On Tubby

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.

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

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.
---------------------------------------------

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

The Graceful Generation

Abe Cantees Joe Lane

Cliff Robertson, CIA director to his boss, John Houseman in Three Days of the Condor:

“You served with Colonel Donovan in the OSS didn’t you sir?”

“I sailed the Adriatic with a movie star at the helm. It doesn’t seem like much of a war now but it was. I go even further back than that, 10 years after the Great War as we used to call it before we knew enough to number them.”

“Do you miss that kind of action, sir?”

“No. I miss that kind of clarity.”

That movie dealt with a CIA plot to de-stabilize the Middle East in order to control the oil (sound familiar). Yet Houseman’s observation is an apt description for every war and every CIA covert operation since WWII, all of which are imbued with ambiguity: who’s really the bad guy, what purpose does our involvement serve, etc. etc. Today’s conflicts are certainly not of the black/white variety of yesteryear where the need was urgent and obvious. Further, it is this ambiguity that fuels the divisions we experience over such wars as Vietnam and Iraq, one side viewing them as essential wars of defense, the other as senseless wars of choice.

This all came to mind the other day in the mall as I spoke with my cousin’s father in-law, Abe Cantees, always one of the happiest, nicest people I’ve known, and now a spry 95. Uncle Abe and I spoke about a lot of things but eventually got to his service in WWII. He told me about going to France a few months after the D-Day invasion. One day German tanks were approaching the field when he and his crew took cover in a barn. The Gideons had given bibles to the servicemen on their voyage to England, so he kept that in his breast pocket.

It’s a good thing! The shrapnel from the tank tore through the barn, a piece cutting through his right wrist and another piece piercing the bible, which surely saved his life! Another twist of fate was that he spent 6 months in a hospital and when recovered sufficiently went back to his unit. Problem was there was no unit, just a sergeant who told Uncle Abe they had been shipped off to the Battle of the Bulge and killed in captivity, a fate he surely would have shared had he not been injured. He says there was constant fear and constant prayer.

Overhearing our conversation was yet another WWII veteran who was manning a sunglass kiosk in the mall. Joe Lane was 19 when he signed up January 2, 1942 same as legions of young men in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Mr. Lane became a marine, eventually a staff sergeant, and was sent to the Pacific where he spent four years, from Guadalcanal to Saipan, then Tinian (from whence the Enola Gay flew her historic mission over Hiroshima) and Iwo Jima. He too recalls being scared the whole time, at least during the stretches when they were in the field close to battle.

To Joe and his colleagues there was no doubt about why they were putting their lives on the line: to protect the rest of the world from Japanese who wanted only to destroy. As he said, they were taught to hate Americans and that it was their right to dominate the rest of the world. They had to be stopped. Black/white good vs. evil and they started it.

February 19, 1945 he recalled in detail. His bunker was being shelled hard so he exhorted his companions to get out. The next morning he went back and found the bloodied body of a fellow soldier who had stayed behind.

There are thousands of stories about this war; yet everyday we lose to the heavens those who were there to tell them. The thing about the veterans of WWII whom I have known, dad and uncles included, is that I have rarely met people of more humanity, more compassion, more inner strength, confidence, gentility, good will and good humor than them. It’s as if having gone through that hell and survived there is nothing in this good ol’ life that could ever shake them, that God and heaven are real, and when their time comes they are so, so ready to go.

I thank them and all veterans of every war, conflict or operation, including and especially those serving today in our armed forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. Today’s wars may lack the clarity of yesterday’s, but not the heroic bravery of our soldiers.

WELCOME HOME, RICK!

Welcome home, Rick! Home to the shining jewel of college basketball.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way. In fact when you arrived it was but a muddy stone buried deep beneath the musty air of our hallowed traditions. Probation had sucked the pride right out leaving us with mere memories of how things once were, and despair that we may never reach those lofty heights again.

But you saw more in us than we did ourselves. You told us to hang on to our tickets, that soon they’d be the hottest in the land. A basketball junkie, you’d lay awake at night listening to Caywood’s cultured cadence in his perfect calls of Kentucky basketball, the signal—alternating from clear to creaky and back as strong as the King James version of the dunk—the same one your kindred spirits all across the Commonwealth were thrilling to.

