failure of lawmakers to follow those high values of a just and righteous society.

Values matter. Individually, they are the indispensible guideposts to living a just, meaningful and rewarding life. On a societal level high values are the keystone upon which strong, equitable societies are built and are sustained. Every step away from these values chinks the foundation of our democracy, and thereby weakens it. If we fail to do justice, if we fail to follow truth, and if we fail to legislate with mercy, compassion and love (the Golden Rule) we imperil our future.

Richard F. Dawahare 2/19/11

The greatest democratic event in my lifetime

2011-02-11T12:46:00.002-05:00

The Egyptian revolution that finally culminated in today’s historic resignation of President Hosni Mubarak’s is the world’s most hopeful event since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Gandhi must be crying tears of joy, right along with Washington, Adams and Jefferson (throw in Jacques Rousseau and John Locke as well).

Egyptians of all stripes (except the top 1% or so who enjoyed the riches and spoils of being a Mubarak crony) followed the lead of young, educated and heretofore hopeless Egyptians to demand a change, to demand a voice in their own governance.
It was righteous, it was peaceful, it was respectful, it was relentless and as a result it was successful.

For the first time EVER, one of the world’s oldest civilizations is on the cusp of democratic self-government. The people have always been lorded over by Pharaohs and foreigners. For over 400 years they were captive to the Ottoman sultanates, then the British from 1914 to 1952, and finally by their own home grown dictators, beginning with Gamal Nassar and ending with Mubarak.

For now, it is time to rejoice. We can forget for the moment whether a real democracy will arise, whether the military will support it and most importantly, whether the people will ultimately see the improvement in actual life prospects that fueled their courageous stand for change.

Let us look at the many reasons for celebration:

1) This was peaceful—the violence only coming when Mubarak’s hired hands tried to derail the protests.

2) This was not a fundamentalist/extremist fueled movement. No, it was instead the cries of a peoples who have lived in a virtual prison ever since Mubarak took power, subject to constant martial law, arrest for no reason, a government totally unresponsive to their needs, with wealth evermore concentrated in the hands of the corrupt few. They had no hope, no future and no justice and wanted only what we enjoy here—which today’s technology makes apparent to them on a 24/7 basis.

3) The movement had nothing to do with Israel. Indeed there were no anti-Israeli protests. There is no reason to believe that continued peaceful relations won’t continue (however, they will certainly be more likely to seek true justice for the Palestinians).

4) The military was superb, letting the demonstrations unfold without instigating violence, without impeding them, and often helping them with overt acts of kindness.

5) President Obama quickly and rightly called for peaceful and meaningful change, surely and squarely siding with the Egyptian democracy seekers, which surely helped make this historic event happen.

You want to know the kicker: This unbelievably Nirvanic event happened 21 years to the day that Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Freedom is our fate.

God (Allah) is great!

Richard F. Dawahare 2/11/11

The Power of Empathy

2011-02-10T15:57:00.000-05:00

Republican Senate President David Williams did something that runs directly counter to his conservative core: he spoke in favor of a statewide smoking ban. “Having set with my father and heard his last gasp because he was a 30 year smoker…I don’t think second smoking and smoking is a joke, it is a workplace (safety) issue…” Senator Williams said at the Kentucky Press Association gubernatorial candidate forum.

Diehard conservative ideologues are fuming, yet Mr. Williams’ own experience with his father undoubtedly opened his heart to the toll of tobacco addiction and by extension the harm to others through secondhand smoke. Mr. Williams’ direct exposure to suffering arouses within him the desire to put the welfare of people ahead of rigid ideology.

Most importantly, the cause (banning smoking in public places) would be no less worthy had Senator Williams not had this exposure. If his father had never smoked it is quite possible that Williams would have joined his conservative brethren in opposing the use of government in this way, putting the ideology of small, limited government ahead of the public interest. The cause would remain as just and necessary as it is now, but without his support. Instead, his empathy enables him to see the folly of inaction.

Such is the power of empathy. We see over and over again the progress in our world borne of simple human empathy. FDR’s polio humbled and sensitized him to the sufferings of all humans, no matter the source. It made him see that collective action through the United States government could improve the lives of the aged, the infirm, the disabled and the unemployed—the poor in body, mind and spirit.
Dick Cheney’s having a lesbian daughter surely inspires his support for gay marriage. Closer to home, my good friend Mike Digiuro, father of slain UK player Trent Digiuro, may be conservative politically, but it his personal tragedy that enlightens his understanding of the need to take guns used in crimes off the street.

Empathy, the figurative “putting ourselves in the shoes of another” leads to more understanding and takes us closer to truth. That truth helps dispel the fears and falsities of our previously hard held ideals and leads to progress, not only for ourselves, but when experienced on a universal scale, for the world as a whole.

This begs two further questions. First, on what other issues might we adjust our viewpoint based on personal experience? Perhaps we know a good friend who, try as they might, cannot get a job and whose unemployment benefits expired. Might we then ask Congress to extend them? Maybe you lose your health insurance and suffer an illness for which you can’t get treatment. Surely then the wisdom of a single payer, universal health care system to replace the for-profit private insurance middle man would come shining through.

And maybe as you toured Egypt you met a commoner yearning to be free from the tyranny of a dictatorship kept in power by the country you call home. Might you feel at least a little uneasy about American policies that sometimes contradict our own foundational values of freedom and democracy?

The second question is this: why must any of us wait for a personal experience? Why not, in the interest of reaching a higher truth and a better understanding, force ourselves to imagine being in the opposite position? No matter the issue, would we not come nearer the truth and thus do more justice by actively imagining ourselves as “the other?”

Feel the suffering. Then see the relief that a people united in truth, and with faith in its values, can bring. David Williams did and we may all breathe easier because of it.

Richard F. Dawahare 2/10/11

Stopping the new Stormtroopers

2010-10-28T22:55:00.000-04:00

The Republican Party is not satisfied with trying to undo 200 years of progress along the path of democracy so boldly forged by our founders. They are now the new Stormtroopers, silencing dissent with violence. The once Grand old party is now led by the likes of Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle, members of the supposed ‘fairer’ sex, who exhort their followers to violence, if necessary, to overthrow our government.

Today’s Republican leadership, combined with the hate, fear and violence-inspiring rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and others is directly and unlawfully causing violence in our world. It is no exaggeration to now compare their tactics, including riling this dissension with outright lies and incredibly false propaganda, with the fascists of old.

The Brownshirts and Stormtroopers of Nazi Germany readily clubbed, shot or arrested all who dared oppose candidate Hitler, before he won the election. Upon taking power the attacks intensified. After so many acts of violence, the opposition—the ones who stood for truth, righteousness and justice—were indeed silenced for good. The monster thus unleashed and unopposed and in concert with Germany’s biggest corporations, devoured their world with ghoulish and ghastly brutality.

Life’s most vexing tragedies begin with unappreciated irony and innocence. Pretty Sarah Palin promoting guns. Sharron Angle (close to Angel) fomenting violent overthrow of the government. And now, right here in quaint picket-fenced Lexington, Rand Paul Brownshirts, big brawny men, wrestling down and stomping an innocent girl’s head into the concrete curb.

It must not be tolerated! The Attorney General must work with federal authorities to bring the full force of state and federal law to bear against not only the foot stomper but also the mouthpieces of destruction. Free speech is one thing, a precious thing to be protected. But exhorting followers that violence is justified to thwart a government they wrongly categorize as a threat to be exterminated is not.

18 USC 2385 is the Federal statute outlawing advocating the overthrow of the government. It says in part: “Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State…Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”

Palin, Angle, Beck, Limbaugh and many others have already crossed the line. Where is the government these Republicans complain so loudly about? Perhaps afraid to do what it is supposed to be doing—protecting law and order in a civilized democracy—so as not to add fuel to their fire. Regardless, our government must act. Federal law enforcement authorities must confront any and all appeals to violence, to “Second Amendment remedies” or other calls to overthrow our government.

Our future absolutely depends upon it.

The Armageddon Election

2010-10-22T10:56:00.000-04:00

This is the Armageddon election. Should they retake Congress, as is likely to happen, Republicans will have ridden hypocrisy, hatred and home-schooled ignorance to victory and worse, America's demise. For this election is not merely a choice between partisans who are otherwise united around our social compact and the government that enables it. No, this election pits a post-Reagan Republican Party, taken over by radical tea partiers who, unlike responsible conservative leaders of old, are intent on destroying our government and reversing over 200 years of progress along the path our forefathers set for us, against the Democrats who have time and again come to the rescue of it.

This is no hyperbole. A nation cannot long endure the divisive stress of so many citizens opposed to their government, no matter how misinformed. When a majority of voters are either so uneducated, or so willfully misled to support a party that promotes the destruction of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and civil rights; that opposes federal government oversight and regulation of Wall Street, mines, drugs and many other areas of consumer protection; that promotes or by its silence tolerates a resort to guns and violence in order to instill their warped view of the Constitution; that vilifies gays, immigrants, the unemployed and welfare recipients; and that rushes to support the proven failed policies that twice brought our country to the brink of destruction, then that nation cannot stand, much less continue to flourish.

While this is my prediction, it most certainly is not my hope. I hope that enough Americans can see through the ruse and vote for the Democrats in this election. I hope that a new generation of Republican leadership will arise who accepts our social contract, our government and our democracy. I hope that all elected officials regardless of party will act responsibly and respectfully as trustholders for the people, and not for special interests or hard-held ideological beliefs.

Mostly I hope that a nation of mostly self-professed Christians would heed the true teachings of Jesus, and not the wayward traditions of man.

War no more!

2010-07-01T23:21:00.000-04:00

Recalcitrant generals are the symptom. Bad wars are the problem. We should never have started the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both are horrid abominations, immoral atrocities of a faithless people, who put their hopes more in their military might than in the God they proclaim so patriotically to trust.

The fact is that 9/11 scared America so much that it lost touch with reason, that sanctuary of fact and perspective that leads to truth and justice. The Bush/Cheney team had their own narrow agenda, long planned before 9/11, consisting of equal parts ideology (the neocon agenda per the Project for a New American Century), oil, the corporate military industrial complex and revenge.

Acting in a manner repugnant to both the Constitution and the Bible, the Bush team cooked the facts, and used its propaganda mouthpieces, including such local lapdogs as the Rush-infested WHAS, to mislead a weary, fear-prone populace to support their wayward wars as matters of self-preservation when the precise opposite was true: These wars make us less safe and jeopardize our long-term security. Even one human life is precious; we’ve wasted millions. Each tax dollar is vital, we'll have squandered trillions. And we tripled a military budget that was already more than the rest of the world combined when Bush took office. All on account of some rogue criminals, who did most of their 9/11 planning right here on American soil.

Our brave military soldiers are the real heroes. Like a well-oiled gun, their duty is to be ready whenever called upon to act. The bad leaders who wrongly call them to action are the guilty ones, and they must stand trial to answer for their crimes.

President Obama must get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq. We aren't wanted there. We can't change a culture, their religion or their history, nor should we. We are fighting natives who defend their homeland -- just as we would our own. Al-Qaida is long gone, and just may be a red herring in any case. (Bush/Cheney let bin Laden escape Tora Bora in November 2001.)

End the wars and use multi-national intelligence, economic and diplomatic tools to create stability there, security here and justice everywhere.

Raise Taxes NOW!

2010-03-06T16:44:00.002-05:00

Fellow Kentuckians—it is time for us to come to the aid of our Commonwealth. It is time to breathe life into our beloved slogan, “United we stand.” It is time to belly up to the bar of effective self government, so that we do not go belly up. Simply put, it is time to pay more taxes.

What goes for Kentucky goes for the nation. Overall, our taxes are lower now than they have been in decades. In fact, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts have so starved the federal treasury ($1.7 trillion over 7 years) that more costs for essential services have been pushed onto the states, worsening our deficits.

The impetus for today’s plea is the coincidence of my work as a Guardian ad Litem representing dependent, neglected and abused children and the recent stories of Kentucky reaching yet another low by leading the nation in child deaths from such abuse. Plans to open family courts (now held in private for the protection of the children) may be worthwhile, but may also obscure a key issue: too few social workers, the real heroes who protect our children and help their parents get back on track.

Some social workers currently have up to twice the recommended national caseload. This means that many children—as well as their parents who need rehabilitative services—simply cannot get all the attention required, despite the yeoman efforts of overstressed workers. Other essential state agencies are similarly underfunded.

The governor and his team have done a fine job of eliminating waste and are now cutting into the marrow. Undoubtedly, more savings can be found by repealing wasteful tax breaks, adopting penal reform and other measures. But this will take time; a tax hike will hasten the task, while providing much needed revenue now.

Naysayers scream that taxes should never be raised, especially in a tough economy. Yet now is the perfect time, not merely to raise life-saving revenue, but to stand up and confront the utterly false notion that government is an evil to be, in the words of anti-tax guru Grover Norquist, “drowned in the bathtub.” Enough with letting such false voices of futility divide and weaken our nation!

The truth is that America was founded upon and has attained its current stature by virtue of a strong, citizen-oriented government. Thus, this call for a small tax hike (1% more on most, an additional 1-2% for the top wage earners) honors our heritage and stands for the bedrock truth that government is good and necessary, that its employees are truly exemplary public servants and that taxes are a noble expression of our devotion to our world-leading social contract, so boldly begun by our founding fathers over 200 years ago.

As my grandfather used to say, “Taxes are the cheapest rent we can pay to live in the greatest country in the world.” Let us come likewise together for our common wealth, our Commonwealth, our Kentucky home.

Richard Frank Dawahare 3/6/10

Medicare for All

2009-11-12T09:53:00.002-05:00

True health care reform is the new anti-slavery movement. Not since the dark days of yokes and chains have we faced an issue so burning with the moral imperative for change.

The current profits-over-people private health insurance industry must go, just as it has in nearly the entire expanse of the planet. Just like slavery, America stands alone as the last developed country that not only allows, but actively encourages, a private profit-making middle-man industry to thrive at the expense of human health. This industry made $17 billion in profits last year alone, while an average of 122 people die each day from the inability to get health care.

None of us are secure. A lost job, changing family dynamics, grave illness or any other of life's many vagaries can lead to a termination of one's ability to get insurance. Ever-soaring premiums leave the rest of us a worried, financially depleted mess.

The real crime is that the current system is absolutely unnecessary. From the start, it was conceived as a profit center for the few at the expense of the many. Private insurers are nothing more than meddling middle-men who do nothing to add value to our life-saving health delivery system. This is why they spend hundreds of millions greasing the politicians, who do Olympian-sized acrobatic maneuvers to put on the appearance of "reform" while protecting the insurers' lock on the system.

BILLIONS in profits in a system that were the American people to awaken, they would see is so useless we would end it in a heartbeat. This is the reason they spend millions in propaganda, to paint reformers as "socialists," and the United States government as an evil, incompetent good-for-nothing enemy of the people.

Newspapers, themselves the beneficiaries of insurance advertising money, are tripping all over themselves promoting reform, but they perform the same acrobatics with noble prose made meaningless by the omission of the key to real reform: abolition of our current for-profit health insurance system.

It is imperative to note here that those in the industry are good people, doing what they are supposed to do by maximizing profit. It is the system that is the problem. And it is only a matter of time before we change it, for the immorality of this system that puts profits ahead of people is so great, so obvious, that this truth will not long remain hidden.

Expanding Medicare for all is the only true reform. We could harness the tremendous efficiencies of a system we already have in operation. Total overhead costs and waste would go from the current 33 percent (the approximate low end of the scale) to under 4 percent, providing enough savings to cover us all and do so more cheaply.

Never again would we lose insurance. Never would we be denied for pre-existing conditions. Never would a private insurer meddle between us and our doctors. Medicare for all is the only true reform solution. It is the future. And the future has arrived.

Me? Savvy?

2009-11-08T13:07:00.002-05:00

**This was my off the cuff (from the heart) response on the Courier-Journal's Point Taken blog to a detractor's charge that I was not "savvy". As it turns out this perfectly summarizes my philosophy, and why I would not be a good political candidate--at least in the conventional sense.
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Me? Savvy? I have no idea--I hate labels and do not live my life with them in mind. I am probably not at all savvy in the sense of political gamesmanship. As I just said I do not let "public opinion" influence what I see as truth, as what will best benefit our greater public interest, long term. Thus, I will always choose speaking and standing for truth before I help encourage my country, my people from charging over the cliff, be that an illegal, immoral and counterproductive war or the continuation of a philosophy that lets the wolves guard our henhouse, that protects the wealth of the few at the expense of the many.

Single Payer Universal Healthcare is Economical, it is Moral, it is Constitutional, it is doable and it is TIME!

2009-09-03T15:49:00.006-04:00

The following speech was presented to the Central Kentuckians for SINGLE PAYER Universal Healthcare reform Forum, Saturday, August 29, at the historic Kentucky Theater....

A. GOOD MORNING! It’s a beautiful day to talk about healthcare reform!! I am excited, FOR I know we will have MEANINGFUL Healthcare reform! Americans proven over and over that when we follow the truth, and act with justice we stand united and come together for our greater good—AND WE WILL DO IT AGAIN!

You know, on the way over I met a man who suffered a serious heart attack and they took him to the nearest hospital over to St. Joe and they fixed him up good. The nun from the billing dept came up and asked how he was going to pay.
“Do you have insurance?” “NO,” he said in a raspy voice.
“Well, do you have any money?” “No, no money at all.”
“What about family?”
“Ah, all I got is this old spinster sister of mine who is a nun.”“SIR! I’ll have you know, we nuns are not spinsters! Nuns are married to GOD!”
His face lit up as he said, “GREAT! In that case send the bill to my brother-in-law!”

B. I am going to share with you FOUR BIG TRUTHS:

1) THAT SINGLE PAYER universal HEALTHCARE is the MOST economical, most effective and fairest system possible. Everybody in, nobody out, no pre-existing conditions, no terminations, no exclusions, denials, rationing, or bankruptcies, quality health care for all!

2) THAT SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE is a CONSTITUTIONAL imperative, that is, our federal government has an AFFIRMATIVE DUTY to act on our behalf;

3) THAT SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE is a MORAL IMPERATIVE

4) THAT CONTRARY TO THE ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA, OUR GOVERNMENT IS GOOD, and has for our 230 year history has helped make America the finest country on the planet.

C. The FIRST TRUTH---- SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE IS THE MOST ECONOMICAL, EFFECTIVE AND FAIREST SYSTEM.

1) YOU just saw the terrific film, Sick around the World, and you saw how good other’s systems are compared to ours—THEY ALL have UNIVERSAL, NON-PROFIT health care system, and many have Single Payer. THE REASON Single Payer works is that it is SO MUCH MORE EFFICIENT it will make every dollar we currently spend go nearly TWICE as far.

Essentially SINGLE PAYER replaces the more than 1300 for-profit private insurance companies with ONE BIG INSURANCE POOL, ONE BIG PLAN that is owned and operated by…..US, the people of the United States of America, and JUST LIKE MEDICARE, along with Social Security, the most successful and endearing government program, WE THE PEOPLE will administer this non-profit UNIVERSAL PLAN. PUBLICLY financed with our tax dollars and PRIVATELY delivered by our current medical system. MEDICARE FOR ALL.

2) HOW IS THIS MORE ECONOMICAL? Right now we have 1300 for profit HEALTH INSURERS whose primary mission is to MAXIMIZE PROFIT AND MINIMIZE CARE.

**NOW LET ME GET THIS OUT THERE right away—the PEOPLE in the private insurance industries, including the CEO’s are not bad people, many are community leaders, compassionate and generous people. It is not them, but THE SYSTEM that is bad. They are just doing their job, which is to maximize profits…

At any rate, our CURRENT SYSTEM allows the private insurance companies to make many billions each year by PUTTING PROFITS OVER PEOPLE—BY basically denying care & by denying coverage to those most in need, cherry picking the healthiest clients, then being tight fisted on what they cover even with them. Their profits have risen nearly 5 times since 1999, well over $15 billion per year, the top 10 CEO’s average $14 million per year salaries..

All these private insurance companies have huge overhead. They spend about 22% of their revenues on administration, marketing and profits—HUGE profits, not to mention the money they spend to grease the politicians’ palms!! THEN there are the additional costs to the DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS, the providers of care, for they must deal with all the bureaucratic red tape of all the different insurance companies.

SO IN TOTAL, this needless overhead consumes about ONE THIRD—33% --of every dollar we spend on health care.

With SINGLE PAYER we can save more than $350 BILLION a year on this wasted paperwork, enough to provide coverage to everybody without paying more than we are now.

TO REPEAT: IN TOTAL ABOUT 33% OF EVERY DOLLAR WE SPEND GOES TO WASTED ADMINISTRATIVE FEES and corporate profits and bonuses. By contrast MEDICARE’s administrative costs are AROUND 4%!!

ONE BIG POOL, ONE BIG PLAN, owned and operated by…US, you, me the taxpayer!! EVERYBODY IN, NOBODY OUT. A HIGHLY EFFICIENT MEDICARE FOR ALL!

3) HOW IS S/P THE FAIREST, MOST EFFECTIVE REFORM? We currently spend twice what other developed countries spend per capita but get much less quality and quantity. The very unfairness of putting profit over people is why every other advanced country—all of whom have higher rankings than the US—have gone to a UNIVERSAL H/C and most have a SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM.

4) HOW DOES IT WORK? Every employee/worker will pay around 3% of their salary AND employers will pay around 4.5% PLUS there will be a slight tax rise for the wealthiest among us.

5) HOW DO WE GET CARE? You simply go to the doctor of your choice DR/PATIENT RELATIONSHIP PROTECTED. THERE WILL BE NO DENIALS FOR PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, you cannot lose your insurance if you get seriously ill OR lose your job, YOU CAN NOT GO BANKRUPT from medical bills—AND—BONUS—it will cover everything—ALL DR visits—NO CO-PAYS, DEDUCTABLES, limits or exclusions AND it includes all DENTAL, EYES, even nursing homes.

6) WILL STOP rationing and death squads! NOW we have a system where the for-profit private insurers are DENYIN’, DENYIN’ DENYIN’ AND PEOPLE ARE DYIN’, DYIN’, DYIN’!

7) ALSO, SINGLE PAYER will RESCUE the American free enterprise system.

Without health care reform, small businesses will pay nearly $2.4 trillion dollars over the next ten years in health care costs for their workers, 178,000 small business jobs will be lost by 2018 as a result of health care costs, 11. The Economic Impact of Healthcare Reform on Small Business, Small Business Majority, June 2009.

Right now small businesses have a disadvantage compared to large companies. As an employer I can tell you that nothing was more gutwrenching then when one of our employees or their child got sick and they could not afford health insurance. Especially a single mom, no way to pay $12,000/year! It lowered morale, made others sick, hurt productivity. And now over 30% of small businesses offer no plan. WITH single payer, all companies big and small are on a level playing field. And for BIG companies their costs will be lower and they will be more competitive with foreign companies.

8) Finally, SINGLE PAYER will be a boom to our economy! MANY new jobs in health care will be created. More schools to train MORE doctors, more nurses and tech and support. Those working in HMOS in lower and middle position will get two years of unemployment, MONEY for re-training and opportunities to join the expanded MEDICARE administration.

SECOND TRUTH—SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE IS A CONSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVE

1) THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, history’s most respected and enduring political document, practically screams for A SINGLE PAYER healthcare system! The pre-amble to the Constitution is its spirit, it lists the reasons why our founders set off on their bold experiment of self-government, and the reasons for creating the CONSTITUTION and new country. Here is what it says:

“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.”

TO PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE! Nothing today can better promote the general welfare than Single Payer Universal healthcare my friends!