Perhaps it was this mystical bond that would have your destiny intertwine with ours for Lute turned us down, and others too. But you recognized in this tarnished gem, the essence of our heritage and your coming to lead us re-affirmed our belief in ourselves.

You showed us how to work with all you’ve got—and then some—to attain the peak of perfection. Every little inch of the program bore your fingerprints. From intense conditioning, strategizing, stat keeping and marketing, to confidence building, up tempo Rupp-like run & gun and suffocating defense, you created the most exciting time any fan base anywhere any era could possibly experience.

There were the Bambinos, the Unforgettables, the Untouchables. There were the Armani suits and one very plaid sportcoat. There were big wins, big records, as well as heartbreaking losses, but in the end it was the highest a program could hope to reach, especially following the depths to which we had sunk.

Yet it is easy now, looking down from the summit, to forget the pit from which we’ve climbed, and the man who lifted us out. So please forgive those still bearing the sting of a jilted lover, for it is only wounded pride. Instead listen to the heartfelt thanks of those who appreciate what you’ve done and, in another Kentucky school (which through our taxes we all help support), continue to do for the Commonwealth.

Go Cats, Go Cards, Go EVERYBODY!

Richard F. Dawahare 3/14/07

Innocence Aborted

College was full of fun and frivolity, the time of my life. Between near-daily parties with fraternity brothers, classes that were interesting, even inspiring, it flew by.

I developed the idea of going to law school my sophomore year, partly to continue my time in school and out of the work force, but mostly for idealistic reasons.[1] I was pretty much an apolitical, happy-go-lucky student; and while I discovered deep within my breast a core concern for social justice I remained blissfully under-aware of controversial issues. Such Constitutional crises of the day happened to “other people,” certainly not me.

So it was in my second year Constitutional law class. We started with Marbury v Madison, (established the right of judicial review)[2], continued with such infamous decisions as Dred Scott v Sandford (a slave is not a citizen but property without social, civil or political rights) and Plessy v Ferguson (allowed separate but equal treatment of blacks), to Brown v. Board of Education (over-ruled Plessy and outlawed racial segregation in public education), Miranda v Arizona (right of accused to be informed of rights to counsel and to remain silent) and then an oddly named case, Roe v Wade.

As I started reading the facts of Roe I kept bumping up against a new term, a word I never heard before, “abortion.” I had no idea what the case was about but as I kept reading—“Jane Roe…alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant; that she wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion”—its meaning became apparent.

It stunned me. I recall how revolting this was to me. In all my days of wine and cheese parties, dances, ball games, pub crawls and the like, who had time to consider such gross realities. If nothing else this case—indeed my whole law school experience—helped me realize the Pollyanna naiveté of my relatively carefree world.

But while the abortion issue held no relevance for me, there were others, like Roe (Norma McCorvey), for whom this was critically important, so I had to approach the issue with the proverbial open mind of legal objectivity. In this light the Court’s 7-2 ruling that the Constitution guarantees a woman’s right to privacy (under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment) was correct.

But was it morally correct I wondered. In most cases the fetus would become a living being, so aborting it, while not technically the murder of an out-of-the-womb human being, could nonetheless be seen as one.

However, the Court did not address the moral issue of when life begins: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicne, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."[3]

I didn’t consider the issue again until years later, when the issue once again took center stage during Reagan’s second term. I recall struggling over whether it was an acceptable practice in the eyes of God vs whether we, as a society should condone it, that is, whether we should we accept the Roe ruling or discard it as many were/still are trying to do. I prayed about it and thought about it.

After months of this I met a customer in our Louisville store, an elderly gentleman who I learned was a minister. I don’t recall the denomination but it was one of the mainline churches. I sensed he could offer some direction on the abortion issue for me so I asked him what he thought—was it a sin? Was it acceptable or not?

His answer was not at all what I expected: “Abortion,” he said, “was not a murder for there is no human life until God breathes the breath of life into it. It’s right there in Genesis 2:7. If a woman chooses to do this it is her business. It is not a sin in the eyes of God.”