THIRD, SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE IS A MORAL IMPERATIVE:

Now when I speak of a morality here I refer to a greater moral purpose that exists beyond any and all religion. We all have different paths, but I truly believe they diverge at the point of heartfelt human compassion. And that is what I am talking about. So when I mention God, that is my own personal insertion and is not necessarily representative of all who have an equal sense of morality but follow a different path.
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1) There is no question but that God AND the highest callings of MORALITY would have us—the RICHEST NATION ON EARTH—FIND A WAY, to provide health care for all, before another private health insurer, an unnecessary MIDDLE MAN, makes another billion dollars in profit.
2) WE have heard over and over: “to bear each others’ burdens, that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, to love one another as you love yourself, that as you do to the LEAST of these you do unto me.”

3) It is fundamentally immoral to make human health, a matter of human life and death, a slave to profits! We KNOW this, we KNOW this in our hearts. This is NOT difficult. It’s so simple a caveman would know it, and CERTAINLY a child.

4) We must live up to Alexis De Tocqueville’s observation about America in his book, Democracy in America:

"America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good America will cease to be great."

Is there any doubt that a health care delivery system that puts PROFITS over PEOPLE is contrary to being a good and moral nation? It is therefore a moral imperative to adopt a Single Payer Universal, everybody, in nobody out healthcare reform.

FOURTH TRUTH, GOVERNMENT IS GOOD!

1) CONTRARY TO THE ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA, our government for over 230 years has been the backbone, the glue, the enabler of the wealthiest, freest, and fairest nation in the history of the world.

2) HOW DARE them lie about the proven quality and effectiveness of our government!

3) From DAY ONE in America our strong UNITED federal government has overseen the building of our nation’s infrastructure, created the world’s most esteemed system of justice; Social Security, Medicare, public education, Mail delivery—through rain, snow, sleet or gloom of night!, The MILITARY, the coinage of money, our beautiful national parks, scientific and medical research, the space program, FOOD AND DRUG safety, consumer protection, interstate highways, product safety, workplace regs and child labor laws, etc, etc,

4) When naysayers ask Does government work?

a. WHO provides a first class military that’s successfully provided for Common Defense? THE GOVT.
b. When you get up and turn on the radio or cable tv—OUR GOVT!
c. WHO INSURES that when you eat your breakfast without worry the food is safe—GOVT
d. WHO INSURES that when you drive in a safe car, down I-75—THE GOVT.
e. WHO INSURES tht if you breathe clean air and drink clean water—THE GOVT
f. WHO INSURES that take drugs that are safe, do what supposed to—THE GOVT!
g. When you mail a letter in snowstorm and it arr. Next day—GOVT!
h. If you get a Medicare check/soc. Sec/unemploy----THE GOVT
i. Student loans, food stamps—OR corp bailout, subsidy—GOVT
j. Visit a beautiful national park—THE GOVT
k. WHO INSURES Vaccination and protection from diseases—THE GOVT
l. WHO INSURES THAT YOU Feel safe about having money in the bank—THE GOVT.
m. Had a baby, or need to miss work to give care—GOVT.
n. WHO SEES that you have Workplace safety regs, child labor laws—THE GOVT.
o. Contract and commercial transactions protected—THE GOVT.
p. WHO PROVIDES Justice, law and order, fire protection, disaster response—GOVT
q. WHO OVERSEES Safe products, informative labeling, truth in advertising—THE GOVT
r. If you got a good free public education—THE GOVT.

5) THROUGH THESE AND MANY, MANY more ways does the government help create the environment, the atmosphere which enables us to FULLY PURSUE life, liberty and happiness. Govt helps form the COCOON out of which the FRUITS OF INDIVIDUAL freedom can flourish, be it in commerce, science the arts or whatever. GOVT is a BOON to commerce and creativity, NOT A BARRIER.

6) Often we lose sight of the big picture and need a new set of eyes to see reality. For America this new set of eyes can often come from immigrants. My grandfather loved his new country, he EASILY saw that his opportunity to create a business, serve customers, grow a family were only possible through a strong, compassionate, citizen-oriented GOVERNMENT.
The GOVT came in and saved his business after the FLOODS in Eastern Ky— SBA loans. The GOVT helped insure his kids got an education.
His govt created laws of commerce and treated all equally, and on and on.

7) My grandfather UNDERSTOOD so much that America would and could not be America without its Government. He loved it so much he said “Taxes are the CHEAPEST RENT I could pay to live in the GREATEST COUNTRY in the world.” He named three sons after presidents—Woodrow Wilson, my dad, uncle Warren Harding, and Herbert Hoover, who was born on election day, 1928. It was a close election and they had to wait three days to name him. If Al Smith would have won he’d have been uncle Al Smith!

8) THE BOTTOME LINE: GOVT is the enabler of this beautiful inter-connected quilt we call America. And GOVT. therefore has AFFIRM. DUTY TO insure affordable, quality H/C for all like in other countries.

9) SO HOW DARE they lie about the Government of the United States of America. NOW the people falling for the lies are good people. But they are misled. And who can fault them—who has time…..

10) So we must engage others with love—LISTEN, acknowledge truth, but CORRECT mis-statements, point to all that govt has done FOR OVER 230 YEARS.

11) BUT----JUST WHY IS THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY SPREADING THE LIES AND PROPAGANDA that government is bad, even worse—EVIL? BECAUSE THEY ARE REAPING BILLIONS AND BILLIONS in profits, and HUGE salaries and bonuses in the current system that they PAY for. They are spending $1.4 MILLION per day lobbying Congress, and millions more on the deceitful propaganda in order to keep their profits, profits made at our expense.

12) Worse, they are corrupting our democracy, paying off politicians who act on THEIR behalf instead of OURS. * WHEN WILL THEY ACT FOR US, FOR THE PEOPLE, AND NOT FOR THE BIG MONEY special interests?? ****

13) The KEY TEST of any policy matter is WILL IT BEST BENEFIT THE LONG TERM GREATER PUBLIC INTEREST?? But too often politicians do what benefits them or the hand that is feeding them, keeps them in power and then when they leave a lot go to that industry for big bucks.

14) So, HERE IS WHAT TO DO! Call your congressperson and Senator. Write letters to the editors. Find people you TRUST will put the PEOPLE FIRST, make candidates COMMIT TO SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE and to following the KEY TEST—what will best benefit the LONG TERM greater public int.

15) Personally, I have no ulterior motive except that which best promotes our long term greater welfare. I have from the time of my youth, been trained by uncles and parents that noble political service means doing what is right for THE PEOPLE. I have long been interested in public policy and always strove to promote that which is best for the LONG TERM GREATER GOOD. I study the truth, the facts, what works elsewhere, what is just, moral and effective and that is why I am so passionate about SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE. IT IS NOT ONLY GOING TO BEST BENEFIT US IN THE LONG TERM, but it will help us RIGHT NOW! PEOPLE NEED IT NOW, BUSINESSES NEED IT NOW, AMERICA NEEDS IT NOW!

CONCLUSION
The true test for any nation, especially one that claims so righteously to be “under God” is how it treats its poorest citizens, those meet disaster, AND how they treat their elderly—can they have an old age in which they will find security and care.

To our great credit we went a long ways for the elderly with Medicare. And now it is time for us to complete that equation.

SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE is ECONOMICAL, IT IS MORAL, IT IS CONSTITUTIONAL it is doable and it is TIME!

YOU + ME = WE and WE can do it!

THANK YOU!

Richard Frank Dawahare 8/29/09

Gambling's endgame: economic armaggedon

2009-07-31T16:00:00.005-04:00

Stripped of all emotion, political gamesmanship, ulterior motives and special vested interests what remains are these facts on the slots/expanded gambling issue.

First, good people gamble. In fact those who gamble slots machines include some of the finest people I know. Grannies gamble for goodness sake, so there is nothing inherently evil about people who make this choice. But that is not the point.

Second, some Kentuckians do gamble away their money in out of state casinos. About 16% of Kentuckians have done so, that’s it, 16%. Yet our venturing gamblers have neither hurt Kentucky nor, more importantly, have they helped casino states. For the fact is that casino state budgets are busted, and have historically been more stressed than Kentucky’s. They have waited in vain for the financial salvation slots were supposed to bring, even before the current recession. In fact, most states have seen their budgetary situation worsen with the advent of expanded gambling. But that is not the point.

Third, the fate of the horse industry may or may not be as dire as those with a vested interest in expanded gambling allege. With fear-based emotional appeals they have been allowed to frame the issue in a way most to their liking. Regardless, there are many funding alternatives should such be necessary. Slots are the worst option for they will usher in far more damage to our overall welfare than the short term infusion of cash to a select few. But that is not the point.

Fourth, pro-gambling legislators, including some of our top leaders, truly want what is best for Kentucky. They are sincere in their belief that it will solve much of our financial needs, that it will save the horse industry, help our schools and lower our taxes. Yet not only are their forecasts wildly inaccurate (35% of a billion is $350 million, not the $700 plus million being tossed around) but they are shortsighted. Gambling’s costs will outweigh its revenues at least three to one over the long term, which is why gambling states’ budgets are such a wreck, see above. But that is not the point.

Fifth, a court will eventually rule that a Constitutional amendment is necessary in order to expand gambling to slots, vlt’s or any other type of electronic or casino gambling. The voters, in approving the 1988 Constitutional amendment allowing the lottery, intended to permit only the traditional scratch off and online lottery games then in existence. This traditional lottery, and only this, is what the state promoted to us before our vote. In no way whatsoever did we vote to approve additional gambling beyond that limited exception, nor did the legislature intend for us to. We would, therefore, have to amend the Constitution once again in order to allow for expanded gambling.

But why would we want to? It is an absolute certainty that the unchecked spread of gambling will destroy our nation, economically and socially. I guarantee this eventuality with every last ounce of intellectual credibility that I may be fortunate enough to possess.

I can see the future for I have studied the past. This is the point.

In the late 1800’s we Americans saw our communities being destroyed by the lotteries (then the only widespread form of gambling) which is why not only Kentucky but every state changed their constitutions to prohibit gambling’s ugly head from ever rearing itself again. Today’s electronic gambling explodes that harm exponentially, which is why slots are called the “crack cocaine of gambling.” It may take a few more years, but eventually this same harm will be so noticeable that we will once again demand a return to sanity and a prohibition of the most lethal form of gambling.

It is only a matter of time before Americans finally connect the dots between community decline and casino style gambling. Overnight gambling will be seen as the pariah it truly is and the process of tearing it apart will take hold. This is the point.

Why should Kentucky not, for once, get ahead of the curve and lead? Why should Kentucky not follow the tried and true ways of building long term vitality instead of the illusion that we can get something for nothing? Why should Kentucky not resist contemporary society’s worst habit, the all too common quest for immediate gratification and short term gain that inevitably leads to long term pain?

Why must we let our leaders use gambling to slough off our problems on our most vulnerable citizens? Why must they continue to evade responsibility for tackling our real problem, which is an antiquated tax system?

We must stand tall and not allow ourselves to get sucked in by the propaganda, the doomsayers and the politicians, who are well meaning, but all too willing to take the easy buck rather than seek long term solutions. Just because other states have lost their minds is no excuse for us to lose ours.

The facts are clear: casino style gambling has worsened states’ budgets, hurt economies, destroyed lives, and thereby lowered our overall well being. Kentucky must do something it has rarely done since the first pioneers crossed the Cumberlands: lead.

Richard Frank Dawahare 7/30/09

Health care is a RIGHT in 21st century America

2009-07-08T16:54:00.000-04:00

Health care is a right in 21st century America! One of the most gut wrenching experiences as an employer was to see an employee or one of their children come down with an illness yet be unable to afford a doctor. I found it utterly incredible that in this country of such great riches and high moral bearing that many of its citizens could not afford even minor treatment.

Most small businesses simply cannot afford to provide health care to their employees, and increasingly even large companies are shifting more of the burden on them. Uninsured workers who fall ill lower a company’s productivity and endanger others by spreading their untreated disease. Even worse, this inability to get health care has a very depressive effect on total company morale. In essence unaffordable health care threatens our free enterprise system and the human capital so necessary to its survival.

This is intolerable and we must not let it continue. While America has wonderful medical capabilities our nearly 48 million of our citizens are unable to access them. In fact, America is the only developed country that does not provide comprehensive care to all of its citizens. This is why the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in health care, just behind Slovenia, but ahead of Costa Rica.

While those who can afford it get very good care, there is a wide gap between the top and bottom in America. By contrast those in the lowest income group in countries with universal health care get care that is equal to that of our highest group. And they enjoy this level of care while spending half as much per person as do we.

This is because our current for-profit private health insurance system is riddled with inefficiencies. Administrative costs, profits, sales and marketing combine to take nearly 50% of our health care dollar before it even reaches health care providers.

The National Health Insurance Bill, HR 676, provides the solution we seek. HR 676 is a single payer health insurance system that will create huge cost-saving efficiencies by funneling routine administrative functions through one body instead of the complex quilt of for profit private insurers. Hundreds of such companies—each with their own forms and reimbursement procedures—create a multi-billion dollar expense for hospitals and doctors’ offices.

Add to that the insurers’ own overhead, huge executive salaries (the heads of the top five firms made $73 million in 2007) and profits—remember, the prime duty of any business is to make profits— and we can understand how the current system wastes over $400 billion. 15%-25% of each dollar we spend comes right off the top for health insurers who make all that money largely by scheming how NOT to insure people. By comparison, Medicare takes less than 3% for overhead.

The single payer National Health Insurance feature of HR 676 will eliminate this incredible waste, as inhumane as it is inefficient. Such streamlining is a hallmark of successful best business practice. Our best college MBA programs teach it, and the best run companies do it all the time. The American taxpayer should do so as well.

HR 676 essentially expands Medicare, along with Social Security America’s most revered program, so that it covers everybody and everything including prescription drugs, dental care, and nursing home care for less than we currently spend. Never more would there be expensive co-pays, deductibles or exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Never again will any American be forced into bankruptcy because of health care debt. Never again will American businesses be unduly burdened by the anchor of sick but untreated employees.

Best of all we retain the freedom of choice and our doctors will make the health care decisions, not corporate executives whose top priority is profit maximization by service minimization.

Those working in the insurance industry will have new opportunities. Some will take on similar roles in the expanded Medicare system. Others will take advantage of retraining programs and educational opportunities for truly productive pursuits, using our skills to enhance life, instead of figuring out ways to profit by denying life-saving services to those most needing it.

Contrary to critics propagandistic claims HR 676 is NOT socialism. The single payer feature simply takes the collection and distribution of payments away from the private insurers—who are profit, not patient, oriented—while leaving the medical system itself completely alone and intact. This will save billions of dollars each year by eliminating the hundreds of complicated and redundant HMO payment plans foisted upon our doctors and hospitals, thus freeing up their time accomplish their core purpose of providing superior health care services to their patients.

The new National Health Insurance plan, HR 676, will save our free enterprise system both by insuring the health of its workers, and by freeing business to do what it does best, namely the innovation and delivery of goods and services, while allowing the federal government to fulfill its constitutional duty to act on behalf of our greater welfare.

Finally, by passing HR 676 America can reclaim moral leadership in human rights and fulfill our founding purpose to promote “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” which is not possible without good health.

Universal health care is humane, it is economical, it is doable and it is time. Call your Congressperson and ask them to support HR 676.

Richard Frank Dawahare 7/8/09

Too much hate, too little love

2009-06-29T17:24:00.001-04:00

The rise of "fanaticide," i.e., extremist violence, is but a symptom of the more serious issue facing our world today: too much fear and hate, too little faith and love. We've allowed our hard-held truths to slam our minds shut to the point we permit, even welcome, the most vile attacks on "the other."

What once was unspeakable vulgarity is now acceptable in arena for the battle of ideas. Those who believe differently than radio shock jocks are ruthlessly demonized as worthless pieces of humanity.

Even worse, radio and TV give these attackers a patina of credibility they do not deserve, for the public assumption is that they would not be allowed to say such things on the air waves -- our air waves -- unless it were true.

Locally, think of WHAS, a proud Kentuckiana institution for many a decade. When the same mega-tower-of-power 50,000-watt blowtorch that carries the Crusade for Children also features prime-time piranha Michael Savage, an air of credibility is automatically attached to his hate-filled propaganda that he should never have.

Where have you gone, Mr. Milton Metz, our nation turns its lonely ears to you.

Such contempt enters our consciousness, festers in our hearts, spews through our mouths and e-mails and eventually finds physical expression by those without a moral compass.

The cure is up to us. First, we must realize that just as we truly believe in the righteousness of our causes, those with contrary views feel the same. We must therefore embrace the paradox of inconsistent truths and allow space for the other even as we take our stand. This demands a faith in the ultimate authority of a higher power that most of us profess and a serenity to accept that the process, the way we treat each other, is as important as the cause, if not more so.

Second, we must love, and I mean love as a verb. Intentionally and with concentrated effort, work hard at being the best person you know your higher self to be, each and every day. Yes, be more diplomatic, tame the impulse to lash out, refrain from sexist or racist jokes. Focus on trying to understand the other and always wish them well, secure in your faith that taking the high road will lead to eventual reconciliation.

In short, we should be the person we'd want our children to be.

Sanity on the slots debate

2009-06-21T17:21:00.000-04:00

"100,000 jobs and $4 billon." The slots promoters have been throwing these numbers around so often and so loudly that Kentuckians now know them by heart. These are the total number of jobs and money that they say will be lost if we are not scared enough to give in and support casinos in Kentucky.

But nothing good ever resulted from actions made out of fear, especially fear based on exaggeration. First, if they really want to stick to those numbers they will be admitting, absolutely admitting, that Kentucky's horse industry has grown exponentially since 2002, about the time that other states' racinos began.

The Kentucky Horse Racing Authority's 2004-2005 Biennial Report states: "According to a 2002 study by the Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky, the horse industry generates over 31,800 jobs and had a total economic impact estimated at $1.77 billion."Therefore, according to the pro-casino camp, Kentucky has actually managed to triple the number of jobs and more than double the economic impact of our signature industry despite the arrival of racino competition in other states.

Of course, the more likely scenario is that they grossly exaggerated the real state of the industry as part of their propaganda campaign to rile emotional fervor for casinos to a fever pitch.

Now, I don't deny that our horse industry needs assistance. I am sure most Kentuckians would want to help Kentucky's breeding and racing industries, which is a policy matter for the legislature to decide. Once decided in the affirmative, the issue becomes one of funding, of how best to support them.

Casino-style gambling options like VLTs are but one option, and by far the worst for the long run. First, to pursue this poverty-inducing enterprise now, in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, is a gross failure of vision and leadership.

Second, they amount to a voluntary tax, one paid disproportionately by the poor. Long term, they will destroy economies around the country, just as the main gambling activity, lotteries, did in the late 1800s.

If the state needs more money to fund breeder and racing incentives, the legislature need only do so through the traditional tried-and-true methods that best preserve our long-term welfare.

Tax reform that makes Kentucky's tax system more progressive would help. Perhaps adding a small sales tax, say 3 percent, to out-of-state buyers at Kentucky's world-leading horse sales would bring in much needed revenue without hurting the industry (currently we get nothing).

The point is that we must look coolly, objectively and accurately at the totality of issues surrounding our whole economy, a major part of which includes the horse industry. Only then can we assure ourselves of ideal solutions that will lead to the best overall long-term outcome.

Casinos will Kill Kentucky's Horse Industry

2009-05-18T21:58:00.001-04:00

For want of a slot machine Kentucky’s horse industry will be lost. Or so the gamblers would have us believe. Yes, the horse industry is vital to Kentucky. Yes we should nurture it. But never must we let emotional fervor and exaggerated, unsubstantiated claims mis-direct us to a non-solution that will not only harm our long term welfare, but that will also destroy the thoroughbred industry itself.

First, let’s examine the claims of those who want to add slot machines (or VLT’s) to Kentucky’s tracks. Essentially they say that Kentucky’s horse industry is in crisis because Turfway, Ellis Park and now Churchill have had to cut racing days, an event caused not by a historic recession and economic downturn but by owners taking their horses to states that allow their tracks to have slots (racinos) which in turn enables them to offer higher purses.

Yet the fact is that tracks all over the country are cutting race dates, even in racino states. In 2008 the total number of races declined 2.2%, including West Virginia which had 256 fewer races, a 6% drop, and Louisiana with 143 less, a 4% drop. Kentucky held up quite well, only down 2%. Nationally, pari-mutuel handle dropped 7.3%.

This year tracks continue to cut dates, specifically citing the economic downturn as the reason. Historic Del Mar is going to 5 days a week, first time since 1947, and according to its president, Joe Harper, it has nothing to do with the absence of slots and everything to do with the economy: “There’s a pinch on everyone due to the economy, there’s a pinch on the number of racehorses available in the state.”

Kentucky’s world-leading breeding industry is not threatened in the least. In fact Kentucky increased its share of mares bred from 36% in 2006 to 41% in 2008. The next closest was Florida at 10%. All racino states except Pennsylvania (2%) and Indiana (1%) lost ground. Kentucky-breds earned more than $436 million, an increase of 1.5% from 2007 and Kentucky-breds increased their share of the total purse money earned in 2008 to 36%.

In any case higher purses do not guarantee increased attendance or wagering. Maryland subsidized higher purses from 1998 to 2000 by 25% yet live wagering actually decreased. And in both West Virginia and Delaware live wagering and attendance remained stagnant despite tripling purse sizes following the introduction of slot machines. Each state spent a staggering $100 million and got basically nothing in return.

These facts thoroughly contradict the frantic over-the-top claims of the casino interests trying so desperately to get their foot in our door. If our signature industry is truly threatened to the point of extinction then we should unite in developing a list of options properly addressed to the root causes of the problem, none of which will include slots.

The fact is that slots at the tracks will eventually kill the thoroughbred industry. Slots hook gamblers who will rush in droves for that option over horse racing. For this reason casino style gambling is a long term mortal threat to racing. Leading economic experts Dr. John Warren Kindt and Dr. Earl Grinols have for many years warned of this danger. And the Congressional National Gambling Impact Study Commission specifically directed states to refrain from putting slots at the tracks.

The racing industry must instead creatively improve and market its product to attract new customers, while also working with casino opponents to staunch its cancer-like spread. Tim Capps, a University of Louisville professor in the College of Business equine program said that racing has “has been very insider-ish…It has been run more for itself than it has for its fans. I think one thing racing has to do is make participation in our sport easier for the fan, because the fan has not come first in our industry for a long time.”
Richard Shapiro, the Chairman of the California Horse Racing Board agrees. “I really question whether we are a sport anymore. We have taken the entertainment away and pushed it just as gambling. We need to invent very simple wagers…and package racing better. If we do that and present it to the right people we have the opportunity to receive more revenues.”
In any case Kentucky would have to first amend its Constitution before any such expansion of gambling could occur as both the legislative history behind the lottery amendment and an opinion of then Attorney General Ben Chandler show.

Still, I understand the plight of Ellis Park. Indiana’s casinos have over the past 12 years caused a permanent 35% drop in their revenues and their slot-supported racing is another blow. Yet surely there are other ways to help Ellis than to dirty our state with a proven long term societal killer of casino style gambling.

And that is exactly what slots, VLT’S, and casinos are, a long term killer. History has proven that gains are short-lived. In just a few years the economic costs to pre-existing, traditional businesses and social costs will become unbearable and states will see gambling for what it is and ban it yet again. This is what happened in the late 1800’s when states around the nation, including Kentucky, put in their Constitutions prohibitions that would make it nearly impossible for future generations to repeat their mistake.

Kentucky need not follow. We are a pioneer state—we lead. Kentucky should lead in repelling the spread of casino-style gambling. We should lead in exposing the truth about the harm it causes. We should lead in showing how healthy and vibrant our community, our economy our foundation can be by focusing on time honored fundamentals—just as we have with Education reform.

Above all we must not fall for horse tales, old or new.

Richard Frank Dawahare 5/14/09

SOURCES:
These are my sources for the statistics and quotes: I got all the stats from Equibase on the Jockey Club's site: http://jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp under which are the figures for: 1) number of races -- http://jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp?section=6 2) Gross purses-- http://jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp?section=7 3) Pari-mutuel handle-- http://jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp?section=8 4) Distribution of Stallions and Mares bred-- http://jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp?section=3 5) Distribution of registered Foal Crop by state-- http://jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp?section=4 I GOT the information about Maryland, West Va. and Delaware performance after the introduction of slots from THIS researchpaper by Jeffrey Hooke, Chairman of the Maryland Tax Education Foundation -- http://www.marylandtaxeducation.org/horserace.pdf 6) The quotes I got from this article by Liz Mullen in Business First, Louisville--

http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2008/05/05/story1.html?t=printable

7) The reference to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission directive against slots at the tracks
is here, at SECTION 3-12 http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ngisc/reports/fullrpt.html

Believe With Me

2009-03-06T20:40:00.002-05:00

Hello! Since the news reported that I was considering a run for the US Senate many of you have responded in a most encouraging and positive way and I thank you for this “vote” of confidence. The fine print in the article was more accurate than the headline, however, in that I am truly considering any and all viable avenues for public service. The Senate is such a dream and in reality is such a long shot that it seems most improbable.

I only allowed myself to dream this vision publicly after some others had, over the last 6 months, encouraged this gigantic reach. I cannot emphasize this enough—this would never have reached this stage without the urgings of a few close friends, and the further prodding of a savvy political marketer (Dea Riley, thank you (I think?) Dea!) who I met by sheer coincidence through a mutual friend on Facebook.

I must also note that the political pros, the real insiders, have discouraged this effort, saying that it will be impossible to raise the necessary millions in such a huge statewide race, especially for a political outsider with no previous elected experience. I quite understand and for that reason never seriously considered this quest until the wave of serendipity moved me in a different direction. I try always to let the Spirit lead, and to do as my late fraternity brother, Norman Vincent Peale taught: “Think Positively.”

My “Pre-Exploratory” Committee met last week. These are some very sharp individuals and together we spoke about all the options, the pitfalls and opportunities and while we agreed the Senate is a long shot, the group unanimously agreed that we should do a POLL that would assess my message and prospects for both statewide and local options. They also directed me to raise the funds by asking for $200 from whoever may be so inclined, BUT of course being grateful for whatever one offers.

I have been calling and writing friends over the last few days and I am most uplifted. I am struggling to find the right words here…every donor, every well-wisher, has truly heartened me. But when one makes a financial donation at such an early stage, it is such a show of confidence that who I am, that the principles and values I represent are so right, and so needed by our ailing political system, that I am truly, truly humbled. I darn near feel like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life!

Since I believe in what I am doing, since I know I am in it for the right reasons, that I have no ulterior motive and am not beholden to any special interest or agenda save that which best benefits the Greater Public Interest I have had no hesitation in asking for assistance. I am not seeking to serve and possibly to run for me, rather I am doing it for YOU.

And for that reason I invite you to help me in any way you can. Funds yes, but more. I seek and WANT your ideas, your concerns and your input on how we can better our world. Anything that concerns you concerns me too.

I have spent a lifetime listening to others and responding to their wants and needs, be it the customers I served, or the manufacturers with whom I built win/win relationships the world over. These same principles, when combined with the values (honesty, integrity, fairness, compassion) instilled in me by my parents, uncles, and aunts and of course God, are exactly what our political process needs.

I invite you to engage with me in this quest. I invite you to envision an inspirational future, while savoring the precious present. I invite you to dream big, to think long term and to walk in faith no matter what.

I invite you to Believe With Me.

Richard Frank Dawahare March 6, 2009

--------------------

Considerations on a run for the Senate

What do I want to do with the rest of my life? What is the true desire of my heart and soul? These are the questions I perhaps have avoided most of my life and that I now muse and pray about.

This is what I know: that I want to make a positive mark on the world and to help others while letting my spirit soar. Beyond that, I’m not sure what truly makes my heart sing. Career interest tests confirmed that I was in the right field as I had a high aptitude for marketing, advertising, promotion, but also in writing, teaching/counseling. To that end I am considering both teaching or consulting.

But serving in politics has always been a dream. I grew up with the image of the politician as a person of the highest integrity performing one of the noblest roles in society. I suppose the story I heard many, many times that my grandfather wanted one of his sons to be president—and naming three of his sons after presidents—helped cement this image in my mind. Having an uncle (Willie Dawahare) serve as the mayor of Hazard and another (uncle Hoover) in the legislature solidified my absolute conviction that there could be no higher calling for decent, honorable community-oriented people. My parents, my uncles and aunts hung the moon. They were of the highest character and morality, the very personification of the Golden Rule.

When I was a young boy, 7 or 8, Uncle Willie would talk to me about great political leaders. He spoke with the highest regard about FDR and Churchill. He told me of the JFK-Khrushchev conflict and then gave me what was to become my most prized possession: a Kennedy dollar inscribed with “Ask not what your country can do for you, rather ask what you can do for your country.” I was awestruck by that coin and clung to it as Frodo did the ring.

From that day forward the highest calling, the most good a person could do—in my young mind—was to serve as an inspirational political leader. Such people had, I always thought, the highest moral principles and clung tenaciously to truth and justice. And regardless how many dispiriting examples of political self-dealing, dishonest acts abound, I still believe in this ideal.

But surely, I thought to myself, there are many other ways than politics to use these values in serving society. Of course there are and I—like most people—have served and helped others in many different ways throughout my life.

Yet I feel uniquely privileged by the happenstances of my birth, my upbringing and my life’s course that thrusts me in this position. I almost feel duty-bound to take advantage of this opportunity to help others in this way, to bring to the political arena the high ideals and values that my family instilled within me, to campaign and then to serve wholeheartedly with these values, no matter how severely they may be tested, being guided solely by what will best benefit the greater public interest.

I know I can bring positive energy and influence to Washington for I understand that it is the process and the attitude that matters most to ideal policy-making. My whole career was based on listening to others’ needs, seeking—and reaching—win/win solutions with suppliers and customers alike and leaving both happier than before we interacted. Thus, I know I can add civility and improve the legislative process through open-minded and empathetic engagement while holding firm to immutable principles of truth, justice and our social compact.

My philosophy is always about putting people first and legislating on behalf of their highest welfare. Yet I realize that it is a multi-stranded yarn that weaves our complex social quilt. Commerce and capitalism is essential to making our system work for people just as it is the people who make commerce and capitalism flourish. Thus, balance is key as well as focusing on facts, not emotion.

- - - - -

But what about other candidates—can they not do the same? And others who might run have more experience, a track record in politics, connections and MONEY (and/or contacts to a big purse), so how can I even begin to think about this pipe dream?

Whether it’s fate, karma, whatever our company’s closing removed a major obstacle to this opportunity. Others always encouraged me to be in politics. Many years ago I started to get involved in the Young Democrats, but this kind of political involvement seemed forced and unnatural. So I was determined to just ride the course I was on: be the best person I could be while helping my dad, my family and our business. If there ever was to be a future for me in the political world, I thought, God would open that door. I’d say that an unplanned and historic end to a 100-year-old business is a pretty big opening indeed.

Then there are the “signs.” Random encounters with messages such as ‘the saddest thing a man may ever face is what might have been,’ to Keith Olbermann’s quote on the Starbucks coffee cup that exhorts one to go for any job, seek any dream. Everything, it’s all positive-go-for-it messaging.

Still, I am not yet sure. The cake’s in the oven, but it’s not quite done. So for the moment it’s still a dream, and a sweet one.

RFD 2/11/09

Meeks Meets Dido

2009-02-13T19:15:00.004-05:00

Inspired by my buddy Charles....

Score tied, clock ticks down and Jodie Meeks, who plays like anything but,
Dribbles, weaves feigns forward, then fades back—wayyy back—on a
Desparation three with Nick Colathes perfectly, tenaciously guarding him.

Jodie goes up and back, Colathes bodies him, jumps in sync with him, has his arms and hands practically on Jodie’s (Colathes claims he even tipped the ball) yet Jodie
Spent his entire body in willing the shot up…
AND IN! Three-pointer, Kentucky wins by three
Thus avoiding a historic, first time ever 3 in a row SEC home losses.

ON this night, with his never-say-die, “I will do whatever it takes
For my team who I love, for my school that I love, to WIN”
Meeks met Dido.

In White Flag Dido cries out the depths of her love and commitment
crying,

“I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be”

Jodie Meeks hustle and heart expressed an identical passion.
In his play he was saying,

“I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be…

MEEKS, 30 FEET DEEP, COLATHES ALL OVER HIM, LEAPS UP AND BACK

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

MEEKS MUSCLES IT UP, A LONG ARCHING SHOT…IT’S GOOOOD!

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

KENTUCKY BEATS FLORIDA 68-65 ON MEEKS HEROIC SHOT!

A Clearer Picture of Afghanistan

2009-02-10T14:49:00.003-05:00

The following is an assortment of articles on Afhganistan that offers a surprising view of what's really going on--and why...

The reality of war in Afghanistan
By Stephen Kinzer October 15, 2008

DESPITE their differences over how to pursue the US war in Iraq, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama both want to send more American troops to Afghanistan. Both are wrong. History cries out to them, but they are not listening.

Both candidates would do well to gaze for a moment on a painting by the British artist Elizabeth Butler called "Remnants of an Army." It depicts the lone survivor of a 15,000-strong British column that sought to march through 150 kilometers of hostile Afghan territory in 1842. His gaunt, defeated figure is a timeless reminder of what happens to foreign armies that try to subdue Afghanistan.

The McCain-Obama approach to Afghanistan, like much of US policy toward the Middle East and Central Asia, is based on emotion rather than realism. Emotion leads many Americans to want to punish perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They see war against the Taliban as a way to do it. Suggesting that victory over the Taliban is impossible, and that the United States can only hope for peace in Afghanistan through compromise with Taliban leaders, has been taken as near-treason.

This knee-jerk response ignores the pattern of fluid loyalties that has been part of Afghan tribal life for centuries. Alliances shift as interests change. Warlords who support the Taliban are not necessarily enemies of the United States. If they are today, they need not be tomorrow.

In recent weeks, this elemental truth has begun to reshape debate over Western policy toward Afghanistan. Warlords on both sides met quietly in Saudi Arabia. The Afghan defense minister called for a "political settlement with the Taliban." Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would not go that far, but said he might ultimately be open to "reconciliation as part of the political outcome."

Gates, however, struck a delusionary note of "can-do" cheeriness by repeating the McCain-Obama mantra: More US troops can pacify Afghanistan. Speaking days after a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the United States was caught in a "downward spiral" there, Gates asserted that there is "no reason to be defeatist or underestimate the opportunity to be successful in the long run."

In fact, long-run success in Afghanistan - defined as an acceptable level of violence and assurance that Afghan territory will not be used for attacks against other countries - will only be possible with fewer foreign troops on the ground, not more.

A relentless series of US attacks in Afghanistan has produced "collateral damage" in the form of hundreds of civilian deaths, which alienate the very Afghans the West needs. As long as the campaign continues, recruits will pour into Taliban ranks. It is no accident that the Taliban has mushroomed since the current bombing campaign began. It allows the Taliban to claim the mantle of resistance to a foreign occupier. In Afghanistan, there is none more sacred.

The US war in Afghanistan also serves as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. It is attracting a new stream of foreign fighters into the region. A few years ago, these jihadists went to Iraq to fight the Great Satan. Now they see the United States escalating its war in Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan, and are flocking there instead.

Even if the United States de-escalates its war in Afghanistan, the country will not be stable as long as the poppy trade provides huge sums of money for violent militants. Eradicating poppies is like eradicating the Taliban: a great idea but not achievable. Instead of waging endless spray-and-burn campaigns that alienate ordinary Afghans, the United States should allow planting to proceed unmolested, and then buy the entire crop. Some could be turned into morphine for medical use, and the rest destroyed. The Afghan poppy crop is worth an estimated $4 billion per year. That sum would be better spent putting cash into the pockets of Afghan peasants than firing missiles into their villages.

Deploying more US troops in Afghanistan will intensify this highly dangerous conflict, not calm it. Compromise with Al Qaeda would be both unimaginable and morally repugnant, but the Taliban is a different force. Skillful negotiation among clan leaders, based on a genuine willingness to compromise, holds the best hope for Afghanistan. It is an approach based on reality, not emotion.

Stephen Kinzer is author of "A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It."
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TIME Magazine article

As the world's finance ministers wring their hands over the global financial crisis, a quieter multilingual chorus of dismay is emanating from the military compounds and foreign offices of one of the planet's most powerful nations. Afghanistan, NATO's first post[EN]Cold War, non-European experiment and the U.N.'s most significant mission to date, has been termed a failure, leading many decision makers to contemplate the unthinkable: negotiations with the very same Taliban leadership that was defeated in 2001.

The only problem is, negotiations are unlikely to be successful, and reliance on such stopgap solutions may only make things worse.
Among top military and diplomatic strategists, the failure of the current approach in Afghanistan has been accepted as inevitable. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain's top military officer in Afghanistan, has said, "We're not going to win this war."

At best, he says, international troops can hope to reduce it "to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat." U.K. ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, in a leaked diplomatic briefing with the French deputy ambassador, is said to have described the current situation in Afghanistan as "bad; the security situation is getting worse — so is corruption — and the government [of President Hamid Karzai] has lost all trust." The American strategy, he said, "is doomed to fail."

While the U.K. foreign office disputes the veracity of the briefing, the sentiments are echoed in diplomatic circles across Kabul and have even found traction in the U.S., which has long persisted in regarding Afghanistan as the "good war." Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told reporters last week that "the trends across the board are not going in the right direction," and in a year in which violence has reached its worst levels since the U.S. invasion of the country in 2001, he voiced concerns that next year in Afghanistan could be even worse.

His fears echo a nearly completed U.S. National Intelligence Assessment that has described a "downward spiral" in Afghanistan unless major improvements are immediately implemented. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has launched a major review of its Afghanistan policy just as new ground-based intelligence indicates that this winter may not yield the expected lull in fighting that would have allowed a deployment of extra troops to wait until the spring. U.S. and Afghan forces patrolling the eastern border near Pakistan have uncovered caches of cold-weather gear and weapons in areas that are usually closed off during winter snows.

The Impossibility of Winning
In June, Dan McNeil, the outgoing NATO commander in Afghanistan, estimated that it would take some 400,000 troops to win the war. Currently, the total allied force stands at just over 70,000, with an additional 60,000 poorly equipped Afghan troops in various states of training. McNeil's replacement, U.S. General David McKiernan, has appealed to the White House for 15,000 more U.S. troops "as quickly as possible" but has been promised less than half that number by spring of next year. More troops are unlikely to be forthcoming until the U.S. starts pulling out of Iraq. In the meantime, McKiernan has cautioned reporters that Afghanistan "might get worse before it gets better."

With the global financial situation spiraling out of control, countries are even less likely to contribute troops and treasure to a war that seems, on its face, less threatening to the West by the day. Al-Qaeda has so far failed to replicate the devastating attacks of 9/11, and low-intensity efforts to keep Osama bin Laden on the run appear to have been effective. With the ebbing of public support for the war, and with casualties and costs reaching record levels, world leaders and military commanders are now clutching for solutions and exits, including possible power-sharing deals with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents.

Kai Eide, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, said on Oct. 6 that "if you want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are relevant." U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reiterated the new philosophy a day later, saying at a press conference that the only way to win the war was "through political means."

President Karzai seems to be moving in the same direction. Last week he appealed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace and offered to talk. And in September, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, representatives of Karzai's government sat with former Taliban leaders and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Mecca to discuss Afghanistan's problems over a sunset feast of more than 100 dishes. Both Karzai's government and Afghanistan's current Taliban leadership deny that any negotiations took place. But one of the attendees, Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former representative of the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Pakistan before its overthrow in 2001, characterized the meeting to TIME as a "consultation about the future of Afghanistan, about stability, about peace and what we can do to bring it to our country."

The Plausibility of a Taliban Pact
Reconciliation with the opposition is an inevitable part of the end of any war, and no leader, military or otherwise, has ever said that total military victory is the only path to a stable Afghanistan. But the sudden courting of Taliban leaders appears to be more an act of desperation than strategy.

The problem with any potential Taliban agreement lies in incentives. Chaos in Afghanistan has always played to the Taliban's advantage, which makes the notion that its leaders could be seduced by promises of stability myopic. Besides, Zaeef, who is no longer a member of the Taliban leadership but still adheres to the Taliban philosophy, says the Taliban are not fighting for power but for ideology. "Until the Americans and other foreigners leave, this war is not for share in the government, but a war of obligation, a holy jihad."
(Click here for a photo essay on Afghanistan's mean streets.)

Taliban spokesman Zaibullah Mujahid took it a step further, telling TIME by telephone that "no one from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the name of the country under Taliban rule from 1996-2001] is ready to negotiate with this government. The conditions that the government and the Americans offer is that the Taliban accept the constitution and the presence of American and other foreign troops in Afghanistan. Our condition would be the withdrawal of all foreign troops, and without that we are not ready to negotiate."

While the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda has frayed over the years, bin Laden's group is still a principal financial supporter, and as such would have input on major decisions that the Taliban make. Needless to say, it will be impossible for any negotiations to take place unless the Taliban renounce all ties with the terrorist group. That's an unlikely scenario, says Zaeef. "I am not sure the Taliban will say to al-Qaeda, 'Leave the country and don't support us,' because there is no one else funding the Taliban, so there is no way they would beak with their key supporters."

Disaffection Inside the Taliban
Even if Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Karzai were able to overcome their glaring differences to hammer out a power-sharing agreement, the real question would be: How much power could Mullah Omar actually wield?

While he does hold sway over a large mass of the former Taliban command structure, which has largely taken refuge in Pakistan's lawless mountain sanctuaries, the bulk of what is currently known as the Taliban in Afghanistan is made up of disaffected and alienated bands of Pashtun tribesmen who have been leveraged out of their traditional power bases and are disillusioned by the increasingly corrupt and ineffective government in Kabul. The only point that these groups — some of which are made up of opportunistic criminals, narcotics kingpins and smugglers — can agree on is that they are against the Afghan government.

Any true reconciliation would have to include these groups, as well as the Taliban leadership, and that is an almost inconceivable task. "The West tends to imagine a rather more coherent organization than the Taliban really is," says Joanna Nathan, Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group. "They imagine there is a single element of control over a wider organization. This view that it is somehow going to be Mullah Omar sitting at one end of the table while President Karzai sits at the other as they sign a power-sharing agreement and we can all go home — that is a fantasy."

A better strategy might be to cut at the roots of this dissatisfaction with the central government. The Taliban has capitalized on widespread disillusion with corrupt, centrally appointed officials to recruit to its cause.

Few Afghans feel that they have an adequate outlet for settling grievances, like land disputes, so they are more likely to turn to Taliban courts that have sprung up in government vacuums. Real reconciliation, says Nathan, should be taking place at the grass roots, with Afghans who have become alienated from the government. If they can be persuaded that the government is looking after their needs, they are less likely to support the Taliban.
This approach would also be much more palatable to Afghans from the largely non-Pashtun north, who bitterly fought Taliban rule during the civil war and are more likely to launch another war than submit to a Taliban-led government.

The Taliban today operate in virtually every Afghan province, and in several places they have been able to create a parallel system of government, but they do not have the support of a majority of Afghans. Most still vividly remember the deprivations of Taliban rule, and if given a choice, they would prefer their current situation to that of eight years ago.

The international community has already wasted seven years and billions of dollars in failed attempts to reverse the depredations of Taliban rule; a far better solution to the Talibans' resurgence would be correcting the mistakes of the past and delivering, for once, on international promises of democracy and development.

about Sweeta's case and promised to look into it, but Sweeta's sister Saleha had already given up on the government, and wondered if the past seven years of foreign intervention have brought any progress at all to Afghanistan. "If the Taliban were still here, that rapist would have already been executed by now. It would have been a lesson for all," she says. "If there is no law, and the government does not listen to people's complaints, then it is better to go back to the Taliban era. At least then we had justice." —With reporting by Ali Safi / Shebergan

Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2008
Warlords Toughen US Task in Afghanistan
By Aryn Baker / Kabul

Like many mothers in Afghanistan, Maghferat Samimi has affixed the photo of a child to her mobile phone. But the two-and-a-half-year-old is not her daughter. She is a rape victim, one of scores that Samimi, a researcher with the Afghan Human Rights Organization, has documented in the country's northern provinces over the past six months. Witnesses to the child's abduction by a local militia commander — a person who would once have been called a "warlord" — have had their rape claim backed up by a nearby hospital, but the district police chief maintains that the child fell on a stick. The police chief's refusal to issue an arrest warrant, he says, has nothing to do with the fact that he is friends with the militia commander. Seeking justice from government officials, says Samimi, "is like going to the wolves for help, when the wolves have stolen your sheep." That is what it is like in Afghanistan, where lawless warlords are now the law. (See pictures here of the perils of motherhood in Afghanistan.)

The Afghan warlords largely responsible for assisting the U.S.'s ousting of the Taliban in 2001 are now deeply entrenched in Afghan society. They have positions in government, in the police, in the army and in business. Though they have largely relinquished their tanks and heavy artillery, most have been able to maintain their core militias in the form of private security companies, political parties or loose business networks.

Allegations of land grabs, rape, murder and kidnapping are rife. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Afghan human rights organizations such as Samimi's have documented extortion rackets run by former warlords and militia-run prisons where captives are held for ransom. Afghan journalists covering their crimes have been harassed by police or thrown in jail. Last year Samimi received a phone call from General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a U.S. ally who was appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as Army Chief of Staff, threatening to have her raped "by 100 men" if she continued investigating a rape case in which he was implicated. Dostum denies ever making such a threat and calls the rape allegation "propaganda." A witness to the phone call, military prosecutor General Habibullah Qasemi, was dismissed from his post soon after, despite carrying a sheaf of glowing recommendation letters penned by U.S. military supervisors.

Faced with a rapidly spreading insurgency that threatens to overturn seven years of incremental progress in Afghanistan — a survey released Monday by the International Council on Security and Development reports that the Taliban are present in 72% of the country — the U.S. and its allies are struggling to find a new strategy to stabilize Afghanistan. President George W. Bush has announced that about 4,500 more soldiers will be sent there early in the new year, but that is a fraction of what General David McKiernan, head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, has said that he needs to successfully conduct the war. Meanwhile, allied forces have been forced to rely on local militia leaders for intelligence gathering, delivery of supplies and to better understand the country's southern tribal networks.

In the north, where the Uzbek and Tajik warlords' historic hatred of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban has maintained a stability that has so far been unattainable elsewhere, both national and coalition leaders are loathe to upset the balance by pushing for prosecution. One former NATO official in Afghanistan compares the warlords to shrapnel lodged in an artery — infection is a risk, he says, but pulling it out could be even worse. "There are so many other things we have to worry about, so why go and open this can of worms?"

In a new article in Foreign Affairs magazine, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates writes, "Over the long term, the United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory. Where possible, [military] operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance ... and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented, from whom the terrorists recruit."

But so far, the U.S. is failing to do that. With the possibility that Indian threats of retaliation over last month's terror attacks on Mumbai could force Pakistan to move its military to the east from the Afghan border, where it is currently fighting elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, it is more important than ever that Afghanistan's central government be strengthened. The perception that warlords, protected by their influence and threats of violence, can commit crimes with impunity has rocked Afghan society, and threatens to undermine the very government that the United States and its allies are trying to build up.

This is not the first time warlords have had positions of power in Afghanistan. Following the 1989 withdrawal of Soviet troops, rival mujahedin groups that had united to drive the foreigners out turned on each other, further destroying the country in a brutal civil war marked by warlord rule. The government collapsed, and militia commanders were able to seize territory, terrorize the population and, in some cases, even issue currency.