I can’t say that he answered the issue once and for all for me, as I still am searching for the ultimate truth. But I did feel a sense of heavenly sent direction that brought this gentleman to me for the purpose of giving me more clarity on an issue with which I was struggling to come to terms.

Today, I continue to seek the ultimate truth. By putting myself in the mind of those who believe that life begins at conception and who really, truly believe that a fertilized egg is a human, I can understand why they are so fervent to prevent any more abortions. Conversely, I see that those who believe in a woman’s right to choose do not equate the embryo with an out-of-the-womb human who has had the “breath of life” breathed into it.

Perhaps if we all put ourselves in the other’s shoes and saw life from that opposing viewpoint we would have a tad more compassion. And while this may not change our opinion, it just may save us from going to war about it.

Richard F. Dawahare 3/6/07

[1] Though I had not yet heard of him, I suppose Atticus Finch would be the gold standard for such urgings, and indeed he became that ideal upon my seeing Gregory Peck portray him in To Kill A Mockingbird at the student center theater during a break from studying for my last set of law finals.

[2] Were I ever to consider a political office at the federal level one objective I might have would be the radical amendment of mandatory ARBITRATION, especially in such boiler plate contracts as those with brokerage houses, money managers and the like. Congress has wrongly denied consumers access to the courts by allowing these mandated arbitrations in lieu of rightful access to the courts. Consumers have no real choice but to sign away their Constitutionally guaranteed rights. This must end.


[3] The Court only addressed the question of when one’s right to have an abortion begins. The decision established a system of trimesters that attempted to balance the state's legitimate interests against the abortion right. The Court ruled that the state cannot restrict a woman's right to an abortion during the first trimester, the state can regulate the abortion procedure during the second trimester "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health", and the state can choose to restrict or proscribe abortion as it sees fit during the third trimester when the fetus is viable ("except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother").

Apologies All Around

Virginia’s General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution expressing “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery. The measure also expressed regret for "the exploitation of Native Americans."

The resolution admits that government-sanctioned slavery "ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history, and the abolition of slavery was followed by systematic discrimination, enforced segregation, and other insidious institutions and practices toward Americans of African descent that were rooted in racism, racial bias, and racial misunderstanding."

Now let’s see. An apology is a recognition that the circumstance being apologized for was one that should not have occurred and the one apologizing—or in this case their ancestors—acknowledges their responsibility for that wrong. So Virginia, a leader of the Confederate states that seceded and prosecuted the Civil war mainly[1] to protect their “peculiar institution” now says in effect, “we’re sorry we were wrong.”

Think about this a minute. All that suffering, all that injustice need never have come to pass. The key question is why they couldn’t see this truth THEN. We might say that their self-interest, their very society, was so dependant on slave labor that they just couldn’t see beyond that to the wrong they were perpetuating (even though it surely wasn’t as if there weren’t others who tried mightily to convert them).

Of greater importance are two aspects of apologies in general and this one in particular. First, what TODAY might we be doing for which our descendants will offer apologies years hence? Could be things not on anybody’s radar though, given the abolitionists in slavery’s day, today’s potential wrongs surely have their canary-in-the-mineshaft minions. Thus, maybe it is our aggressive consumption of the earth’s resources or perhaps a zealous quest for security that wreaks havoc in lands far from our shores.

Second, we must recognize that such apologies, coming long after an occurrence that cannot be re-visited, are convenient and easy. We can’t go back and as much as today’s Virginians express regret they can’t go back either. Apologies in such circumstances are therefore meaningless UNLESS the confessor pursues a course of concrete actions that are consistent with the professed change of heart.

The Virginia apology would thus be meaningless unless accompanied with a plan today for correcting the sins of yesterday. Such steps might include renewed vigor in affirmative action, early childhood education and guaranteed college tuition for minorities among other ideas.

But Virginia’s isn’t the only apology being floated around. With the 2008 Presidential race upon us we see candidate John Edwards with an apology of his own over his Senate vote to allow the war in Iraq. Just recently he said, "I just wanted to make sure anyone who hadn't heard me say it, knows that that's my position (that he apologizes for his vote on the Iraq war). On that issue and everything else, I want to make it absolutely clear to voters in New Hampshire where I stand.”

But such an apology is easy now. The war is going horribly, most Americans are now opposed to it and he’s a presidential candidate. His apology is empty unless it is also accompanied with a concrete plan that is consistent with his now held view that the war was wrong to begin with. This plan should therefore include:

1) A call for an admission of error by the one who prosecuted it, President Bush, and failing that a commencement of Impeachment hearings against him and Dick Cheney;

2) A call for a drastic withdrawal of troops from Iraq and decreased funding for the war. He has so far safely hid behind the Iraq Study Group’s skirt by parroting their recommendation of a 100,000 troop cap, but if the war was wrong in his new opinion, why is he not more forcefully advocating a corrective course that would include Senate impeachment hearings, and multi-party dialogue as part of an all-out effort to end our military aggression and seek reconciliation;

3) A strong denial that we can weapon our way to long term security. He should immediately call for a reduction of our military budget and evince an equally strong preference for multi-lateral co-operation with the states of the world;

4) A plan for what he would he do in the future to make the right decisions and correctly interpret the intelligence. As it stands now his past decision to support the war seems way too motivated by the then existing political winds, which strongly favored his pro-war vote, than his feigned dependance on flawed intelligence for which there was ample refutation.

Apologies are good, but actions speak louder than words.


[1] Yes, volumes are still written about how slavery was not the reason for Southern secession and the resultant war that, it is argued, was more about states’ rights and protection of their home turf. But there can be no doubt that slavery was the driving issue about which the Confederate states claimed those states’ rights to begin with.

Congress Must CUT Funding for Iraq

The US Congress took a symbolic but toothless vote to censure President Bush’s Iraqi troop increase. But now they must do more: vote to drastically cut funding for the Iraqi war.

Bush has again cynically mis-framed his increased funding needs as a “support the troops” argument. But Congress needs to turn it around on Bush by cutting the funding and forcing him to deploy troops consistent with that funding. Then, if he increases the troop level it is HE that is not supporting the troops.

The best course, both in terms of morality and effectiveness is to decrease our involvement and increase our talks with all parties—allies, neighbors and enemies alike. The voters voiced a dis-satisfaction with the war, now realizing it was a mistake sold on false premises. The last thing they voted for was an increase in our aggression.

Thus, the House has a mandate to pursue more peaceful and effective termination to the war. Their power over the purse strings is about the only option short of IMPEACHMENT, which I first endorsed nearly two years ago. They should allot only enough funding that would adequately support a much lower level of troop involvement.

A very rough analysis follows.

1) First, 2006 total military spending in Iraq was102 billion dollars. There were 138,000 troops, thus we were spending $739,000 PER SOLDIER. Vietnam by comparison: adjusted for inflation we spent roughly $61 billion in the peak year, 1969, during which our maximum troop strength was 543,000 or $112,000 per soldier in TODAY’S dollars. Side question: Why on earth would we spend SEVEN TIMES MORE for this war??

2) Even with these absolutely obscene expenditures in order to avoid any charge of shortchanging the troops Congress should keep the per soldier spending the same with the lowered troop levels that are essential for a lasting peace. Assume we withdraw at least half of the soldiers this year, if not all, as Britain is doing. Thus 69,000 troops at even the hugely inflated current budget would have the budget be $50 billion dollars.

NOW if he persists in not only keeping the current troop numbers, but adding to them, it will be President Bush that undercuts the soldiers by slashing the funding per soldier of the previous years.

Congress must cut funding or forever relinquish any claim to oppose this wretched war. It must not cower before yet another of Bush’s deceitful claims of false patriotism, but stand instead for what is right.

In doing so, Congress will place the shoe of responsibility squarely on the foot of its rightful owner.

_______________________________


CUT TOTAL MILITARY SPENDING!

Congress shouldn’t stop there. The US military budget, a full one fifth of the total budget, is a whopping 600 billion dollars for 2007. Bush wants $624.6 billion for 2008. We spend more than the next 14 countries combined and are fueling an international increase in arms spending. Even in Clinton’s last year, when the military was a stratospheric 250 billion we were spending more than the next 11 nations combined. Such expenditures only serve to make us and the world less safe. Although it admittedly creates jobs for the average citizen…and huge profits for the captains of industry.