The Taliban capitalized on widespread disgust with their savagery, eventually coming to power in 1996. The U.S., unwilling to commit large numbers of ground troops when it went to overthrow the Taliban government, relied instead on the northern warlords and their militias. In a grave mistake that was to haunt Afghanistan for years to come, many of those leaders were given prominent positions when the new Afghan government was formed, enabling them to claw back credibility that had been lost due to their abhorrent behavior in the civil war. Samimi laments the lost opportunity for Afghanistan to start over. "Right after the collapse of the Taliban, the government had the opportunity to go after these commanders because they were scared and weak," she says. "Instead the international community and the government supported them and made them stronger. They didn't bring them to justice; they waited until they committed more crimes. For this we ousted the Taliban?"

It is the unfulfilled promise of a new, clean democracy that has alienated the very Afghans that the West depends on to build a strong, stable country. Educated moderates, such as Samimi, have no love for the Taliban, but they have also become disillusioned with the current government's failings, as exemplified by the unaddressed predations of militia commanders. Francesc Vendrell, the former European Union envoy to Afghanistan, holds that "warlordism," as he calls it, is just as much at the root of the insurgency as religious ideology. "In Muslim society justice is the most essential element and, here in Afghanistan, people simply don't see it exist. They see impunity; they see a few people become extremely wealthy and they see cruelty," he says. "Therefore I think many of them are fence sitters. And you can't hope to win an insurgency when the civilians are sitting on the fence."

For some Afghans, however, it may be too late. Among Samimi's other rape cases is 11-year-old Sweeta, whose attacker was protected by his employer, a local commander. The family's repeated attempts to bring the rapist to justice have been borne little fruit. In an interview with TIME this summer, President Karzai was told about Sweeta's case and promised to look into it, but Sweeta's sister Saleha had already given up on the government, and wondered if the past seven years of foreign intervention have brought any progress at all to Afghanistan. "If the Taliban were still here, that rapist would have already been executed by now. It would have been a lesson for all," she says. "If there is no law, and the government does not listen to people's complaints, then it is better to go back to the Taliban era. At least then we had justice." —With reporting by Ali Safi / Shebergan

It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said.

Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding that without a change in U.S. policy there, the erstwhile sanctuary of Osama bin Laden would remain a failed state. After spending $25 billion over six years to try to defeat the Taliban, the radical Islamist militia that had been dispersed into the mountains by the initial U.S. invasion is now a growing presence in large parts of the country. The Taliban is now setting off more bombs — including one in Kabul's fanciest hotel on January 14 that killed eight people — and fueling its insurgency with profits from the opium trade. (Last year, the country produced 93% of the world's supply.) The declining security situation saw foreign investment in Afghanistan fall by 50% last year.

The Taliban is also killing more Americans: From 2002 to 2004, an average of one U.S. soldier was killed per week in Afghanistan; by 2007, that figure had more than doubled. Indeed, nearly 500 U.S. troops have perished in America's "forgotten war." Despite the presence of 50,000 foreign troops, including 28,000 Americans, arrayed against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has just ordered another 3,200 Marines into the fight. And the reluctance of other NATO members to send additional troops is threatening the future of the alliance. "Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," said a study by the Atlantic Council released Wednesday. "Unless this reality is understood, and action is taken promptly, the future of Afghanistan is bleak, with regional and global impact."

Despite such grim news, the message to the Foreign Relations Committee from the Administration was that things are actually getting better. "Progress is being made," said Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher at the hearing. "If you add together the achievements in roads, achievements in education, achievements in health care, we see a profoundly changed situation in Afghanistan."

The U.S. and its allies are driving the Taliban from some of its strongholds, he added, and the bad guys are striking back the only way they can — by blowing themselves up. Across the Potomac, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that "the rise in violence and attacks such as we saw in Kabul are the manifestation of a group that has lost in regular military terms in 2007, and is turning to terrorism as a substitute for that." And although Gates said he couldn't confirm it, a militant web site reported Thursday that Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan, has been killed in Pakistan.
But at the hearing, Lugar remained unimpressed. He likened the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan to a political campaign in Indiana. A candidate can tell his supporters, "I've been to Clinton County, I've touched base, and we're doing well over here in Kokomo,'" Lugar said. "But if the final result is that you get 25% of the vote and lose three to one, this is bad news."

Retired Marine General James Jones, who once led the Afghan campaign as NATO commander and who contributed to two of the critical reports issued this week, also offered the panel a grim assessment. There is a "loss of momentum" in Afghanistan that could lead to "backsliding" if not soon regained, he said. Jones warned that the failure to curb opium production and stand up a government with functioning police and courts remain major problems. "The safe havens for the insurgents are more numerous now than they were one or two or three years ago," Jones added. "If we are correct and there's a spiraling situation in an unfavorable direction, the ultimate solution is not a military problem, but it could become one."

Democrats repeatedly cited the Iraq war as draining the resources needed to prevail in Afghanistan. Senator Joseph Biden, the panel's chairman, noted that the U.S. has spent the same amount on aid and development in Afghanistan over the past five years as the military burns through in Iraq every three weeks. "If we should be surging forces anywhere," the Delaware Democrat said, "it's in Afghanistan, not Iraq." But Boucher argued that the U.S. and its allies must be prepared to fight in multiple theaters simultaneously to prevent the emergence of terrorist safe havens that could hatch another 9/11. "You can't neglect any portion of the planet," he said.

There is, of course, a sense of deja vu here: Last year, Congress, much of the military and assorted think tankers were leery of President Bush's plans to surge 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. But he did it anyway, and it has succeeded in quelling violence across that country, at least for the time being. For now, the Bush Administration seems to be willing to bet it can repeat that performance in Afghanistan

A Prayer over a Stale bag of Peanuts

2009-01-24T02:17:00.002-05:00

Went to the Kentucky-Louisville basketball game at famed Freedom Hall a few weeks ago.

I have many great memories of UK games in Freedom Hall. In high school I used to go every New Years Eve and see the UK/Notre Dame game--always a classic! It was always a night game and Kentucky always won--that's why Digger ended the series after so long--and afterwards we'd go to Kingfish for a celebratory fish dinner. SCRUMPTIOUS! Then Joe's dad would drive us home to Lexington on those cold wintry nights and we'd pull in the wee hours of the morning. Of course, by our senior year we'd drive ourselves.

Anyway, the Louisville game is big time special, particularly since Rick Pitino is now coaching the Cards. He's an unreal coach--touches every inch of the program with passion and excellence. Plus he's just got a charisma that draws people. In many ways Rick is directly responsible for the reemergence of basketball prominence in the state. He "Gets it" in regards to the ultra-special tradition of basketball essence that is Kentucky. As a kid he'd get Kentucky games on the radio, you know the old fashioned kind where you'd turn the knob ever so slightly to find a clear channel. At night the breadth of stations exploded, like bugs on a hot August night.

Well, Rick told us of how when he was a kid lying in bed, he listened to Cawood Ledford broadcast Kentucky games on WHAS. He'd search and search for Kentucky games for he always knew that Kentucky was THE program. It was his keen passion and vision that brought him to Kentucky when the program was rock bottom, and by his vision we were all reminded once again of the special tradition unique to us.

I'm not sure how many Kentuckians truly appreciate what Rick did, especially UK fans scorned by his accepting the Louisville job. Anyway, future generation s most certainly will, because his imprint is massive and it is very, very real.

Anyway, I wanted SOMETHING to eat, but choices were few for I don't eat meat or junk food anymore. I chose a bag of peanuts. I tore into the bag, crunched the shell, threw the nut in my mouth and UGGHHH! Horribly stale! Another, another, another, oh yuck they are all stale. My face grimaced as I swallowed them.

I started to complain, but then thought about the proverbial starving masses in various parts of the world for whom these stale peanuts would be a feast. I thought that I should treat this bag of peanuts as if I hadn't eaten for a month--how stale would they taste THEN?

So I kept eating, ugh--another stale bite, grimace--chew--grimace--swallow--frown. And another, and another, until I simply could not stomach another stale peanut and then finally this prayer:

"Oh God, thank you, thank you, thank you for so much abundance, so much good food that I can refuse these peanuts, which I know many in the world would feast upon. Please forgive me my spoiled nature and, I pray, protect me from such wretched conditions that might find me groveling on the ground in hunger for just one of these nuts, although I don't know why I should be so favored when so many others are not. Please be with all, especially those who would do anything for this bag of stale peanuts."

I didn't mind much when Louisville won. Compared to life, winning lost its flavor.

Senate Republicans choose the Money changers over Middle class Workers

2008-12-11T23:42:00.002-05:00

Senate Republicans tonight killed America, at least in the short term, but as these snowballs have the tendency to do, possibly for a very long term. They played worker-hating political football by refusing to agree to the $14 billion bridge loan finance deal to the auto industry.

ONE ISSUE, just one: a firm date, end of March 2009, to reduce pay for American auto workers to the level of foreign auto companies making cars in America.The unions and management even agreed to reach parity, but not a date certain--not in these times.

I believe the Republicans knew this would be a poison pill--it simply is NOT reasonable to insist on a firm date for something that is not the root cause of the problem to begin with!

This was NOT a bail out--there were many conditions hammered out by both parties, GOP Senator Corker of Tennessee in particular addressing the GOP concerns--and with the exception of a date certain had agreement on EVERY OTHER ISSUE.

The pain and suffering, the further destruction of our economy and market meltdown that will most certainly ensue can be put directly, DIRECTLY in the lap of the Republican party, who once again proved they stand with usurious money lenders, but not middle class workers.

The Psalm of a Psych Patient

2008-12-05T15:03:00.004-05:00

The following is excerpted from an actual letter given to me from one of my client/patients at Eastern State mental Hospital in Lexington, Ky. The passion and tone seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it, then-VIOLA! It reminded me of the Book of Psalms! This patient's cry seemed exactly the same as the distress that fueled David's plea to God for relief.

The mental duress many people carry with them is an awful load and for the most extreme cases of mental illness their delusions--be they vampires or witches swirling about, strangers attacking with clubs, evil spirits filling their bodies--are REAL, it is their honestly held REAL beliefs, from which they can find no relief. Medicines help in varying degrees but many resist. As one of the fine cadre of psychiatrists told me such diseased people--who are BORN with the illness-- are on a natural "high" and it takes the medicines to bring them down, which is a state they don't like in comparison with their normal (to them) state.

Be thankful, EXTREMELY thankful, for your mental as well as physical health. That you have the ability and freedom to read this and go and do as you please. Being able to leave the hospital at the end of the day gives me such a great appreciation for what I have and did not realize I had!

And to those who you may meet that seem a little off, consider the burden that may theirs alone. Their disease may not have reached the degree of severity that requires hospitalization but many, many among us labor with mental distress, depression chief among them.
____________________________________________

The Psalm of a Psych Patient

A fervent cry from God’s humble servant …

"Oh God
I am under severe attack by patients
I am under extreme pressure
I am under sever threats everywhere on this ward.
LORD, get me a Holy Ghost attorney,
A Holy Ghost judge, a Holy Ghost jury,
A Holy Ghost friend.

In Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name.
Glory to the Father
Glory to the Son
Glory to the Holy Ghost.
HELP ME LORD!

I have been unfairly treated
I have had horrid racial slurs heaped upon me
I have been attacked by my persecutors and fellow patients
God you have healed me before and delivered me

May God of the Heavenly Heavens bless you.
My sisters are greatly insane and do bad to me
Lord, where will my help come from, who will come to my rescue?

God, please get me help."

Amen. In Jesus name

Your servant, Gertrude (not her real name)

Ayn Shrugged

2008-10-20T16:34:00.000-04:00

The captains of commerce have ridden the Ayn Rand Express to great fortunes. Upon her sturdy shoulders have they staked their righteous claim to free market majesty. Freed from government oversight, they could troll the waters of a laissez-faire marketplace pursuing their own self-interest—what Ms. Rand calls man’s highest moral purpose—and amass evermore wealth for themselves and a little “trickle-down” for everyone else.

Alas, Ayn shrugged.

These same rugged individualists, who Ms. Rand idealized in her objectivist philosophy, have now come running to us, the American taxpayer, for salvation. Truly, it seems, no man is an island, even a master of the universe.

The root problem is that implicit in Rand’s call for unbridled freedom is an assumption that all people will act with integrity and honesty. Adam Smith, who hailed the invisible hand of the marketplace, went even further than Rand by promoting as an end society’s greater interest.

Yet, time and again, we are confronted with a reality that is far different. Some people lack integrity and will cheat. To be sure the bad apples are a small minority, but that is all it takes. Often the rest have to break the rules in order to stay competitive thus causing a true race to the bottom. Beyond that the temptation of easy money spreads where an “everybody’s doing it” mentality sets in.

And as we are finding out now, like a previous generation did after the crash of 1929, the less the oversight the more the propensity for runaway greed. Self-regulation is a complete myth, promulgated by those who abuse their freedom to unduly enrich themselves.

Our public policy should therefore mirror what has made America great: individual freedom combined with social responsibility. We, through our government, have the absolute duty to properly regulate commerce. Such oversight protects not only the consumer but also the honest businessperson, from the predations of the less scrupulous.

Part of our social responsibility is a properly funded government that does as the pre-amble to the Constitution demands, that is, to “promote the general Welfare.” Now more than ever must we pull together, and bear each other’s burdens. We do this a million different ways individually and in important, even life-saving, ways through the united strength of our government.

In the end the disciples of Ayn Rand were crushed by the error of her premise. Talented, hard working industrialists do not and cannot succeed in a vacuum. It takes an intricate network of many different people, with many different abilities, doing many different jobs to create an environment for genius to flourish.

Ayn shrugged. But united, we’ll stand.

Richard F. Dawahare 10.20.08

Bush Bails-out on Faith, Banks on Fear

2008-09-25T11:11:00.002-04:00

President Bush went on national tv to scare America into taking his bail-out package. It is either that, or economic armeggedon! His whole mission was to build fear so as to set up his plan as the savior—a plan that as it is written will let the cheaters, the speculators, the richest of rich masters of the universe who were, Bush once proudly claimed as his ‘base’—off the hook and able to retain their many millions and even add to them! Further, complete dictatorial power in the bail-out, who gets what, when and how is with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, himself a former Wall Street insider at Goldman Sachs.

These must be corrected before Congress passes the plan, which I would agree is necessary at this point. Let us remember, that it was 25 years of a volatile Republican mixture of total unregulated free-market supremacy, combined with corrupt bribe taking (campaign cash—and possibly non-campaign cash as well—in exchange for favorable legislation) that got us to this brink, and now they all, John McCain especially, are tripping all over themselves to be Democrats and finally get the government they are so quick to hate to come to the rescue.

Great! Adversity makes Democrats of us all.

But what struck me about Bush’s scaremongering is that it seemed so out of place from a person who professes such a Christian faith.

Bush: “More banks could fail, including some in your community.”
Bible: “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Tim 1:7

Bush: “The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account.”
Bible: Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods. Ps 40:4
Bush: “The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically.”
Bible: Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD and take refuge in him; let
all the upright in heart praise him! Ps 64:10

Bush: “If you own a business or farm you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit.”
Bible: He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting
in the LORD. Ps 112:7

Bush: “More businesses would close their doors and millions of Americans could lose their jobs.”
Bible: It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man or princes
Ps 118:8-9

Bush: “Ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession.”
Bible: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding; Pro 3:5

Of course, we must act and act with faith. However, it would be more credible from the nation’s top elected leader if he would act as if he’s actually learned something from past mistakes and also act consistently with his professed beliefs.

Wisdom and prudence—absolutely, but fear-mongering has no place at his podium.

Richard F. Dawahare 9/25/08

Upper Crust Socialists--Crony Communism in the USA

2008-09-21T18:01:00.005-04:00

Let us now on the eve of who-knows-what-will-really-happen review the facts:

Fact number one: the Republicans now in charge, along with the citizens who so loudly and brashly supported them over these last 28 years, have promoted and enacted 1920's style Laissez-faire free market policies, and have ridiculed sensible regulatory measures while branding those who warned of the danger of unfettered free market capitalism as “socialists,” “communists,” and anti-American sucklings of the government teat.

Fact number two: these same Republicans have long believed in trickle down economics, and to that extent have cut taxes, passed crony-capitalist policies, kick-backs, subsidies, special favors (eg, letting the credit industry write the bankruptcy laws), and no-bid contracts to allow an unprecedented concentration of wealth at the top, the likes of which we have seldom seen before and reminiscent of the pre-Depression era.

Fact number three: Since President Bush took office more than 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance, 4 million Americans have lost their pensions, foreclosures are at record levels, consumer debt has more than doubled and the national debt is $9.7 TRILLION dollars.

Fact number four: Under the Republican control the top .1% now earn more money than the bottom 50% and the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 90%. The wealthiest 400 people saw their wealth increase by $670 BILLION dollars, while median family income has dropped by more than $2,000

Fact number five: Both McCain and Bush, until JUST THIS MONDAY AFTERNOON, have continually erred about the true state of our economy, repeatedly stating that it was “fundamentally strong.”

Fact number six: The Bush bail-out plan, authored by the nation’s top financial leaders, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, calls on that lower 90%--the mainstream American taxpayer—to pay for the mistakes, the greed, the self-interested ineptitude of their cronies, who at this point keep every dollar of their mis-begotten gains while suffering NONE of the risk! This is socialism all right, socialism for the rich:

WE take the big risk (without wanting or asking for it), THEY get the reward.

I will later present my plan for a sane and just reform.

Richard F. Dawahare September 21, 2008

Will the Real Democrat please stand up!

2008-09-19T04:20:00.000-04:00

Quick, who said?

a) “I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
b) “The American economy is in a crisis”
c) “The greed and corruption that some engaged in on Wall Street and we’ve got to fix it.”
d) “We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government.”

Answer: John McCain, all of the above.

Incredibly McCain, on the same day, began his Monday saying the economy was strong, but after seeing the Dow drop 500 points turn an about face and say that it was in a crisis. Further, he has loudly and repeatedly donned the traditional Democratic cloak as the new superhero to reform, regulate and thereby restore prosperity while he has been part of the big money taking politicians in charge that helped create this mess.

John McCain has been an erstwhile member of the Republican trickle down, de-regulators who has voted with President Bush 95% of the time, and now he is saying he will adopt what is bedrock Democratic policy.

One more question: who’s the better Democrat, one who has been one and acted like one from day one, or one who fought Democratic policy and who now, on the eve of an election where he is about to be defrocked as an aider and abettor of the Wall Street carnage is doing a 180 to proclaim his change of heart to Democratic principles?

Intellectual honesty knows the answer to that, but I will spell it out. The better, and only, Democrat in this race, the one who will oversee proper regulation, a change of tax laws that will indeed restore Clinton level tax rates (hardly onerous, the top rate being just under 40%), and more help for workers suffering from a distressed economy is B-A-R-A-C-K O-B-A-M-A.

You can sit down now Mr. McCain, but thank you for your support of the Democratic principles. Oh, and you don’t have to be president to help, just support the new measures, the ones you now say you’ll lead to have enacted.

And one final request: if you really have a secret plan to capture bin Laden, why won’t you share it until you are elected? It might be the all-American thing, the right thing, to speak up NOW, if you have some special information that could help in his capture. To wait is un-American. To delay what may strengthen our national security in a vain effort to win votes from people who should know better might reasonably be called by what it is: traitorous.

Richard F. Dawahare 9/18/09

The Elections and the (psychotic) State of the Union

2008-09-13T12:48:00.002-04:00

The conventions laid bare the psychotic state of the union. And nothing better portrays our bi-polar body politic than the Republican convention. How else to explain why the party of Jesus is able to shout love and life in one breath then spew lies, hate and hypocrisy in the next, all to the roaring and prolonged cheers of those who deep down should know better than to accept the fraud fed to them like red meat thrown to ravenous wolves.

McCain/Palin are banking their whole campaign on this delusion, hoping that their web of lies will once again ensnare voters too scared or scornful to see reality. McCain's biggest lie is that he is now all of a sudden for change and that he is best suited for it.

Change? For what, exactly? Certainly he does not mean a change from disastrous Bush policies that have under-funded government's rightful ability to help the average American, for McCain calls for even more tax cuts. Does anyone need reminding that the mortgage and credit crises were caused by lax federal oversight and laws written by the credit industry who were given that favor with their large payoffs to the Republican-led politicians paid to do their bidding?

Surely he can't mean change in our bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy, as he has long called for attacking Iran, and he seems too intent on exerting American military might in places and at times that are totally inappropriate for it.

McCain has been part and parcel of the Republican-dominated federal government for over 20 years. In fact, according to the Congressional Voting Studies the self-proclaimed "maverick" McCain has voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time.

Let that sink in: The man now calling for change is apparently admitting the errors of his whole previous career in Washington and is willing to change course.

Yet, if this is so, why choose Sarah Palin as his running mate? For she stands as firmly for those same disproven policies as McCain, and she is just as eager to lie about it. Her claim that she's a master pork fighter is completely bogus. As a mayor, Palin hired a lobbyist to canvass Washington annually to support earmarks for Wasilla totaling $27 million. As governor she has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the nation's largest per capita request.

Palin's biggest whopper is her one and only professed credential to fight pork (as if that is even the biggest problem facing America), namely her opposition to the famous $398 million "bridge to nowhere." In fact she supported the bridge until it became a national embarrassment and the impossibility of its construction became a fait accompli. As governor in August 2006, she said, "We need to come to the defense of southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table, like the bridge, and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative," according to the Ketchikan Daily News.

McCain/Palin foisted other distortions as well. From the real nature of the tax proposals (Obama's would actually leave a big majority of citizens with 5 percent more after-tax income, McCain's with only 3 percent) to the true mission of Republican politics (diminishing Social Security, Medicaid and public education). McCain/Palin covered their lies with a thick layer of lipstick.

Coated with Prozac.

Do you REALLY believe this GOP?

2008-09-04T01:04:00.002-04:00

If you are loving the notso G OP convention, the speeches of Palin, Thomas, Giulliani and company, I’d be embarrassed. Of course, some of you probably aren’t and may be thinking the same about me in relation to the Democratic convention.

Fact is, however, that none of the speakers in Denver spoke critically of McCain except in regards to the failed Bush policies that he vows to continue. None of the Democratic speakers condemned an entire religion, the Muslims. None of the Dems even hinted at any religious test for the presidency, much less a fundamentalist Christian one. No Dem invoked religion, hatred of another race or culture, or fear as a reason to either vote for them or against McCain.

However, every Republican speaker has done so. It is vile. It is hypocritical to their professed belief in Jesus Christ to lie, to invoke his name in a false appeal to fear. Yet the hypocrisy of donning the cloak of Jesus while acting precisely in the opposite manner is totally consistent with the notso G OP since the Reagan revolution, and even moreso during the Bush tenure.

For 6 years, SIX YEARS, they controlled both houses of Congress AND the White House, a period in which our current problems were created. What was once a surplus has become a record deficit. What was once a near-balanced budget has become an unprecedented disaster. What was once a world-respected America has become a world-reviled renegade.

Yet these charlatans claim the Democrats will somehow outspend the Republicans who have, in their 6 years of control recklessly spent RECORD amounts! Further,the self-professed disciples of Jesus crucify the Democrats for choosing peace, and peaceful approaches to troubled areas, as being the wrong way.

Did you get this? Jesus’ way, according to Palin, Thomas, Giulliani and company, is the wrong way, the evil way, the LOSING way. Instead, as if we have forgotten that Bush sold the Iraqi war on lies and misinformation—a war that went horribly wrong and for which we will pay for many decades—they have essentially called for permanent war.

Watching the Convention Tuesday night I was greatly amused by the repeated promotion of AMERICAN UNITY. Did they not realize that the number two in their party, McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin, once belonged to The Alaskan Independence Party that called for Alaska to secede from America?!