To think that a band of criminals (the 9/11 hijackers) sparked the pre-set neocon plan to steal from our treasury for this unnecessary and counterproductive spending. [PLEASE SEE The Project for a New American Century, http://www.newamericancentury.org/ for details of this long planned escalation].

We should get back to 2000 levels of military spending and encourage it downwards from there.

Casinos Will Kill Kentucky

Casino cancer is the gravest threat facing Kentucky and should be the pre-eminent issue in this year’s race for governor. Electronic gaming—SLOTS—is the “crack cocaine” of gambling and we must keep it out of our great Commonwealth if we are to attain the promise of our heritage.

Every academic study, that is every study NOT funded by the gambling industry, conclusively shows casino gambling to be an economic and social loser (http://www.ncalg.org/). That is, the net costs of casino gambling far outweigh the short term benefits of increased tax revenues. Beyond the financial loss to individuals and traditional pre-existing businesses lie the very real and traumatic social costs of increased rates of crime, bankruptcy, absenteeism, divorce and suicide.

Yet we forget our history. In the late 1800’s widespread gambling so devastated the nation that states, including Kentucky, changed their constitutions to outlaw it. That is why the casino industry is pushing to amend it again. But the legislature absolutely MUST NOT let this come to a vote because pro-gambling forces have UNLIMITED FUNDS with which to advertise its distorted message in a way that can deceive a public so susceptible to quick and catchy, but all too false sound bites. The casino lobby will stand virtually unopposed as those who care about our future and the protection of our well being have scant funds to share the ugly facts that would effectively counter their propaganda.

The only argument pro-gambling forces can make is the sugar daddy lure of fool’s gold that short-sighted governments use to bribe their citizens’ support of this horrendous industry. Yet this is a false argument. The question is not what revenues Kentucky may lose to Indiana’s casinos just as it is not what revenues we may lose to vacationers who choose, for instance, Florida instead of Kentucky. In fact, even with Indiana’s casinos and a cut in taxes Kentucky still increased its tax revenues.

While it is morally untenable for a state to sell its soul in pursuit of such short-term gain the case against casino gambling is ultimately a matter of policy. Kentucky should instead draw on our pioneer heritage of leadership. We can leverage our strengths by drawing on and promoting the best out of our citizens. We could position ourselves to prospective employers as a casino-free state and encourage in a positive way the message to our youth that the best way upwards is through education and industry.

Casino gambling is long overdue for federal regulation. But such is the power of that industry’s lobby that Congress has so far refused to act on it, thus leaving states vulnerable to a true race to the bottom.

George Washington said it right: “The last thing I shall mention, is first of importance and that is, to avoid gaming. This is a vice which is productive of every possible evil, equally injurious to the morals and health of its votaries. It is the child of avarice, the brother of inequity, and father of mischief. It has been the ruin of many worthy families; the loss of many a man's honor; and the cause of suicide. To all those who enter the list, it is equally fascinating; the successful gamester pushes his good fortune till it is overtaken by a reverse; the losing gamester, in hopes of retrieving past misfortunes, goes on from bad to worse; till grown desperate, he pushes at everything; and loses his all. In a word, few gain by this abominable practice (the profit, if any, being diffused) while thousands are injured.”

-The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1938), Vol. 26, p. 40. This advice was given to by Washington to his nephew in a letter on January 15, 1783.

On Appreciation of Animals

THIS is good writing. Before reading this I was aghast at all the attention to a horse's euthanasia. If human life is so sacred, why all this attention for a horse. I asked this even as I understood why.

While I still don't "mourn" the death of a horse, this essay helps give me a deeper appreciation for not only Barbaro, but Bessie the cow, Blackie the dog, Bumble the bee, Kitzie the cat and all the rest of the animal kingdom that goes about their business with no pretensions, just pure instinct and heart.

------------------------------
From the New York Times

February 1, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Why We Mourn Barbaro

By JEFF NEUMAN

HE never talked about himself in the third person.