And now, after two nights of what seems more a Saturday Night Live parody than the real thing, I will agree with my buddy that “I’ve never known how great John McCain was till tonight.” Palin touts McCain as one who will keep America safe like he apparently did in Vietnam. While my admiration runs deep for a man who answered the call of duty and who suffered so much in the prison camp I must ask in response to Mrs. Palin's claim—What did McCain do in the Vietnamese war--like Iraq one we wrongly, unnecessarily and illegally waged—to keep us safe? Was he, before his capture, one who napalmed Vietnamese kids? Did he help kill the over two million Vietnamese civilians who did not in the least jeopardize our safety?

The fact is, these Republicans still believe the Vietnamese war was right and just and that our only mistake was in not nuking them into submission. The real danger is that these people are still in the thralls of this flawed mindset, and so see nothing wrong with the Iraqi war or, more importantly, future wars if pursued against any country that they find sufficiently scary, ie opposed to our will and way.

Thus, get ready for perpetual warfare. Iraq? We are there forever. And Iran is on deck with China in the wings.

Get ready to send your children or grandchildren to battle my friends. This Republican ideology is based on error and fear and opposes every principle of Universal Morality and the REAL teachings of Jesus. Should they retain power they will follow this false dogma to a guaranteed state of constant conflict and our ultimate destruction.

This is not to say that Obama and the Democrats will “make it all better.” His own militant bias is seen in his avowal to increase our presence in Afghanistan, and to use pre-emptive and unilateral force in even the vaguest of circumstances. Yet, in every other way he, and the Democrats, start from a position of an open-minded inquiry and dialogue and not an automatic mind-shutting “Islamic terrorism—KILL!” mentality.

The fact is that people will, for the most part, not be swayed. Those who are diehard conservatives, or who are totally prejudiced towards blacks will vote McCain; those who are…well, what do I say here—sensible, fair, in tune with the American ideal of sharing and caring, compassionate, what?—will vote for Obama.

How many swing voters, who they are and how the candidates may sway them I do not know. But it is obvious the Republicans are banking on their usual M.O. that the average voter is a shallow thinking, superficial automaton.

This year, however, they just might be surprised. I truly hope so.

Do you REALLY believe this GOP?

2008-09-04T00:27:00.004-04:00

If you are loving the notso G OP convention, the speeches of Palin, Thomas, Giulliani and company, I’d be embarrassed. Of course, you probably aren’t and may be thinking the same about me in relation to the Democratic convention.

Fact is, however, that none of the speakers in Denver spoke critically of McCain except in regards to the failed Bush policies that he vows to continue. None of the Democratic speakers condemned an entire religion, the Muslims. None of the Dems even hinted at any religious test for the presidency, much less a fundamentalist Christian one. No Dem invoked religion, hatred of another race or culture, or fear as a reason to either vote for them or against McCain.

However, every Republican speaker has done so. It is vile. It is hypocritical to their professed belief in Jesus Christ to lie, to invoke his name in a false appeal to fear. Yet the hypocrisy of donning the cloak of Jesus while acting precisely in the opposite manner is totally consistent with the notso G OP since the Reagan revolution, and even moreso during the Bush tenure.

For 6 years, SIX YEARS, they had both houses of Congress AND the White House, a period in which our current problems were created. What was once a surplus has become a record deficit. What was once a near-balanced budget has become an unprecedented disaster. What was once a world-respected America has become a world-reviled renegade.

Yet these charlatans claim the Democrats will somehow outspend the Republicans who have, in their 6 years of control recklessly spent RECORD amounts! The self-professed disciples of Jesus crucify the Democrats for choosing peace, and peaceful approaches to troubled areas, as being a wrong choice..

Did you get this: Jesus’ way, according to the hypocrites Palin, Thomas, Giulliani and company, is the wrong way, the evil way, the LOSING way. Instead, as if we have forgotten that Bush sold the Iraqi on lies and misinformation—a war that went horribly wrong and for which we will pay for many decades—they have essentially called for permanent war.

Watching the Convention Tuesday night I was greatly amused by the repeated promotion of AMERICAN UNITY. Did they not realize that the number two in their party, McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin, once belonged to The Alaskan Independence Party that called for Alaska to secede from America?!

As my buddy says after watching a couple of nights of the Republican Convention, “I’ve never known how great John McCain was till tonight.” Palin touts McCain as one who will keep America safe as he apparently did in Vietnam. While my admiration runs deep for a man who answered the call of duty and who suffered so much in the prison camp I must ask in response to Mrs. Palin—What did McCain do in the Vietnamese war, one we wrongly, unnecessarily and illegally waged—to keep us safe? Was he before his capture one who napalmed Vietnamese kids? Did he help kill the over two million Vietnamese civilians who did not in the least jeopardize our safety?

The fact is, these Republicans still believe the Vietnamese war was right and just and that our only mistake was in not nuking them to submission. The real danger is that these people are still in the thralls of this flawed mindset, and so see nothing wrong with the Iraqi war or, more importantly, future wars if pursued against any country that they find sufficiently scary.

Thus, PERPETUAL WAR. Iraq? We are there forever. Iran is on deck and China is in the wings.

Get ready to send your children or grandchildren to battle my friends. This Republican ideology is based on error and fear and opposes every principle of Universal Morality and the REAL teachings of Jesus. Should they retain power they will follow this false dogma to a guaranteed state of constant conflict.

This is not to say that Obama and the Democrats will “make it all better.” He has his own militant tendencies as witnessed by his avowal to increase our presence in Afghanistan, and to use pre-emptive and unilateral force in even the vaguest of circumstances. Yet, in every other way he, and the Democrats, start from a position of an open-minded inquiry and dialogue and not automatic mind-shutting “Islamic terrorism—KILL!” mentality.

The fact is that people will, for the most part, not be swayed. Those who are diehard conservatives, or who are totally prejudiced to blacks will vote McCain; those who are…well, what do I say here—sensible, fair, in tune with the American ideal of sharing and caring, compassionate, what?—will vote for Obama.

How many swing voters, who they are and how the candidates may sway them I do not know. But it is obvious the Republicans are banking on their usual M.O. that the average voter is a shallow thinking, superficial automaton.

This year, however, they just might be surprised. I truly hope so.

Richard F. Dawahare9/3/08

Do Bugs Think, Did Nazis Pray?

2008-06-28T13:46:00.003-04:00

What's a bug think? All the research, all the musing, all the Raid, DDT, flyswatter, Off aside, do we really, really, know what goes on in an insect's tiny head? Conventional wisdom holds that they, like most of the animal kingdom, are creatures of instinct.

Thus, a bee can make the most mathematically perfect structure for storing honey, has done so for thousands of years, and yet not one of them have ever cracked an engineering or architectural textbook. Inbred, hot-wired instinct is all that can explain such natural perfection. [For a fascinating review of the honeycomb's perfection and scientists who have proven same, see this article from Science News, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_4_156/ai_55553309].

Yet all living organisms share one common trait: we scurry from pain and hurry to pleasure. Humans use both instinct and mind to do this. Insects? Well, perhaps it is the instinct from the honeycomb example that similarly moves them. But note how the fly that sees it's about ready to be swatted flits away. This is MIND, not instinct, same as with humans.

If insects can process, through sight--or sound or touch or smell--information that its brain translates into action messages that its body responds to, is this not more than instinct?

And if this is true, is it likewise possible that that same mind might similarly process emotional impulses. Keep in mind that it is this feature that is commonly believed to be the exclusive province of mammalia, our beloved kingdom. Not reptiles, not birds, not fish or insects, only mammals--including Fido and Kitsy--are believed to be the only life that can feel joy, or sadness, betrayal or loyalty, fear or courage, love or hate.*

Who knows maybe that wasp following you around really doesn't like you after all. Maybe it's the fragrance you're wearing. Try "Eau de Bouse de Vache" instead!

Next installment coming up: "Did Nazis Pray?"

*Does it matter? In the long moral arc of the universe, I don't know. Certainly in the weighing process of immediacy I have no issue, spraying a silverfish on my carpet, or a fly in the kitchen. Believe it or not, I do pray for what soul may or may not be there, but I don't know if I do this to "cover my bases" with the God of us all, or just because I really do feel bad about taking a life. And I do feel this, I just don't feel it enough to keep me from enjoying my own selfish desire to be bug-free.

Perhaps then, respect for life is built on a ladder of degrees. Had I the respect for life, for the sake of life itself, I would therefore put the insect on the highest rung with fellow humans, and I would never kill it. Of course, fellow humans who I would rather not be in my home are generally not there. But what if a visitor came and overstayed their welcome. I mean, I wouldn't spray him with a can of Raid (note, I did not say "her" for such has unfortunately not been the case lately--or maybe that's a good thing).

Floaters

2008-05-20T01:56:00.005-04:00

I’ve taken to making soups lately. I’m especially fond of vegetarian split pea and was eating it regularly at the Whole Foods café but since prices are skyrocketing—what used to be $2.49 is now $3.79—I figured why not make it myself. So a friend, a great cook and mother of four, gave me some tips like using a potato masher to “crush” the peas and Nature’s Seasons seasoning. I add garlic, onion and olive oil (my own touch) and SLURRRP!, it’s fabulous—and cheap.

Well, I’ve become a split pea soup fiend! I have also been making lentil soup and this weekend pulled out a bean mix given as a Christmas present. The directions included the usual bean washing and sorting command as well as the ubiquitous “discard floaters” command.

I’ve always wondered just what so vile and devious about floating beans that they must be discarded from the rest of the bean team, never having the opportunity to make its way in my mouth, down my stomach. Never will it have the chance to live its destiny to nourish my human body and soul.

How sad to be a floater. It just doesn’t seem fair. The floater bean was born like his brethren bean. It grew, was reaped, packaged, stored and sold along with them, seemingly sharing the same attributes that would allow it to fulfill its life’s purpose. It did only what it was supposed to do and through unlucky genetics or quirk of nature it failed to fully develop. It makes it all the way through the sorting process only to be found deficient during the soaking stage. Then it is plucked out and thrown in the trash. Rejected. Discarded. And why? Because it lacks the guts of “normal” beans and thus the density required to please our palate.

The floater is a morsel of God, rejected by a child of God.

I began to wonder, are there human floaters too? What of the many human beings, who through no fault of their own, lack whatever attributes that make the rest of humanity reject them as deficient. Some of these human floaters may have been born into a futile environment, surrounded by a world of despair and hopelessness from the time they leave the womb. Maybe they were born to a single parent, or otherwise in poverty so stifling their parents, like their parents, and theirs before them, see no way out.

Other floaters may have been born with genetic quirks that leave them susceptible to who knows what—depression, alcoholism, and lots of other “isms” to boot. At some point the system weeds the floaters out. Some are like the kid in Charlie Brown with the storm cloud over his or her head, troubled, can’t hold a job. Some panhandle, some turn tricks, others turn to crime. All are floaters.

But what about “personal responsibility?”. Can they not lift themselves up by the bootstraps even though they started with these handicaps? The fact is that without much remedial help, without loving dedicated attention, the answer is no, they cannot. They lack even the bootstraps.

While of course with God all things are possible, it is as President John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural speech, “here on earth God’s work must surely be our own.”

Human beans—human beings—are obviously not veggie beans. As a child of God they are never to be discarded, and thankfully they often are not. Family, friends, the church and yes, even government social programs salvage many a human floater. Still, many others share the bean’s fate.

Often all it would take is an acknowledgement from a fellow human be’an--a complete stranger would do—a pat on the back, a smile or kindly word. Sometimes such attention will turn a human floater away from self-termination (suicide) towards the tiny sliver of sunlight opened by this show of compassion. Then one step and another and before long this floater re-joins the mix of healthy human be’ans in the soup of life.

Truly, human kindness separates the beans from the boys.

Corporate Welfare is Killing America

2008-04-28T19:06:00.001-04:00

Corporate welfare is killing America. It is smothering our democracy and with it the once-vaunted American middle class. As Kevin Phillips observes in his new book, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, the elected leadership of both parties has gamed our system to fatten the profits of corporate capitalists, while shifting the risks of their failures on the rest of us.

Over the last 25 years, the Federal Reserve has catered to the financial industry, which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to Washington politicians, by collectivizing the risk of big investors. As Phillips says, we citizens take all the risk "of collapsed currencies, flawed speculation, busted hedge funds or the greedy misjudgments of large banks or brokerage firms" (think Bear Sterns) while they keep all the profits when times are flush. Combined with upper-tier tax cuts, this corporate corruption has led to the widest divide between rich and poor since the pre-crash 1920s, a most ominous sign of a shrinking middle class.

Adding to this chicanery, the Bureau of Labor Statistics understates inflation by excluding from the Consumer Price Index such expensive items as gasoline and food. The real rate of inflation is 6 percent to 9 percent, not the officially reported 2.7 percent. This under-reporting allows the government to avoid automatic COLA (cost-of-living adjustments) to Social Security benefits, thus cheating deserving citizens out of billions of dollars of their rightful money. It also allows the Fed to set imprudently low interest rates, thus opening the spigot to the cheap money that greedy speculators turned into the subprime mortgage crisis.

Corporate capitalists love to preach "free markets," ignoring the fact that markets corrupted by such government manipulations are anything but free. They shout "personal responsibility!" when opposing government aid for the rank-and-file Americans who sweat for them, yet hypocritically reject it for themselves with the golden parachutes they use to flee the failed companies they helped sink.It is this wolf-guarding-the-henhouse phenomenon throughout our government that destroys our democracy.

When big money dictates government policy, including deregulation, bail-outs, kickbacks, no-bid contracts, war-making and even the brazen ability to write the laws that benefit them instead of the public interest (the ruse Bankruptcy Protection Act, for example), America ceases to be a free democracy, thus imperiling the middle class that so depends on it.America's middle class needs a government that acts in the best interest of all, not just those at the top.

Publicly financed elections, strict control of lobbyists and a prohibition of even the appearance of impropriety are essential reforms.

But, like a good doctor tending a sick patient, government must first do no harm.

When to Celebrate Killing--When to Condemn it

2008-04-14T20:59:00.004-04:00

The MSNBC teletype flows across the bottom of the screen. Here’s the flow: Obama leads nationally by 9%, Jimmy Carter will meet with Hamas in Syria, Catholics happy with Pope Benedict’s leadership, Dalai Lama speaks of vision of hope in Seattle but does not mention Tibet, Chinese leaders call Nancy Pelosi most hated person in China for stance on Tibet, Chinese arrest monks allegedly using a homemade bomb at a government building in Tibet, A bomb kills at least 12 and injures over 100 in a mosque in southern Iran, A roadside bomb in Baghdad kills another American soldier capping the bloodiest week of the year for US troops in Iraq, 15 killed in US raid on Sadr City.

How appropriate a name—SADr City. And how macabre that we should celebrate deaths, the more of them we kill, the further along the road to success we apparently are.

This concept really got me to thinking. What is truth? Does the death of some people truly lead to a better state of affairs on earth, indeed does it get us closer to “doing on earth as it is in Heaven?” One need only look at the world’s bloodiest war in history, WWII, to see that at least for that war the answer is a resounding “YES!” That is, the mounting deaths and attrition of the Nazis and the Japanese led to the eventual end of that horrible war. If there truly is such a phenomena as morality, as “right or wrong” then WWII was a perfect black/white example of it.

The Nazi and Japanese warlords were truly evil. The allies were the white-knighted saints, forced into battle by the evil side’s aggression. WWII was a literal battle to the end. There was no compromise, no truce, no arrangements possible except the utter destruction of one side or the other. The Greatest Generation is termed so because they recognized the stakes they were called to defend, they did so eagerly with little thought to their individual, selfish ways, instead melding as a unit for the defense of not only their country, but for freedom everywhere.

To me, a very self-oriented, life-of-leisure liberal, idealist romantic, such heroism and sacrifice is the apex of service. I would hope beyond hope that if I were in their shoes I would have readily traded them for boots and so rise to their level of dedication. Looking back it seems such a tremendous effort that I can only be honest by saying, “I don’t know that I would.”

While today’s battlefields are no less bloody, they are fought over causes with far less moral clarity. Starting with Vietnam and now Iraq an objective and neutral observer might very well see the United States as not only the aggressor—that is undoubtedly true—but also one without just cause, making this aggressor “the bad guy.”

If so, what must we therefore make of the deaths we now inflict?

The Day I said Yes to Everything

2008-04-06T14:56:00.011-04:00

I’ve been reading a lot of positive attitude stuff lately. Not necessarily searching for it, more just by chance—an article here, a long lost book there. So I woke up today and said to myself, “Say YES to everything, act positively and with faith and make people HAPPY!”

My morning run, shower and shave refreshed my body as my mind was full of joyous optimism, and off to work I drove! Greeting co-workers on the way to my office, a steamy cup of coffee by my side I fired up the laptop to check the morning mail. What’s this—“Please help the hungry in Botswana, YOUR donation of $16.50 will provide a bowl of rice for a YEAR for a starving child…” “YES” I said, and gladly responded with my credit card payment.

Ah, my vendor friend writes, leads off with a joke…what’s that—FUNNY! —Uh oh, here it comes… "Please confirm that order for the purple suits with the yellow stripe—after all, you said you wanted to be different,” he pled. “Sure” I responded, and add the purple pants to boot. Oy ve! How did HE know this was my day to say yes?

Next email, from a saintly, sweet-sounding lass who I did not recognize named Christina St. Marie, but she seemed to know me for she wrote in the subject line “Hello Richard!” So I opened it up to see GENERIC VIAGARA—GETTHETASTEOFGENUINESEXUALPLEASURE. Well, this is your lucky day, Christina, here’s my order. Another came from Tiffany with a cryptic subject line promising MALE ENHANCEMENT, HUGE, NIRVANA blah blah. Hello! This was my day to say yes after all

Then there was one from Buffy,”YOUR Cialis order ready to ship.” It is? Great, and boy was my American Express getting a workout today. Then Angel Gonzalez emailed me, another stranger, but such a nice greeting in the subject line, “Richard I miss you”, so I opened it to find, SUPER HOT EXPLICIT BABES WAITING TO -----YOUR----.” Come on, I thought, what timing, first Viagra, then “Male enhancement” followed by Cialis, now this—but what choice did I have. I had a feeling that more than my credit card would be getting a workout.

The emails poured in, as if they all knew Richard Dawahare must say yes today. There were the political campaigns, “Say yes to Ralph Nader,” “Tell Hillary you’re for her!” “Sign on to Obama.” Then the moment of truth, “Support Senator McCain. Oy ve, okay, OKAY, yes, yes YES to you all! . I even responded to an email in Russian, I have no idea what, can you translate “Клиентская поддержка”? I dunno, but I responed “Da!” Lord knows what I did, but I was consistent at least.

And of course, I got three free credit scores, lowered my debt twice, opened four more checking accounts and started buying various “meds” from a trusted new on-line pharmacy, for they warned, “YourLocalDrugStroesDon'TSellMedsWitohutPrecsrpition?” Good thing today was my day to say yes or I’d have never answered such a helpful, potentially life-saving offer. Bless them!

Once on the streets there were the usual askers of help, who I never refuse. Good lord, did they know, too, that I was bound to say “yes”? Would they ask this day for a small fortune? With joy and relief did I answer, “Sure!” to a request for $5 and another for spare change.

Then there were the petition drives. First, a drive to impeach Bush and Cheney. Then one to restore voting rights to released felons. There was a Pro Peace, Pro Israel, Anti-divestment petition, then a Pro Peace, Pro Palestinian, end the Occupation petition just down the street. I signed them all, for this was my day to say YES!

I opened new charge accounts at Target and Meijer’s, redeemed coupon offers for products I never use, including for feminine hygiene and makeup removal. And in the mall I even stopped at the “Dead Sea” skin care kiosk and said “Yes” to the girl with the big smile--the one I just knew was reserved exclusively for me--as she asked “Pardon me sir, can I ask you a question?” I Gave her my hand and let her rub it raw with the so-called healing salts. Lucky for me that she didn’t ask me to buy anything, only to ask if she could try that sandpaper substance on my hand.

The day was ending and I thought I’d said my last ‘yes’ when in the car ride home Dave Oreck asked me to try the Oreck XL for a free test. Yes! I said as I jotted down the number, even though I have a Beam central vac system.

Now, while I go with fate and whatever karma holds, I do subscribe to the philosophy that God helps those who help themselves. So in order to avoid any further opportunities to say ‘yes’ I switched from the AM to commercial-free FM public radio. To prove that there is NO escaping Karma the last thing I heard just before the whirr of the garage door closing was, “So PLEASE, call in your pledge NOW…”

In all it was a day of liberation—‘YES’ to all, without prejudice or judgment, remorse or elation. For today at least I had all the answers and great peace of mind.

Yes I did.

McCan't

2008-04-06T02:41:00.000-04:00

NY TIMES Headlines: 81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on the Wrong Track.

Doesn't matter if a toaster ran against McCain, he wouldn't win.

McCan't.

Shakespeare in the Park. (Schweitzer too)

2008-03-23T02:56:00.005-04:00

On my walk through Woodland Park today I stopped at Black Swan bookstore. My friend Mike Courtney is a book expert who has thousands of books, many rare and valuable along with others that are well, just books. Books of all sorts and all ages, on all topics.

I happened across "The Wit and Wisdom of Albert Schweitzer" a thin book (with large print) from 1949 of musings from this great humanitarian and seeker of truth. While chatting with Mike I picked up a little green suede book of Shakespeare's songs and sonnets--100 years old! Both were only $10. Can you imagine--a 100 year old book of the master bard's work--oh and the cool thing is that each page contains one short sonnet, not a long hard-to-read tome.

As I went back through the park the colors of the books seemed to blend in with those of the park, so it was a natural instinct to capture the moment--Shakespeare (and Schweitzer) in the Park!

Rejecting Barabbas

2008-03-22T10:10:00.000-04:00

Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace is easy to judge and to joke about. But coming as it did during this high holy season should give us pause before doing so.

Many will replay the Passion story and deride the crowd who shouted "give us Barabbas!" instead of choosing Jesus, the Way to life, and to truth and to peace and to heaven. Yet the choice must be for all of his Way. Believers must therefore seek not merely righteousness, but also mercy and charity and humility. Their offers of prayers and support are due the fallen, especially for brethren who admit error and strive for reconciliation, as has Spitzer. A refusal to do so is a rejection of the Way and a choice for Barabbas.

To be human is to err. We choose Barabbas when we knowingly do an unethical or dishonest act or, conversely, fail to act mercifully when others have chosen Barabbas. When we consider that we all have chosen Barabbas, willingly or not, at one time or another it becomes much easier to show such compassion.

Ultimately, it is in our openness to removing the board from our own eyes that we can help others remove the speck from theirs. In the process, we find our own redemption.

Rejecting Barabbas, we have risen to the highest choice.

What’s Killing the Bats of New England....... And why we should care

2008-02-20T02:14:00.006-05:00

The bats of New England are dropping like flies. 8,000-11,000 bats in Albany, NY area caves have died, over half the estimated bat population. Bats have been dying off throughout caves in New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

They are victims of White Nose Syndrome, so called because of the white fungus found on the noses of all dead bats. Scientists are not sure what is actually causing the bats’ deaths or how they got the fungus, but speculation is that cavers are perhaps spreading some virus that has caused the infestation. Little brown bats are sustaining the largest number of deaths, but the Indiana bat, an endangered species, as well as northern long-eared, eastern pipistrelle and other bat species are affected.

So why should we care? Well, for one bats are voracious eaters of crop- killing, people-biting insects. Too few bats will throw the whole ecological balance out of kilter.

Then there’s the suffering thing. Can you imagine having something like the bubonic plague. Pain, starvation, rotting innards, mental distress—all to the point of a miserable, lonely death. Now, it’s just a bat you say and nobody did anything to them, they got a naturally occurring disease and that's that.

But this gets to the nature of empathy and just how far we should go with extending it. The rebel Jesus took it to what is a still-revolutionary height by demanding we love not only our neighbor, but our enemy as well. That is, we should walk in the other’s shoes, pray for and extend good will to them, as we would to ourselves. Easy with those we like, devilishly hard for those we, ahem, don’t.

Yet we don't stop with enemies, we also show compassion, humanity, with animals, especially pets, who we tend to treat pretty much like one of the family. But why should we stop there? Why not show the same concern with any and all sentient beings?

Does the size of that being matter, or whither to and fro it flies, crawls or burrows? A little bug of some sort was crawling on my pants as I was sitting one day. I wondered, just what did the world look like from that teeny weeny itsy bitsy body, just larger than a speck of sand. It certainly had awareness. Like every living being I’ve ever seen it would scurry from pain and hurry to pleasure.

If we were that little bug would we want to stay sacrosanct, that is, would we want to stay secure in our body, would we want not to be stepped upon, or go splat on a windshield or be eaten by a bird? Would we want to nourish ourselves, maybe grab a crumb from the fiber off my thigh?

Feelings are feelings regardless of size or type of sentient being. Of course, human feelings are of the highest importance in terms of our earthly priorities, thus our concern for the “sanctity of human life.” But just because Fido looks at us with those big baleful eyes, tongue hanging out, tail wagging wildly should not have us forget that squirrel or snake or sparrow or squiggly little centipede all have the same feelings. It's just that we don’t have the same feelings for them.

But why is that relevant? Like any pursuit, is not our successful expression of compassion made stronger with exercise? Just because some creatures are less susceptible to personification, why should we let our subjective emotion overrule our uniquely human capacity to will empathy for those we find less loveable.

Like the stranger. Like the enemy. And like the bats of New England.

Richard F. Dawahare 2/20/08

Edith, Archie and the (falsified) 22nd Psalm

2008-02-05T02:26:00.000-05:00

The following is a true story.

I am working on a book, Jesus vs. Christianity, wherein I hope to share the truth as given me through my life experiences, through prayer and through whatever one can feel as the voice of God, that Jesus, while being God’s most clear light about how we should live to do “on earth as it is in Heaven,” is not God, but God’s most enlightened child, indeed one of the world’s first secular humanists. I have been praying to really know whether this be the truth, and regardless, to know truth, whatever it is.

And so …

Tonight I awoke around 2 am, went to the den, fired up the laptop, turned on the television, and watched All in the Family, which I had loaded in the DVD player.

I was doing some research for another project when this particularly funny episode came on, the one where Edith buys eleven cans of peaches in heavy syrup because it was on sale; the cart gets away and slams into a car. Honest Edith leaves a note and Archie is furious as he assumes they’ll be taken to the cleaners.

Turns out the car owner is a Catholic priest, but Archie thinks he’s a fraud, so he devises a test, asking the priest about the words to the 23rd Psalm. The priest struggles for a minute, and then says, “Oh, your 23rd is the Catholic’s 22nd Psalm.”

Now I did not know if this was true (turned out it was part of the priest’s joke on Archie) so I researched it by Googling “Catholic 22nd Psalm.” I could not believe what I found next: The site, Outreach Judaism http://www.outreachjudaism.org/like-a-lion.html, where rabbi Tovia Singer answered a Lutheran Christian who had asked the rabbi why he did not accept Jesus as the messiah, for “Jesus came not only for the gentiles, but for the Jews as well.”

The Lutheran then said, “Because you are a rabbi, I am particularly perplexed as to why you have not willingly accepted Christ. You surely have read the 22nd Psalm which most clearly speaks of our Lord's crucifixion. Read verse 16. It states, "Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked has enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet." Of whom does the prophet speak other than our Lord? This Old Testament prophecy could only be foretelling Jesus' unique death on the cross. What greater proof is needed that Jesus died for the sins of mankind than this chapter which was written a thousand years before Jesus walked this earth?”

Rabbi Singer first reviewed the long history of Christian animus towards Jews (the Lutheran had said that those who persecuted Jewish people were not “real Christians” to which the rabbi asked if that meant Martin Luther was therefore not a Christian, for he was one of the most vocal anti-semites).

Then he got to the crux of the 22nd Psalm. The early Christians, it turns out, intentionally mis-translated the original Hebrew Psalm in order to bolster their claim that the Old Testament foretold of Jesus, and only Jesus, as the Messiah. The true, original text, written in Hebrew, the language of David, the author of the 22nd Psalm verse 17, is: “Dogs have encompassed me. A company of evildoers has enclosed me; like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet,”NOT “Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet.”

Said Rabbi Singer, “Notice that when the original words of the Psalmist are read, any allusion to a crucifixion disappears. The insertion of the word "pierced" into the last clause of this verse is a not-too-ingenious Christian interpolation that was created by deliberately mistranslating the Hebrew word kaari as "pierced." The word kaari, however, does not mean "pierced," it means "like a lion." The end of Psalm 22:17, therefore, properly reads, "like a lion they are at my hands and my feet." Had King David wished to write the word "pierced," he would never use the Hebrew word kaari. Instead, he would have written either daqar or ratza, which are common Hebrew words in the Jewish scriptures. Needless to say, the phrase "they pierced my hands and my feet" is a Christian contrivance that appears nowhere in the Jewish scriptures.”

Just think about this a moment. Much of the Christian foundation was built upon not only the words of Jesus and work of his followers, but also the high authority of Old Testament prophesies. When a so-called prophecy like the 22nd Psalm is found to be anything but that, the foundation begins to crack. But hey--no problem! To the extent it allows the light of truth to break through, let the sledgehammer of reason and reality pound away.

I tell you, God works mysterious ways to show me truth. Well, maybe not so much mysterious as…freakin’ uncanny, incredible “get your tukus out of bed and watch your tv and I am going to blow your ever-loving mind my son!”

I now want to learn what else in those ancient texts may have been changed for I care not where truth leads, just that it is the truth.

Richard F. Dawahare

An Ode to EBITDA

2008-01-29T00:09:00.000-05:00

EBITDA, EBITDA where have you gone?
Your absence doth tell us that something went wrong

The trumpeted profits for which we now long
Have become just a memory, sing we now a sad song

in good times you showed up all decked out in black,
But now times are tough and all manners you lack;

For try as we might to get back ahead
You mock us by dressing your comeback in red;

Oh where is your shoulder on which we can cry,
Instead like a jilting lover you fly;

EBITDA, EBITDA when will you return?
We already know, not until we do earn.

Nests

2008-01-19T12:56:00.000-05:00

Winter Walking through Lexington's Woodland Park is my favorite. Especially when it's cold--nature's air conditioning--and I can comfortably wear seasonal clothes without getting too hot under the collar while trekking around.

The park is much more interesting in winter. Trees are leafless, but far from lifeless. In the nooks of the bare grey-brown branches, up high in various oaks and walnuts, are nests, squirrel nests. Now and then you'll see the cute little critters digging around for an acorn they'd hid back in the fall, but mostly they are up in those nests, snuggled together, enjoying who know what, the next episode of their favorite sitcom? A classic movie? Or just being?

Being. How nice to just be and for that alone enjoy glee. We are after all human beings, not doings.

But like the squirrel that must build its nest and scavenge for food to enable its rest in the nest--its being--we must also scurry, plan and "do" in order to "be." Hopefully we like what we do and are at peace all the time, not just at rest.

So the trick is to be while we do. The spiritual among us might hand it all over to God, delegate up if you will, as we go about doing what we need, and hopefully like, to do. Others have no need for this and just live life without so much thought.

Certainly for them and all, enjoying what one does is one key to be while we do. But is there more? Is it a matter of zen-like conscious awareness, itself a doing in order to acheive the animal-like presence of being?

If so, it is well worth the effort. And look at it like this: the world, with all its prejudices, agendas, traditions of man--many of them false--and schtick, has entangled our minds and to some degree warped our native, natural awareness we had when first born. Therefore, the special effort to listen to the wisdom of sages past and present and apply it to our lives is necessary to unravel the world's warping influence.

In a sense we can regain our sanity and serenity by returning, in mind and spirit, to our original nest, our mother's womb. Love, pure unadulterated love, that starts inward and reaches out to and through the universe.

Keep that and we can change the world.

Richard F. Dawahare 1/19/08

An Ode to General Dietrich von Choltitz

2008-01-03T18:56:00.000-05:00

It is a rare and mighty event when one, as I, can say they were part of the first mega-mega-mega-mega-mega-mega change in the history of one of the Western world’s most historic cities.

Today, January 2, 2008, I arrived in Paris on the very first day France has banned smoking in all bars and restaurants. There are few sea-change seminal events in a nation or culture’s history, but for Paris, a bastion of individual freedom, the smoking ban ranks near the top.

Even more uncanny is my discovery, after two days of awe-filled wonder with Paris’ unparalelled magnificance, that none of it would be here but for German general Dietrich von Choltitz. General Choltitz, at risk to his family’s life as well as his own, disobeyed Hitler’s order to burn Paris to the ground. Were one to make a bet that Von Choltitz would refuse Hitler the odds would have been a million to one. After all, he grew up in the Prussian military tradition and was perhaps Hitler’s most dependable general. Simply, he did what he was told. He did not hesitate to destroy Rotterdam or Sevastopol, or to execute scorched earth policies while retreating from the Russians.

But a meeting with Hitler just prior to his new post in Paris may have fractured his mind enough to allow the sunlit rays of reason and rational humanity to compete with his military code of blind obedience. Hitler, shaken by the assassination attempts and other pressures was a rambling mess. His new edict, the Sippenhaft Law, that families of disobedient officers would be killed left von Choltiz realizing how bestial Germanic culute had become.

However, what may have fortified his newfound resolve for looking beyond the soldier’s oath of loyalty was this plea from Paris mayor Pierre Charles Tattinger as they met at the general’s posh Meurice Hotel headqurters overlooking the Tuilerie Gardens, the Seine and the golden dome of Les Invalides, with the Eiffel Tower just beyond:

"Often it is given a general to destroy, rarely to preserve. Imagine that one day it may be given you to stand on this balcony again, as a tourist, to look once more on these monuments to our joys, to our sufferings, and be able to say, 'One day I could have destroyed this, and I preserved it as a gift to humanity.' General, is not that worth all a conqueror's glory?"

General von Holtitiz delayed, fed lies to Hitler’s high command and othrwise prevented Paris from becoming another Dresden, just as the French Second army, the U.S. 4th Infantry and the impassioned French resistance reclaimed the City of Light. General von Choltitz surrendered at the Meurice. He was to be tried in absentia in Germany for treason, but his highly placed friends managed to delay the trial until the war’s rend, thus preventing his court-martial and his family’s lives.

But we shall never know whether he would have destroyed Paris as part of a siege in a defensive military operation for then the general may have seen the razing of Paris as a jusitified military maneuver. It was apparent to him, however, that the German high command had no real interest in defending Paris for they kept moving toops out and failed to provide promised reinforcements. Thus, in the general’s eyes to destroy the city just for Hitler’s pleasure was a totally unjust cause. Anyway, so that this Ode may be pure, I will prefer to believe that general von Choltitz would never have destroyed Paris in any event.

So it is most ironic, incredibly so, that I come to a Paris saved from external flames on the day it extinguishes the internal ones. Now to the question Is Paris burning? we can truly answer, not anymore.

Richard F. Dawahare 1/3/08

ps I am now quite anxious to see the 1966 movie Is Paris Burning with Gert Frobe (of Goldfinger fame) playing the general.

Note :
After learning about general Von Choltitz I gathered the information for this pièce from an artile on HistoryNet.com by Kelly Bell. http://www.historynet.com/magazines/world_war_2/3031316.html?page=1&c=y

My Christmas Carol

2007-12-22T22:22:00.000-05:00

Christmas can be the most deliriously joyful time, as well as the saddest, for it accentuates the void of loved ones no longer with us. I have found Christmas bliss, or rather it has found me, through faith and the flexibility to appreciate the miracles of Christmas present, while treasuring the magic of Christmases past.

Oh, how I relish my early yuletide memories.

They began in my native Whitesburg -- a mystical land, equal parts Mayberry, Sherwood Forest and Oz -- nestled in Eastern Kentucky's majestic mountains, so green in the summer, in winter a wonderland of white.Our house was on Hays Street, at the foot of a mountain, just one street over from Main, which was now decked out in all the nostalgic charm of a Norman Rockwell Christmas portrait, complete with old Coca-Cola script "Season's Greetings" signs and plastic Santa sentries in front of all the stores.

We gathered 'round the piano and sang as my wonderful mother, Genevieve, played. "Frosty the snowman was a jol-ly hap-py soul, with a corncob pipe and a but-ton nose and two eyes made out of coal." We laughed with glee, little brother Willie, sister Mimi, Mom and me. And while it didn't make too much sense, I tried to envision a "one-horse soapen sleigh." (It was years before I learned that it was "one-horse open sleigh.")

Come Christmas Eve, we kids had visions of toys and trains and goodies galore. We'd get up and tiptoe down to the basement to see if Santa came. Dark, no Santa. A little later, we'd sneak down again. Dark, no Santa. Finally we willed ourselves to sleep, but woke early and in unison darted down the stairs to, glory be, a fully lit tree with colorful gifts for our whole family.

There was never a tree as true or pure as that fresh-cut spruce. Today try as it might, even a billion-dollar industry can't package the power of yesterday's pine.We lost little Willie the next year, and all I can recall are the tears that eventually gave way to a serene sort of peace on Mom's beautiful, but forlorn, face.

Dad moved us to Lexington, and despite the pain Christmas managed to find us where we were. Each year had a new tradition, like the day Mom brought home the new Andy Williams Christmas album, undoubtedly the greatest of all time. Thanks, Mom, I love you and miss you so.

With both parents and two brothers now at rest, our traditions must of necessity change. Yet still does Christmas find us where we are, comforting us, giving us meaning and purpose in this life, and the hope of a heavenly reunion in the next.

And like the tree from my first memory, that stays ever green through autumn and spring, does this truth from Christmas fill our being: Peace on Earth, Good Will to All.

Richard F. Dawahare 12.22.07

Giving Thanks

2007-11-23T18:43:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is a perfect prelude to the season of light. It humbles us, and it reminds us of our interconnectedness, without which we would be utterly helpless in our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

Most of us feel an immense sense of gratitude to, well, depending on one's lineage, to God or Allah ("of the book" Abrahamic religion adherents), Providence (deists -like most of our founding fathers) or the Great Spirit (Native Americans, the first inhabitants), for the good fortune bestowed upon this great land.

Beyond this collective feeling of gratitude, Thanksgiving arouses appreciation for our many individual blessings. Health, wealth, family, friends and freedom come quickly to mind. Others are subtler, like the "approved" credit message at the checkout terminal, or a stranger's smile.I am also reminded of how lucky I am for the happenstance of my birth -- of the good parents I did not choose, but had; of the charmed spot on earth that I likewise did not choose, but was born into.

Others have not been nearly so lucky.Imagine, for instance, the Wampanoag Indians at Plymouth in 1620. Were it not for their help, the newly arrived Pilgrams might not have survived. That fall, they celebrated for three days in what we now call the First Thanksgiving, with the Wampanoag, led by Squanto, Samoset and Massasoit, providing most of the food. Over the next few years, more and more English came, and as their numbers grew they did not need the Indians' help anymore.

The Puritans sought to impose their beliefs on the Native Americans, conflicts ensued and 50 years later the sons of those who once supped together were now fighting each other. The Wampanoags were all but wiped out. In 1970, at a ceremony marking the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrams' arrival, one of the remaining Wampanoag ancestors spoke:

"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my people. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people. Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important."

His story -- ooh "history" (so when will we have herstory?) -- reminds me of one more thing for which to be thankful: the indomitable human spirit that from error seeks truth, and from trial finds treasure.

Richard F. Dawahare 11/23/07

Radio Waves Goodbye to Fairness

2007-10-17T00:10:00.000-04:00

Just today, a promo for WVLK-am (the Hannity station) had just a 10 second blurb from yet another biased talking head, railing against the US House resolution officially recognizing the Turkish genocide of the Armenians--up to TWO MILLIONS OF THEM--way back in 1915-1917. This guy had the audacity, the sheer unmitigated WARPED sense of values to call the House members so voting disgraceful (or despicable, I can't quite recall).

Imagine that--just a promo for the station, a promo that promises more of the same. The Congressional leaders FINALLY standing up to tell the truth of the long, long overdue and THEY are the ones who are "disgraceful" for doing so.

OUR MEDIA (airwave) IS A MESS! You who are in the media--public media, newsprint, commercial airwaves--how can you not be addressing the following scenario: Sean Hannity, Rush, et al who non-stop, every day, every hour LIE and propagandize for the Republican Party and demonize everybody else. You know it if you've listened for just a few minutes. NO attempt at objectivity, ever. And no requirement for equal time for the opposing political viewpoint--as there was for over 40 years until the death of the Fairness Doctrine.

Since the Republican controlled FCC, under the Reagan Administration, voted 4-0 to trash the Fairness Doctrine, opposing views and opinions have absolutely been squeezed out of the airwaves, particularly radio. Ironically, the Conservative-ran FCC justified ending the Fairness Doctrine by saying, "the intrusion by government into the content of programming occasioned by the enforcement of [the Fairness Doctrine] restricts the journalistic freedom of broadcasters ... [and] actually inhibits the presentation of controversial issues of public importance to the detriment of the public and the degradation of the editorial prerogative of broadcast journalists."

NOTHING IS FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH! As soon as the stations were unshackled by the Fairness Doctrine the rise of Rush, of Savage, of O'Reilly and Hannity began. LOOK WHO OWNS THE MEDIA!

It may be fun to "Whack-a-Murdoch" http://www.stopbigmedia.com/=whackamurdoch but the destruction of our Democracy is absolutely terrifying.

Respectfully, Rfd

The Uncompassionate Unconservative

2007-09-20T22:06:00.000-04:00

The flaw in President Bush's whole premise for warring in Iraq is now, once again, made obvious. To repeat, his whole rationale for destroying Iraq and its peoples (his STATED rationale), was "to fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here at home."

The concept was to control Iraq, install democracy and so remove the roots of terrorism. Since the war was to make us safer at home the presumption is that our welfare is all important, that our health, our life, our liberty, our "pursuit of happiness" is so essential that it trumps the welfare of innocents in the lands we destroy in order to preserve that essence. Just last week, in fact, did Bush repeat this justification for the war.

Now, just today, news reports tell of an impending Bush veto of a bi-partisan plan to increase health care insurance for children, adding $35 billion over 5 years to the Child Health Insurance Program so as to cover more of the nation's 8 million uninsured children.

So half a trillion dollars to kill nearly a million Iraqis, displace 4 million more for the illusory fairy tale that it will make us safer is acceptable, but a relatively paltry 35 billion dollars to insure more, not all, just more, of our children is unacceptable.

Further, the war was to preserve our welfare, including that of the uninsured children. But without this eminently affordable health insurance, their welfare--allegedly preserved by a huge expenditure on violence--is endangered by a failure to make a relatively small expenditure on compassion.

No, the war in Iraq has nothing to do with making us safer, as indeed no such act of illegal immorality can ever do. President Bush has always known this.

Worse, it is obvious that his disregard for innocent lives half a world away is matched only by that for those here at home.

On Junior, John and Jesus

2007-09-08T10:08:00.000-04:00

One thing about big families is that there are inevitably, if you stay alive long enough, lots of funerals. Thursday my cousin and I went to Hazard in the hallowed grounds of eastern Kentucky near Jenkins, where my paternal grandparents began their new Kentucky home 100 years ago.

The occasion was the funeral for John Dishner, a prince of a guy, father of young Blake, and husband to Melissa, daughter of our first cousin, Sondra, who is the daughter of my dad’s sister, Mary and her husband, the late Ed Dawhare. John died at age 36 of cancer, which he contracted a year ago. He had lived in Lexington, but as this magical mountain land has done for many of its own it did for John and his family, drawing them back to the wellspring of their youth.

So it was in this small town setting that it seemed the whole community came. All ages, all walks of life, gathered in this spirit-filled setting atop, ironically, a reclaimed coal mine, a by-product of mountaintop removal*.

From Lexington we take I-64 just past Winchester, then that famous veer right onto the Mountain Parkway, the path I’ve traveled hundreds of times since the 60’s on what I always considered the road to Kentucky’s Oz, the wonderland of Whitesburg, where I was raised. (Happy Chandler, who I loved, called it “the road to nowhere.” His assessment actually heartened me as an emerging young adult for it showed me that even great men make major misjudgments).

About halfway down the Parkway is an exit to Natural Bridge, deep in the Daniel Boone forest and one of the nation’s top sights. It is also where the Junior T. Williamson rest stop sits which is not only why we exited, but the inspiration for this writing.

My cousin, Joe, told me the story about Mr. Williamson. Turns out he was from Pikeville, where Joe grew up (his father, the late Warren Harding Dawahare, ran our store there after WWII until his death in 1966). Junior had a game leg and was a very simple, yet giving man. He worked at Pikeville High with the sports teams pretty much as an equipment manager. He washed jock straps and cleaned football cleats. He served.

Later, he went to Frankfort where he tended the legislators. He’d shine shoes and generally took care of them. He served.

In fact Joe said he did about all he was capable of doing—serving, serving literally hand and foot to others his whole life, with a smile, and with joy. His whole life he humbly served those who got the glory. But as Joe said, HE'S the one with the monument.

Then Joe added, “It's like Jesus said, “those last on earth will be first in heaven.”

*Ask the good people of Hazard about this controversy and they will earnestly show you the other side, the incredibly valuable flat land that enables so much new commercial and residential opportunities, such as this burial ground, hospitals, schools, restaurants and homes. There most certainly are two sides to the strip mining issue and we must honestly consider them all in order to fashion optimal policy.

Summer Smorgasbord

2007-08-18T09:04:00.000-04:00

Just a few weeks ago the fields and skies were brimming with excitement! Bugs of all colors, shapes and sounds were zipping, darting, circling and meandering everywhere you walked. Some were after AMORE, some were just looking for their next meal, often the smaller, slower more defenseless bug.

Often would the bugs bounce into my chest and flutter away. I can imagine what the intensity of such once-in-a-lifetime lust concentrated in a few short days can do to one's radar, can't you?

And since there were SO MANY BUGS, you could see the birds all aflutter with such a feast at their disposal. One little robin was chasing a butterfly, who frantically sought escape, fluttering up, then left, straight down and curlyque back around, much like a fighter pilot taking evasive action.

Now it's August and it seems the 100 degree heat has slowed all such movements. Only the crickets and occassional cicada can be heard at night, a ritual repeated this time of year as long as I can remember.

Next comes the color, the chill and the Christmas thrill;

as a new feast lies deep within the winter field.

A Stitch in Time

2007-08-02T07:38:00.000-04:00

The big city lawyer flew into town, the big case 9:00 am the next morning. Unfortunately his flight from New York had a tight connection and he arrived very late without his bags. The problem was obvious: big court case and NO SUIT, SHIRT, TIE OR SHOES (he travels in jeans and loafers).

"Not to worry,” says the local attorney who partnered with him on the case, “My good friend has a clothing store and I’ll call to see if he can open early for you.” “Sure,” the friend said, “Just come over and I’ll have our tailor work with him.”

The tailor worked magic, whipping out a stellar suit, shirt and tie, and tailoring it to perfection within the hour. So good in fact, the other lawyers in court complimented him on his attire, something that just doesn’t happen in the halls of justice.

The lawyer won his big case, the partner called his friend to tell him the great news and thank him. The clothier thanked the tailor, hugged him, shook his hand and told him his role in this true team victory.

But here’s the remarkable thing: this all happened on the day an article appeared in the paper about “the clash of civilizations” warning about the big Islam conspiracy to rule the world and exhorting Western Christianity to violently confront this so called scourge.

Well, on this day in this town where three strangers came together for a common good the lawyer was Jewish, the clothier was Christian, the tailor was Muslim. Of course, none gave each other’s religiosity any thought whatsoever, and I suspect this is the way of the world at large.

Are there fundamentalists of every religion who are so fearful that they seek to bind their insecurity with violence? Sure, but make no mistake. There is no “clash of civilizations” other than the self-fulfilling prophecy manic non-Muslims make of it, displaying a sense of fear and foreboding that need not exist.

99.9% of this world wants what you want—peace, happiness…and sometimes a great suit that fits.

Special Session an Outrage

2007-08-01T01:02:00.000-04:00

This special session is an outrage. There is absolutely no emergency requiring the legislature to convene. The Peabody coal to liquid gas discussion can and should wait just a few months later, after the election and after much more research into both the viability of such an enterprise and the all important federal role. There remains serious doubt that the plant would be economically feasible as well as environmentally sound.

Most telling is this: Peabody spokeswoman, Beth Sutton, said Kentucky was the only state being considered for this project, according to the Evansville, Ind., Courier & Press (http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/jun/29/peabody-looks-into-plant-site-in-sturgis/). They can maneuver all they want, but there is absolutely no way this is a situation demanding a special session. Every dollar wasted in this enterprise should translate to lost votes to Governor Fletcher for this blatant political ploy.

Most importantly, any decision to give away tax incentives, especially the all-important coal severance tax that is so crucial to the welfare of rural Kentuckians (all Kentuckians really), must be done only after a deliberate and through analysis. Applying high-pressure tactics (falsely based at that) is the polar opposite of the prudent approach required.

On the contrary, Kentucky should not give away any coal-severance tax, none.

Our leaders have for too long had us running scared. Kentucky has all the power and the leverage. It is our coal and our land. When we fully awake to our real strength we will begin to wield it for our maximum benefit.

Revisiting Governor’s Ethics Lapse Within the Four Way Test

2007-07-19T22:34:00.000-04:00

Today in Rotary I was confronted once again by the Four Way test, the one dad always preached as the guide to follow about anything I thought, said or did. The test:

1) Is it the TRUTH; 2) Is it FAIR to all concerned; 3) Will it build GOODWILL and better friendships; 4) Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

I often wonder if Jesus himself was able to follow this test. I know I often fail, especially when making critical observations as I did about Governor Fletcher’s appointment of Ronald Green to the Executive Ethics Commission. I was truthful and it was fair, but did I build goodwill and better friendships and was it beneficial to all concerned?

After struggling with trying to figure out how to advance the cause of truth and justice yet still remain true to the Four Way test, I may have come up with something. Instead of attacking and lamenting the parties’ ethical shortcomings I will simply illuminate the failure, the inherent conflict of interest, the rationale behind the rule about avoiding the mere appearance of impropriety and then end with this:

Please Governor Fletcher, reconsider your appointment, and select another candidate who is thoroughly clean of any potential conflict. To Mr. Green, please refuse this appointment, noting that accepting it would give the appearance of impropriety based on your long financial and judicial support of the one appointing you.

By offering this advice, this truth, I will have helped them do better, be better and be better regarded in the public eye. I will have also furthered a result that is truly beneficial to all concerned and in the process built goodwill and better friendships.

Richard F. Dawahare 7/19/07

No Honor, No Ethics on Fletcher's Commission

2007-07-17T22:02:00.000-04:00

Does it get any more naked? The hypocrisy, the stench of insider power politics, the very phenomena that has so turned off the public and made them feel useless in the democratic process.

This is outrageous. Just as the Executive Ethics Commission is set to hear six cases involving current or past Fletcher administration employees, (five of whom are accused of merit-hiring violations) governor Fletcher appoints to this Ethics Commission---Ethics—a man, Ronald Green, who he had previously appointed to the Supreme Court just in time to make the deciding vote that effectively ended the merit-hiring investigation. (Ronald Green also gave $2800 to Fletcher’s Congressional campaigns from 1996-99.)

In law school, the one really main thing about ethics and conflicts of interest they taught us, or tried to teach us, was that we must scrupulously avoid even the APPEARANCE of impropriety, in this case a conflict of interest. Think about this, Ronald Green is an attorney, appointed to the state’s HIGHEST court, and he knows, or absolutely should know, that he has a duty to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. He should never have been offered that spot on the Supreme Court, but having been offered he should have refused it.

And he should most definitely refuse this position on the Ethics Commission. It matters not that he said, “If I thought I was biased in that way, I would not take part,” in reference to his past donations and support of governor Fletcher. What matters is that there is a reasonable possibility that he could be compromised, i.e. there is an appearance of impropriety.

No honor. No ethics. And unfortunately, no shame.

Baseball

2007-07-17T16:41:00.000-04:00

We moved to Lexington from Whitesburg when I was six just as I started first grade. Garden Springs was a new neighborhood, as most of suburbia was in 1961. We kids loved to root around the new houses under construction. I can still smell that earthy mixture of fresh turned dirt, cement, wood and tar as we’d hunt for the silver discs among the rich brown dirt.

But it was really all about the dirt clods! We’d search for that perfect dirt clod, the kind you could throw without it disintegrating in your hand as you released it, and would kind of splat as it reached its intended victim, more likely than not your best friend.

When that first summer came I followed the older boys in the neighborhood to a vacant lot. I felt a part of something when they allowed me to play baseball with them. Wow, this was gonna be fun I thought—BASEBALLLLL!

“Okay kid, you stand over there,” the older boy said pointing to what I was to learn was “the outfield.”

Thing was, I had bad allergies as a kid. The grass was up to my waist, it’s hot and humid, and I’m wheezing, sneezing, scratching and itching, all the while waiting what seemed like an eternity for relief. Nobody ever hit anything, much less to me in the outfield. Nobody got anybody out, nobody did nothing and I thought I would be doomed forever, hands on knees saying “hmm batter, hmm batter, SWING!” for the rest of my young life. I saw Christmas come and go, and the next and the next with me still suffering, sweating stuck in the weeds on the Lane Allen lot.

So that was my initiation to America’s summer pastime. Mom had other younger children so I really didn’t have the opportunity to play on a team even if I wanted to. Yet baseball memories fill my life.

I used to lay on my belly in front of the TV in the “front room” on our small house at 2004 Alexandria. It was black and white, of course (Uncle Frank got the first color TV I had ever seen. We watched Joe Namath and Alabama in the 1962 Orange Bowl. Two things about that game: the COLOR—Wow, it was,,, you could taste the orange. The other was the pity I felt for Joe as he wore that knee brace, and even though he’s moving good and leading his team to victory, that brace just brought out the sympathy).

Anyway, one Saturday as I was watching Saturday afternoon baseball, hands cupping my face on our carpeted floor, I recall clearly the melodious voice of who would later become my all time favorite announcer, Curt Gowdy, as he said “And taking the field is the rookie Pete Rose for Cincinnati.” I recall Rose hustling across the diagonal stripes of the freshly mowed field. I don’t know why this memory stuck with me, maybe just such a burly athletic guy with a name like Rose.

The Redlegs, as my dad and most old timers called them (the Reds officially changed the name in the 50’s because of its association with Communism), were everything. Almost as big as our beloved Wildcats, at least in the summer months. There was literally nothing much else for anybody from the hills and hollers of eastern Kentucky. How many times would we’d be driving either to or from Whitesburg, or Hazard, or Pikeville or Neon and even between those mountain metropolises, when we’d nudge the dial for a better reception of a Redlegs game.

Finally, “Three up and three down, and at the bottom of the third it’s scratch, crackle-LOUD STATICKY SOUND—and the Phillies 2.” When you could hear him clearly, there was none better than Claude Sullivan, who joined then replaced the famed Waite Hoyt. Later in the 60’s the old left hander, Joe Nuxhall joined Claude. WOW! They were literally part of our family—road trips, cookouts, they were there. (Claude Sullivan was also the Voice of the Wildcats” until his untimely death from throat cancer at age 42 in 1967).

All the old Red’s player names come flooding back. There was Vada Pinson and Frank Robinson. Pitchers Jim Maloney, Joey Jay and Billy McCool. Infielders Leo Cardenas, Chico Ruiz, Gordy Coleman and Tommy Helms. And of course, Tony Perez and Pete Rose, although those names got much bigger later on. And though I had no desire at that time, but would later become a BIG FAN of it--there were the BEERS! The only ones that mattered then, in the days I was too young to drink it, were HUDEPOHL'S and WIEDEMANN'S, even good ol' Oertel's 92. Hudy's had he 14-K insignia with the golden wheat stalks beckoning forth thirsty drinkers.

I got to visit the old Crosley Field a number of times. Once my parents took me to a game when the baby sitter had us paged because of a younger sibling’s illness. We had to go—DARN! But the most memorable was STAN THE MAN day, when Uncle Martin took me and Joe Montgomery and his dad to see legendary Stan Musial’s last game in Cincinnati. Uncle Martin remembers telling me to count cars on the way home, I guess to keep me from asking so many questions. Two hours later, he recalls me saying “two hundred and forty two, two hundred and forty three…”

Then there was the new Riverfront Stadium. I remember the lights being the big deal—and the Astroturf. Dad took me to the 1970 All-Star game. Nixon threw out the first pitch and the NL won on Rose’s controversial slide at home into Ray Fosse. At the time we cheered wildly, but later upon hearing about Fosse’s injury I felt really sad about it. (Carl Yastrzemski won the MVP for tying the TWO records—4 hits and 3 singles).

Then came the BIG RED MACHINE years! ‘Oh what fun it was to ride with a dominating team!’ The 1975 series with Boston topped them all. I was at the University of Tennessee and watching from the couch in our apartment at the Railery…I can’t remember which game, could’ve been the historic 6th, that Boston won 7-6…I’d say in dramatic fashion, but EVERY one of those games were like Ali-Frazier heavyweight decisions!

The names are legendary: For the Reds, Sparky Anderson, Rose, Bench, Perez, Davy Concepcion, Ken Griffey (at that time no need for suffixes, he was the ONLY Griffey), Joe Morgan, George Foster, Cesar Geronimo, Don Gullet, Clay Carroll, Jack Billingham and Will McEnaney. Great role players in Pedro Borbon, Ed Armbrister and Dan Driessen. The Red Sox were similarly great: Yaz of course, Carlton Fisk, Rico Petrocelli, Bernie Carbo, Dwight Evans, Fred Lynn and Luis Tiant among them.

The 1976 Reds team made history being the only team to sweep the whole post season. I skipped a day of classes at law school to see the Reds-Phillies game three. The Reds looked like they were going down to a two run loss, when in the bottom of the 9th, BACK TO BACK HOMERS by Johnny Bench and George Foster—he with his big black bat—tied it up and saw the Reds sweep in extry innings!

I did not know that this would be the pinnacle of my love affair with baseball. Not only did career and other interests take precedence, but the vast SIZE of sports, its all encompassing immensity really soured me. The 1994 strike was the final blow—I have not watched a game since. Instead, I truly enjoy little league, with kids playing for the sheer fun of it, and parents—most of them—cheering their own as well as the others.

Passion for the game, for the fun, is hopefully what these young players play for. It was this kind of passion that fueled the instigator of this trip down memory lane, Alan Stein, in his vision to bring Minor League baseball to Lexington. He and his team have done an outstanding job bringing fun entertainment and quality baseball to Lexington with the Legends and its new stadium, Applebee’s Park.

I went to a game there last week, a beautiful almost-cool blue skied evening and ran into Alan, a hands on manager who does it because he LOVES IT! Thank you Alan and team for putting the fun back in baseball!

Richard F. Dawahare 7/17/07

Government's Duty to Protect, Preserve and Provide for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

2007-07-05T20:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, as has been my custom the past few years, I frolic along the Fourth of July parade in downtown Lexington, and after working up a good sweat in the mid day sun go to McCarthy's bar--the patio so I can smoke a cigar with a cold brew and read the papers. As usual the Lexington Herald-Leader ran the full Declaration of Independence, which I always enjoy reading. It's a little like the bible--I seem to see something new each time!

Well, being continuously confronted with the goverment hating sentiment of so many "conservatives" and by the not so G OP who has been running--I should say MIS-RUNNING our government this second sentence following the lead phrase ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness") from the Declaration grabbed me:

"That to secure these rights, GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." (emphasis mine).

YES, don't EVER let those who cry that government has no role helping improve society, be it with regulatory diligence, aid with health care, education, housing or food, yes--military protection, too--get by with their rants. IT IS WRITTEN in the Declaration and later adopted in our Constitution ("to provide for the general Welfare...") that whoever would live in THESE United States automatically must accept a government that lives in the spirit and flesh of helping facilitate "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The full Declaration of Independence can be found here--http/www.constitution.org/usdeclar.htm

My Personal Political Dilemma

2007-06-28T20:46:00.000-04:00

I face a personal political dilemma. I belong to the Democratic Party (as opposed to being a Democrat. I am a human that happens to believe in traditional Democratic principles, but I am NOT "a Democrat") and have nearly always voted for those candidates.

But in this year’s gubernatorial race the Democratic candidate, Steve Beshear, is not merely pro casino gambling, but is making that the central plank of his platform. Now casino/electronic gambling is the pre-eminent issue that will adversely affect not only the future of Kentucky, but also that of the whole nation. Therefore, although Mr. Beshear is an otherwise solid candidate, his promotion of casino gambling disqualifies him and I would not support him or any candidate who supported this losing enterprise.

The Republican candidate, Governor Ernie Fletcher, has now changed his stance on casinos from one of allowing a referendum to being adamantly opposed to them. He has thus made casino gambling the key issue in the race and has positioned himself as the savior to prevent its ugly tentacles from strangling Kentucky’s future.

I predicted this move by Mr. Fletcher. It is shrewd, but it is politically expedient. I would not trust that he would spend all his political capital opposing casinos if re-elected…but he might, I just don’t know. It would have been much, much more convincing had he been so opposed from day one.

That said, my realization of just how very, extremely critical it is for us to keep casinos out of Kentucky is such that I am so-o-o-o tempted to support Mr. Fletcher. For even though his past work in Congress helped degrade our democracy, his ultra-partisan attacks on Clinton and his proposals, and his near 100% support for President Bush and his anti-democracy, pro special interest agenda, his support of the Iraqi war, and his reneging of his promise to clean up the mess in Frankfort by instead making it worse--despite all that the issue now is Kentucky’s future. Should I not support at least the one candidate who now promises to oppose casinos?

But no, I just can’t and won’t support a past facilitator of the corrosion that has so infiltrated Washington, now up to the Supreme Court.

So I won’t support Beshear, nor will I Fletcher. Can I just sit on my hands and not vote this election? I, a proponent of exercising our hard fought democratic rights, chief among them the power of the polling place, can I go through a major election without placing a vote?

No. And the only other person I know who I trust to do the right thing, to surround themselves with good, honest people who with him will focus solely on what is best for the COMMON wealth of Kentucky and its future is…oh gosh, this is going to sound…I don’t know the word, it’s not quite egotistical, but close, it’s not quite delusional, but close…oh drat, forget what it sounds like---the only person I know who believes in the approach and the policies that I believe in is me.

But I am not a candidate. I belong to the party that has a candidate and I did not run, nor did I think I needed to with the field that did run. But then Beshear, late in the primary season, unleashed his pro casino agenda that thoroughly dis-heartened me.

Do I let the fact that I have no chance, that I have no track record, that it would dilute whatever credibility I might have and make me look ridiculous stop me from doing the really unthinkable: change my political affiliation to Independent and enter as a write in candidate, just so I can use my vote on the person I most trust?

The Answer for Workplace Fairness? It’s Unions, Jack!

2007-06-23T00:37:00.000-04:00

Workers and employers of America…UNITE! For that is the most humane and effective way to increase the welfare of all. Unfortunately, the history of labor relations is such that workers too often suffer when employers have surplus power and deficient humanity.

Indeed it was that imbalance that originally led workers to unionize, a process that has lifted workplace standards for everybody. We take for granted such protections as the 40 hour workweek, paid vacations, safe workplaces, minimum wages, health care and pensions that all flow from workers uniting in a common cause.

Today, so well entrenched are those protections that many believe the unions have outlived their usefulness. Popular perception blames unions for gouging employers, forcing them to close or re-locate, or driving up prices and making them uncompetitive.

Yet nothing is further from the truth. In fact Washington is so caught in the corporate clutch that many workers are suffering anew under unscrupulous employers. And when they try to exercise their Constitutional right to organize employers are illegally harassing, threatening and firing them, escaping punishment under toothless pro-business laws and a Republican controlled regulatory apparatus where the wolves guard the henhouse.

But this could soon change when Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act, a long overdue law that would restore balance to the relationships between employer and employee. Specifically it would let the employees determine how to vote for a new union, not the employers. Currently employers choose a process that allows them plenty of time to intimidate, threaten, fire and hold mandatory anti-union meetings.

The Act would also strengthen financial penalties for companies guilty of coercion or intimidation and require mediation and arbitration when management and a newly certified union cannot agree on a contract.

More than half of Americans workers, 60 million, say they would join a union if they could and for good reason. On average union workers earn 30 per cent more and are more than 62 per cent more likely to have health coverage than their non union counterparts, such as those in the ‘right to work for less’ states. By the way, nothing is more anti-American than so called right to work state laws that allow new employees to refuse union membership in a business where a democratic vote established that union.

Teresa Joyce was a union organizer who suffered under hostile management at ATT wireless but enjoyed a complete turnaround when Cingular took over (Cingular respected the workers union vote and freely engages in a collaborative process that benefits everyone).

In her Congressional testimony supporting the new law Mrs. Joyce noted that ‘It is outrageous and shameful that the very freedoms they (her relatives in WWII and Iraq) fight to preserve are the very freedoms that are routinely trampled on here at home. Something is terribly wrong with our laws and our country when workers are systematically harassed, threatened and even fired for the simple act of exercising their right to form a union to improve their lives.”

With the middle class rapidly shrinking, the gap between rich and poor at historic highs and a political system too long in doing the bidding for big business, it is essential to protect basic workplace freedoms for all Americans. Congress must pass the Employee Free Choice Act and, above all, Kentucky must reject ‘right to work (for less)’ legislation.

Richard F. Dawahare

Blinders

2007-06-16T23:10:00.000-04:00

Horse-drawn carriages make a walk through New York's Central Park even more memorable. The sturdy steeds dutifully plod where the drivers direct, aided in their task by distraction-blocking blinders.

Horse blinders are good. The horse goes where the driver wants it to go, and at the end of the trail it gets a bowl of water and bucket of oats. It occurred to me that human blinders act much the same way.Sometimes we put the blinders on ourselves, preferring blissful ignorance to inconvenient truths. But often, those who seek to control us do so by means of our unwitting submission to blinders.

The media, for example, do the bidding of their political benefactors by deftly using fear and hot-button emotional issues to blind us to higher truths. Indeed, truth is the enemy for those who revel in the thralls of righteousness, who believe in self-justification and demonization of enemies above all else. Hard-held traditions and fears trump science and rationality with blinders so securely in place.

Perhaps such control is good. We go placidly along, enjoying summer softball, rounds of golf and cookouts by the pool, merrily oblivious to political leaders acting against our long-term interests, against the very founding principles of our nation.

But how many bribes will we allow the politicians to take, how much public interest will we let them sift off to their special pals, how many innocents over there will we kill to vainly ensure a false sense of security over here before we yank the blinders off?

Fish, like a horse with blinders, can see only their little world directly in front of them. They are oblivious to the magnificent universe beyond the ocean. Yet the job of the fish is to be fish. As humans we are called to more. We are called to use reason, to seek truth and to follow it wherever it goes.

It is time to take the blinders off. It is time to see from sea to shining sea -- and especially beyond.

Frank Fahrenkopf Misleads Public on Casino Gambling

2007-06-11T15:39:00.000-04:00

Preface: While surfing the net for gambling news Thursday, May 31 I found on the American Gaming Association's site, Frank Fahrenkopf's Letter to the Lexington Herald-Leader attacking my own essay that detailed the long term dangers and false claims of casino gambling. Please check it out:
http://www.americangaming.org/Press/letters/letters_detail.cfv?ID=436

AND NOTE THE DATE---June 4, 2007. BUT IT RAN TODAY, June 11! So I saw it FOUR days before they said it ran in the Lexington Herald-Leader, yet even that date was wrong. This is just indicative of the error and falsehood surrounding that industry and its promoters.
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I appreciate that Frank Fahrenkopf, Jr., President/CEO of the American Gaming Association, would want to attack my exposure of casino gambling as a long-term loser for Kentucky. As a million dollar lobbyist for casino gambling, it is his job to discredit those who would oppose it.

Yet he actually helped make my case. First, he admitted that the states I cited did in fact have economic problems. My point was merely that casino gambling did nothing to help those states’ economies, a fact that directly contradicts the false claims of casino’s proponents who are so quick to grasp the fool’s gold of slots salvation.

He then confirms the validity of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission as he selectively cites some data that is taken out of context in order to spin his desired result. What he fails to mention is the Commission’s bottom line conclusion, which after taking all the evidence into account recommended that:

1) There should be a moratorium on any expansion of casino gambling (“The Commissioners believe it is time to consider a pause in the expansion of gambling.” Overview page 1-7.);

2) Horse tracks should not have slot machines (“The states should refuse to allow the introduction of casino-style gambling into pari-mutuel facilities…” Recommendation 3.12, page 3-18);

3) States “should cease and roll back existing (convenience gambling) operations.” Recommendation 3.6, page 3-18.

Since Mr. Fahrenkopf was so methodical at picking apart my essay, his omission of any reference to my other citations may mean he actually agreed with them. Thus, the warnings of both Warren Buffet and President George Washington stand as a most credible criticism of casino gambling as a damager of the economy and citizens’ welfare.

Finally, he disparaged the academic standards of the University of Illinois and academia as a whole. If such research is as fraudulent as Mr. Fahrenkopf suggests, yank your children out of college, and if you’re a college grad, ask for your money back, for in his view the entire field of collegiate research and education is meaningless.

For the sake of brevity I did not mention other academicians whose work similarly exposes the harm of casino/electronic gambling. I will do so now:

1) Dr. Earl Grinols, who testified under oath in Congress to the soaring social costs of casino gambling as compared with its benefits, then concluded “If the choice is between prohibiting casino gambling or allowing its expansion, the evidence says we’re better off prohibiting it….The most important finding of my research is that gambling fails a simple cost-benefit test…costs outweigh benefits.” Other studies show those costs exceed benefits by a 4 to 1 ratio.
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2) Dr. David Mustard, who with Dr. Grinols authored the seminal research paper on casinos’ effect on crime that concluded: “Casinos increased all crimes except murder…the impact of casinos on crime increased over time and began about three years after casino introduction.”

3) Professor William Thompson, from Mr. Fahrenkopf’s home state of Nevada, co-authored a report that found “…the annual social cost of problem gambling in Southern Nevada ranging from $273 to $413 per adult per year suggests an important problem.”

4) Professors John Barron, Michael Staten and Stephanie Wilshusen co-authored “The Impact of Casino Gambling on Personal Bankruptcy Filing Rates” and found that “…the volume of casino gambling is directly related to bankruptcy filing rate in areas that have casinos nearby.”

Please be aware that the research Mr. Fahrenkopf uses to refute the findings that casinos drain money away from pre-existing, traditional business was done by none other than Arthur Andersen, the former Big Five accounting firm done in by its fraudulent accounting and auditing practices that contributed to the WorldCom and Enron bankruptcies.

Why on earth would we listen to a lobbyist from Washington about what’s best for Kentucky, especially when he doesn’t even want it in his own town? In an interview last fall he said, “Now if someone were to come along and tell me that they were going to put a casino in McLean, Virginia, where I live, I would probably work very, very hard against it. I just don’t -- what’s the old saying, ‘NIMBY, not in my back yard?’ Now I may be in favor of gaming, but I just don’t want it located in a particular area."

I realize that slots are recreational for many people and I believe it is in no way an immoral activity per se. Grandmothers gamble for goodness sake! But it is really a matter of POLICY and as such, casino style gambling is a proven economic and social loser for the community at large.

Kentucky cannot afford to fall for the false lure of casino gambling. We, the people, have the power to run our state in the right way, for our long-term welfare. As a famous philosopher once said, “Wisdom is proved right by her actions.”

Richard F. Dawahare 6/11/07

What Concerns You?

2007-05-27T08:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends:

Hello! Somebody asked me the other day what one or two things most concerned me about our world. I thought this would be a great question to ask you and my other friends and other “linked” email acquaintances (those of you listed on other emails).

I will categorize all responses (anonymously, of course) and if you wish share the findings.

PLEASE—think about the one or two issues that you are truly concerned about in terms of how they may affect the future welfare of your world and our world (one and the same really). Could be local, regional, national, international, and even inter-galactic!

After categorizing the responses I will then enlist us all to ADDRESS these concerns. We'll brainstorm and devise solutions that get to the roots of the problems.

I appreciate your input.

Take care, Richard

PS PLEASE share widely, the more responses the better!

Gambling’s False Lure

2007-05-16T22:59:00.000-04:00

Kentucky is officially in the Twilight Zone. While we are desperately trying to escape the negative image of being a backward state that is perpetually behind the times our would be leaders either actively promote or refuse to ardently oppose an activity that will tighten the noose of false hopes and low expectations.

Casino gambling is a proven economic loser and spirit killing enterprise that delivers precisely the opposite of its falsely claimed benefits. One need only look at the experience of states that have already accepted gambling’s Faustian bargain. Illinois is essentially bankrupt. Nevada’s budget is busted, as is Rhode Island’s. As Donald Carcieri, the governor of Rhode Island, correctly said, "There is no evidence whatsoever that states with large gambling revenue are any better off financially." He noted that both Rhode Island and Connecticut had substantial gambling revenue, yet still suffered huge deficits. Tragically, gambling state after gambling state has also suffered skyrocketing crime, suicide, bankruptcy and foreclosing rates.

Professor John Warren Kindt, a leading researcher has long cited the facts that destroy the myth of slots salvation. He has testified to these facts in Congressional hearings under oath and in the presence of gambling industry lawyers who have not and cannot refute him. In fact every academic study, that is every study NOT funded by the gambling industry, conclusively exposes the fraudulent claims of the gambling industry.

Beyond the financial loss to individuals and traditional pre-existing businesses lie the very real and traumatic human costs. So well documented are these sorry statistics that the federally funded National Gambling Impact Study Commission recommended a moratorium on the spread of gambling in 1998. Yet the gambling industry’s dangle of easy money has blinded the short-sighted leadership of many states to ignore the truth and so lead the nation down a futile race to the bottom.

Strong leadership would heed the lessons of history. A similar gambling scourge swept the country in the late 1800’s. It got so bad that states, including Kentucky, changed their constitutions to forbid such gambling. Today’s electronic gambling options are much more lethal. Indeed slots are the “crack cocaine” of gambling as the lickety-split action and manipulated pay-offs are intentionally designed to hook gamblers. Conversely, the pari-mutuel wagers on horse racing pose no such threat and Professor Kindt has said that casinos in Kentucky’s tracks will eventually kill the thoroughbred industry.

If we hope to reach the higher rungs on the ladder of progress Kentucky’s leaders must chart an alternative course. We should instead be the casino gambling-free state that trumpets good citizenship, teamwork, education and industry. Prospective employers absolutely relish the strong foundations built on these time proven traits and deplore the hypocrisy of gambling’s false claims that mock our slogan, “education pays.”

Warren Buffett agrees. America’s premiere business expert railed against casino gambling: “States shouldn’t be in the position of selling the needle. It should not be a sponsor of spreading addiction. For a state to prey upon its citizens to create more of these addictions is wrong. It is cynical for a state to raise money from people who basically can’t afford it by promising a dream that is not going to come true for any but the tiniest, tiniest fraction of people who participate. The 99 percent (who don’t win) lose the ability to take a family to the movie, buy a toy for Christmas or, worse yet, they become and addict and lose everything they have. By promoting gambling, states are trying to get you to do something dumb. States should be doing something for its citizens.”

George Washington, America’s most trusted founding father, likewise warned against gambling: “In a word, few gain by this abominable practice (the profit, if any, being diffused) while thousands are injured."

The only gubernatorial candidate to actively oppose expanded gambling is Republican Billy Harper who correctly said “We simply cannot base out future economy on the quicksand of hypothetical gambling revenues."

Instead of pimping, Kentucky should be promoting its citizens’ highest values. By emphasizing and improving these core values we will improve our economy and create more wealth that will stay in Kentucky. And with such long-term focus we will shed the backward stereotypes we wish to erase.

What’s Bad For Kids, Is Bad For Adults

2007-05-02T23:50:00.000-04:00

Seems incredible. All over Africa criminal warlords have, over the last decade, forced children to become ruthless killers. With a combination of black magic--whereupon warlords manipulate young boys into believing they have supernatural powers—drugs and unimaginable cruelty (forced execution of family and friends) have they created these young soldiers.

According to the UN and Human Rights Watch the nearly 300,000 kid killers, as young as 8, are not only trained to kill without a second’s hesitation, they are also abused as sex slaves, spies and human shields. [Full CNN story:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/index.html].

The real problem, apart from the utter…well there just aren’t words to express how repulsive this is, like trying to describe the unimaginable horror of the holocaust…of this utter abomination is that journalists write and we read about it as if the outrageous part is simply the young age of the soldiers and the forcing of such young children to kill when in reality the brutality which we find so revolting when done by children does not become less so as the age of the perpetrator goes up.

In other words, if it’s bad for kids to do, it is likewise bad for adults.

This truth applies to many activities which society deems acceptable above a certain age. “Adult movies?” Same thing. If it’s not appropriate for kids, while legal and permissible they probably aren’t good for adults. Alcohol? One need only see the toll of abuse to agree with my premise. Sex? Wel-l-l-l, again, one can see that irresponsible sex at any age—and there is probably much more of this by those over 18 than under—can be troublesome.

Obviously, while this is most certainly a call for the curtailment of war and the aggressive use of soldiers at any age, especially in the cause of false pre-emption, this is not a call for abstention from racy movies, fine wine or carnal knowledge. Rather it is a guide for the ideal. If it’s bad for kids, it probably is not so good for adults.
Whew, I’m ready for a beer!

Tainted Foods Reflect Tainted Bush/Republican Leadership

2007-04-26T19:41:00.000-04:00

Part and parcel of the government-hating wolves gaurding our national henhouse is their penchant for contempt of government regulation in the public interest. The foodborne health crises, from spinach to peanut butter and most recently pet foods, is just one of many ways in which we, the public, suffer from a lack of adequate governmental oversight.

Tonight on PBS, a food industry leader, Tom Nassif of the Western Growers Association, said that they readily accept the need for and presence of federal regulators but that they are largely absent. He said that there simply were not enough inspectors, a dearth which he blamed on insufficient funding at the FDA.

Caroline Smith deWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the FDA inspects non-meat food production facilities once every 5-10 years, while the USDA inspects meat processors daily.

We put so much of our trust in food processors and they undoubtedly try hard and are for the most part responsible. It's not that when they err, they do so intentionally, there could just be an oversight, or the occassional sloppiness bred by the knowledge that there is sparse oversight.

This intentional de-funding of essential regulatory oversight of the food industry endangers our public health. It is yet another taint on the record of Bush and his fellow Republicans.

A Post After a Prayer for Direction

2007-04-25T22:31:00.000-04:00

God has put in my heart this directive: RIGHT THE WRONG! Thus, again I call for the impeachment of Bush, Cheney and Rice. Again I call for new leadership that apologizes to the world, gets the world--starting especially with the middle eastern nations--involved in a proper approach to building a better solution, that includes all the parties, all sides in the process.

Any less on my part and God will hold me accountable for my silence. You who once or still support this administration, please, re-think it. Step outside your supposed "truth" and at least for just a moment pretend that there may be some merit that we were/are wrong, that perhaps it's not just "God bless America," but "God bless THE WORLD."

Over 600,000 INNOCENT Iraqis have been killed by our wrongful invasion. Little babies--out of the womb babies--as well as children and adults---murdered, torn asunder limb from limb, hundreds thousands more injured. 20% of the Iraqi population have fled, nearly half of those OUT of the country--ALL because of our illegal and immoral war SOLD ON BUSH'S LIES!

You may or may not believe in God or a higher power, but polls show those who most support this most UNGodly war are "Christian." So I implore those that so profess to pray, pray for the highest truth, to see and know God's highest truth, to have God show you the solutions as well as the truth.Maybe you'll feel the same afterwards, maybe not. This post is a result of my own prayers.

WE NEED TO END OUR fearful assault on others, we need to re-build bridges in the world and not be intimidated by the skeptic hawks at home who know only one solution, one path, the path of supercharged force of arms.

One is simply NOT a true follower of Jesus, the namesake of Christianity, if one places their faith more in the force of arms than the teachings of Jesus, prime among them charity, mercy, justice and love.

Make no mistake, our path the last 6 years have not been following the footsteps of Bush's so called favorite philosopher (Jesus).

Compassion crafts a safer society

2007-04-22T15:16:00.000-04:00

It is easy to be hard. But this heartless path of callous indifference leads inevitably to sorrow and misery, both to the recipient of a snub or slur, and ultimately to its giver. In fact, it is the cold disdain with which we treat our brethren that is the common thread running through the Don Imus hate-speech firing and the Virginia Tech massacre. (There is evidence that, like the killer at Columbine, Cho Seung-hui felt the sting of rejection.)

Yes, we are a good and charitable people. But we are also a society that fosters discord and division, donning our pride and prejudice as the sacred birthrights of a people free to live however we see fit, regardless of the consequences. By our rabid consumption of spiteful radio snipers and demeaning reality shows, we enable our descent to an ever more brutish existence. And it is this numbing of our sensibilities that eventually effects how we treat -- and mistreat -- others.

We have allowed our precious rights of free speech to be exercised without demanding a corresponding use of responsibility. We must therefore insist that discourse over our public airwaves be civil, that political shows are fair and fact-based, and that opposing viewpoints are afforded equal time as our government once ensured. (The Reagan administration eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, thus giving rise to Rush Limbaugh and his ilk).

Above all, we must make the often-hard effort to be nice, to teach our youth that kindness is the highest virtue and to order our world in a way that is consistent with this truth, instead of allowing the disparities that undercut it.

It is a fitting coincidence that Kurt Vonnegut, who saw simple human kindness as the ultimate meaning of life, died on the day Don Imus was fired. His radiant compassion that enlightens our pathway to peace shines in contrast to the mean streets of pitiless insensitivity that drove Imus down a dead end, and possibly to the slaughter at Blacksburg.

"Islamofascism" -- a Hitlerian Lie

2007-04-07T20:59:00.000-04:00

An uncanny coincidence this week bore seeds of truth that will, if planted within the rich soil of an open mind, reap a harvest of clarity that may save us from the Armageddon of inter-cultural world war.

First, a good friend in the garment industry sent me the Rudolf Vrba book "I Escaped From Auschwitz." To say that the life most of us face is pure heaven as compared with just five minutes in the Nazi death camps is a vast understatement. I could only read so much about his experience in one sitting without shaking my head in utter horror and disbelief that this could ever occur; this even though I have read, seen movies and studied this sad reality many times before.

Page after page of sadistic beatings (usually to death), deprivations of food, water and clothes, shootings, gassings and burnings where 90% were killed (ultimately up to three MILLION humans in Auschwitz alone) within days or weeks of their arrival. Yet even through this surreal state of bestial inhumanity Dr. Vrba noted this truth: the Nazi abusers truly believed their prisoners—the Jews, the Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians and others who did not fit the Aryan mold—were a threat to civilization.

Of course, this was pure nonsense. But to Hitler and his many minions this horribly flawed yet heartfelt belief was an eternal truth; and it is this fact that helps explain how they could see and treat their innocent victims as non-humans, and invest so much in their war machine.

Coincidentally, on the very day I received this book there was yet another Cal Thomas article stressing the real justification for the war in Iraq: that it is but one front on an impending world-wide war against Islam. Thomas and President Bush are the lead trumpeters of the flawed notion that Muslims want to take over the world and annihilate Christians, Jews and essentially any non-Muslim.

They have created a term for this fiction, Islamo-fascism, which they use to rouse public fear. Yet, whether by design or not, they have horribly mis-construed the criminal acts of a tiny sliver of the Muslim world in order to justify our ever-enlarging military might, thus guaranteeing war without end, to the end.

They point to suicide bombings and insurgencies as proof of a vast Islamic plan for conquest where such deeds are in fact a reactionary resistance to: a) the ongoing injustice of Palestinian eviction from their homeland and b) their anger over western meddling in their native lands.[2]

Further underlying their demonization of Islam lays an equally flawed understanding of Christian theology. Mainline Christianity sees Jesus as God and believes that those who do not accept this are out of the fold, that is, beyond the salvation and/or blessings of God. Thus, devout Christians evangelize in order to ‘save’ non-believers. Consciously or not, they view those of different faiths—or of no faith (atheists)— as being something less than believers in the eyes of God.

The problem is that the same people who espouse this belief also believe in the inerrant word of God as it is written in the Bible. Yet somehow they missed Genesis 17:20, wherein God distinctly blessed Ishmael (Abrahams son by his servant, Hagar) and ordained that ‘a great nation’ with innumerable descendants (Gen 17:10) would come through him. Ishmael thus became the father of the future Arab Islamic nation as God expressly divined.[3]

God also repeated his promise to Abraham in Genesis 21:13 saying, “I will make a nation of the descendants of Hagar’s son because he also is your son.”[4]

Thus we have this situation: God made two separate and distinct promises with Abraham: one being a covenant of innumerable descendants representing many nations (Gen 17:5,19,21) through his child with Sarah (Isaac), as well as a similar assurance that a great nation will come through Ishmael, his child with Hagar. Most importantly God ordained that although this second line through Ishmael would be totally separate and distinct from the first line, it would be equally blessed, that is, within the ‘fold’ of God. As we know Jesus (and the Jewish nation) descended from the first line, through Isaac, David and Mary. Mohammed is a descendant of Ishmael. From the beginning God decreed that they would be and remain a separate peoples, but equally within His good graces.

Therefore, from either perspective—logic or theology—the truth is far different from those who see war with Islam as a final solution. It is nearly as big a lie as the one proposed, and tragically executed, by Hitler a generation ago.

[1] My friend’s wife was actually a prisoner in a concentration camp as a young girl, narrowly escaping death herself as the Nazis collapsed before she could be sent to the ovens. I met her at an industry convention where she showed me the tattooed identification numbers on her left wrist.

[2] This is no secret. The Iraqi Study Group said as much. Osama bin Laden has given the same as reasons for al Qaedas very existence.

[3] God gave the same assurances to Ishmaels mother, Hagar (Gen 16:10, 21:18). Abraham was old and childless so his wife, Sarah permitted him to have a child with their young servant girl Hagar. Hagar became pregnant and disrespected Sarah who kicked her out. On the wilderness road the angel of the Lord directed her to return and apologize to Sarah and then added, (GEN 16:10) ‘I will give you more descendants than you can count…You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard about your misery. This son of yours will be a wild one—free and untamed as a wild donkey! He will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live at odds with the rest of his brothers. Thereafter Hagar referred to the Lord, who had spoken to her, as “the God who sees me, for she said, “I have seen the One who sees me!

[4] Abrahams wife, Sarah, evicted Hagar and Ishmael from the household after Isaac was born. They were lost and out of water, and as Hagar despaired, (Gen 21:17) ‘God heard the boys cries, and the angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, ‘Hagar, what is wrong? Do not be afraid! God has heard the boys cries from the place where you laid him. Go to him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.’ Then God opened Hagars eyes, and she saw a well. She immediately filled her water container and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy as he grew up in the wilderness of Paran.’

The Miracle Machine

2007-03-29T07:08:00.000-04:00

Swedish scientists have developed what will immediately be accepted the world over as the most incredible invention in the history of humanity. Dubbed “The Miracle Machine” the device can potentially solve every single problem, conflict and conundrum on planet earth or beyond.

On such global conflicts as religious/cultural strife, resource scarcity, poverty, disease—all of which underlie international hostilities—the EQAO 8888 Harmonizer can bring immediate and lasting results. Likewise, the Harmonizer can resolve interpersonal conflicts and individual troubles.

The Harmonizer requires only one ingredient to enable its miraculous powers to take effect: the mutual agreement of all parties about whom any particular conflict, problem or crises affects. The agreement that is necessary is not over what the solution may eventually be, as the Harmonizer will take care of that with 100% effectiveness. No, the agreement is solely one of mutual will and mutual decision to hand the problem over to the Harmonizer for resolution.

“This is a great day for humanity,” said Kaj Sigridsson who directed the project funded by the Swedish government. The Swedish delegation’s first test was the ongoing slaughter in Darfur. Over 20 different factions had to be convinced to sign the dispute over to the Harmonizer. Rebel leader Joseph Mahhaali was typical: “I laugh and said, ‘why not, we can kill tomorrow’ so I give machine our problem today.”

Little did anyone realize just how successful the Harmonizer would prove to be. Instantly the warring parties dropped their arms. Soldiers were reported standing in confusion right where they stood in their killing field, bewildered about why they were there and what they were doing. Many are undergoing counseling and treatment in the aftermath of the shock of learning what they had done over the last few years. Peace, production and progress have replaced the fear-induced hate.

What was once a land of scarcity became overnight one of abundance as they all discovered the magic of sharing, an occurrence that grabbed the attention of third world leaders. Lesotho Prime Minister Mugambe Makakole echoed third world sentiment; “We are so grateful for the Harmonizer and are ready to use it for our mutual benefit.”

However, not everybody greeted the Good News of the Harmonizer’s capabilities with the solid confidence and optimism its founders had hoped for. British PM Harold Fitzugh spoke for many of the G-8 countries: “This could be great news indeed for conflict resolution, but we’ll have to gauge its effectiveness on smaller affairs to see if it stands the test of time.”

Margaret O’Bannon, spokesman for United States President Vesper Scelero, said that while the Harmonizer looks promising “We will need to see what we’d have to sacrifice vis-à-vis other nations in order to determine how it will benefit our long term interests.”

Swedish Prime Minister Nils von Lundeberg was incredulous over the west’s skepticism: “The Miracle Machine WORKS! All that any nation, any person, any entity need do is agree to let it do its job of bringing harmony where there’s discord, peace where war, plenty where need, joy where gloom and it will achieve it. How can they not see this and accept its gift—a gift through the hands of man, but a gift from God who used those hands I am sure.”

The Harmonizer continues to work wonders for the many who have petitioned its use. Unfortunately some of the world’s most rancid lesions fester unabated while doubt and cynicism seemingly paralyze the hearts and minds of its most powerful players.

On Tubby

2007-03-24T20:08:00.000-04:00

I love Tubby Smith. Never have I known a person of such celebrity with his genuine grace and humanity. I had the privilege of knowing him through our (Dawahare's clothing stores) affiliation with the University as the official clothier of the coaches. We met upon his arrival, and I got to meet with him on a number of occasions. My fondest such meeting was at his office just before the NCAA tournament his storied first year. I took him a gift of SIX ties saying, “here coach, now you’ll need six for this tournament.”

He quizzically smiled and kind of looked at me sideways as he said with a chuckle, “now don’t do that to me.” Little did either of us know that he’d be leading that ’98 team to the National Championship. [And don’t listen to that utter hogwash “but he won with Pitino’s players.” To a man each of those players said they wanted to win it for Tubby. I truly don’t believe Rick Pitino would have won with that team].

Tubby obviously won a lot of hearts and minds that year, and beyond, with very good teams that twice just barely missed the final four. With SEC dominance, TWO number one seeds in 2004 and 2005, a humble personality and bottomless generosity he was a winner both on and off the court

Yet recruiting deficiencies dogged him the last few years. His very first year of recruiting held a foreboding experience: the nation’s top center, John Stewart, died before he was to enter school. Tubby handled that with class, just as he did everything, by having the family come down for a memorial game in his John’s honor—it was very touching.

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After the 2005 season, missing yet another Final Four by suffering a heartbreaking double OT loss to Michigan State, it got bumpier. Tubby had only one really good (on paper) recruiting class in four years—this year’s juniors—but they turned out to be a bad fit or plain over-rated. Two of them wanted to go pro (Randolph Morris and Rajon Rondo, a third tried to transfer (Joe Crawford). The two classes ahead of them lacked the kind of Prince or Bogans talent Kentucky needed, and the sophomore class is non-existent, the only player (Jared Carter) injured for the season.

Personally I would like to have asked:

1) "What's happened with recruiting? Not only the problems mentioned above but also the players that stay don't seem to exhibit true love and teamwork like your earlier teams. There was "team turmoil" and other inter-player issues about every year."

2) “Why have the teams been so out of sync on offense the last few years. No screens, no pick-and-rolls or backdoor cuts, errant passes, incessant dribbling. Your earlier teams were masters at great teamwork offense. Is the current failure a function of your coaching or that of your assistants--or is it just a lack of talent? And why don’t we guard the three like we used to?”

It’s academic now, but there remains an unresolved issue: the national media’s inaccurate portrait of the Kentucky fan base. We are painted as the cause for Tubby’s departure, as being ungrateful, impossible-to-please fans with highly mis-placed priorities.

The truth is that there was never more grumbling over Tubby than there was with Pitino—even as he was winning Championships—over his constant overtures to going to the NBA. Yes, there was grumbling over 10-loss seasons and the lack of Final Fours, but there has always been way more support FOR Tubby than against, even after this season ended. Jim Rome really nailed it, absolving the UK fans in the process http://www.jimrome.com/home.html.
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Now I read something today in the Louisville Courier-Journal that should have been apparent to all: Tubby’s deal with Minnesota was months in the making. As early as December sources told the Minnesota AD, Joel Maturi, that Tubby might be interested in a change. Maturi then spoke with search firm, Dan Parker Associates, who then got Maturi and Tubby’s agent, Ricky Lefft, together. They apparently hammered out a deal over the last SEVEN weeks, and when it was all but signed Maturi called Kentucky AD, Mitch Barnhart for official permission to speak with Tubby, which he did on Thursday.

Please keep in mind there was NO grumbling back in December. Kentucky had just beaten their fiercest rivals, Louisville and Indiana, and there was hope for a great season. But even then Tubby was apparently looking for a new opportunity.

Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, and what meetings Tubby had with AD Barnhart, but it certainly did not help that Barnhart gave less than solid public assurances that he even wanted Tubby to stay by saying he’d review the situation with Tubby at season’s end, and also that changes would be in order. No coach with any self-respect, especially one as accomplished as Tubby Smith could or should be made to suffer that kind of micro-managed meddling over staffing.

On the other hand Tubby did promise to make changes after the lackluster 2006 season, but none were made. So fans were understandably confused, especially when the product on the court didn’t seem to be improving.

So why did he leave? Perhaps Tubby didn’t care for Barnhart’s apparent lack of support or perhaps he really did listen to the call-in shows, although he says he never did.

Or, perhaps he saw the dismal prospects next season and beyond if his two prized recruits (Patrick Patterson and Jai Lucas) spurned his offer. Neither would commit (why??). And word was Morris, the ONLY inside presence, was going pro.

In Minnesota he saw an opportunity to escape from a little-to-win-lot-to-lose situation (where he had just received a $1.5 million bonus for staying ten years) to a place with a great contract, an ELATED fan base and nothing but upside!

No, Kentucky's fans most assuredly did not force Tubby out and he has said as much also adding that he hopes the day comes when Minnesota fans have that kind of expectations.

In the end it works out great for him and I join all Kentucky fans in wishing him Godspeed. We hope that it works out as swimmingly for our wonderful University and fan base as it does for him.

I know it will. We are Kentucky. We’re humans with heartfelt passion, but in the end humans with class as well.

Richard F. Dawahare 3/24/07