He didn’t trash-talk, taunt or hang on the rim. Down the stretch of the Kentucky Derby, he didn’t turn and point at Bluegrass Cat, and he didn’t somersault over the finish line.

After crossing the line, he didn’t pull out a Sharpie and autograph his saddle for his business manager.
He never referred to his handlers as “my supporting cast.”

He never tried to renegotiate his contract. He never turned down an eight-figure offer by saying, “I’ve got a family to feed, man.”

His only tattoo was discreetly hidden.

He did no commercials for cellphone plans, credit cards, fast food chains or time shares.

He never had his agent issue a statement in which he apologized “if anybody took my actions the wrong way.”

He never appeared before a Congressional committee and lied about his steroid use.
He never dated Paris Hilton.

He was never involved in an altercation with a belligerent fan outside a club at 4 in the morning. He was never arrested for drunken driving. He did not own an unregistered handgun.

He never claimed he’d been disrespected. He never left his competitors in the dust and then said, ”I didn’t have my A game.” He did not attribute his victories to the glory of his personal Savior.

Isiah Thomas never tried to trade for him.

He was never a presenter at the ESPYs.

He never claimed he was misquoted in his autobiography. He never confessed to a double murder in the subjunctive tense.

He trained, ate and slept. He ran his races, gave his best effort, accepted plaudits graciously, went back to his stall and prepared to do it again the next time out.

He never fathered multiple offspring out of wedlock. Alas.

Jeff Neuman is the co-author of “A Disorderly Compendium of Golf.”

Richard’s Holiday Headlines!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! The best I can offer you is what I have found to be true from experience and study over the past year. Hope there’s something you find of value and in any case all the best to you and yours!


“Your Body’s a Toxic Waste Dump!”

Clean up now with these easy tips!

You may be quite satisfied with the way you are, or perhaps you’ve tried, but having slipped back on more than one attempt, find it futile try again as I did for many a year. But if you’d like to try again I offer these tips, which I GUARANTEE will show immediate benefits. Then, upon seeing and feeling results of more energy, less weight and higher spirits you may be emboldened to stay the course! What I most enjoy are the beaming replies from those who actually tried these tips and saw immediate success. Again, I GUARANTEE you quick and positive results!

A) AVOID like the plague these toxins:

1) ASPARTAME (Nutrasweet, Equal) and Sucralose (Splenda). They affect your neurology AND make you GAIN weight! Quit all DIET DRINKS, SUGARLESS GUM and the like and I GUARANTEE you will feel better, lose weight and have more energy…WITHIN ONE WEEK!

2) TRANS FATS—anything with hydrogenated or “partially hydrogenated” oils. Regular peanut butter, crackers, tons of processed foods and most restaurant food have it. This stuff stays in your body, makes you fat and lethargic and clogs your arteries. READ LABELS, ask restaurants and popcorn makers what oil they are using. For years I had heard of the dangers of “trans fats” but assumed they were overblown and in any case found the foods worth the risk. But after discontinuing them I can tell you that I miss them not in the least!

B) REPLACE the above with whole foods—foods with as little processing as possible. The book “Eat right for your Blood Type” lists foods that are beneficial, neutral and harmful for you depending on your blood type. I circled the beneficial ones THAT I LIKE and try to avoid those in the harmful category. So peanuts, broccoli, grapefruit, soy products, spelt flour are beneficial and I happen to love them. Coffee and Maker’s are on the avoid list, but alas, I consume them too! (Is this what the saying “it’s all good” refers to?)

The key is to EAT HEALTHY FOODS THAT YOU LIKE and eat them in abundance!! For instance, I eat 8 ounces of nuts a DAY**, but I also gave up ALL MEAT (beef, chicken, pork, fish) so I get my protein from nuts. Forget about healthy foods you don’t like, there’s plenty that you do or will enjoy eating.

I felt as though my body was a toxic waste dump before I gave up these poisons. I had the “aspartame puff” of fat on every inch of my body, even though I ran 2 miles a day. Within 2 weeks of this dietary change I saw results and 5 months later had lost 35 pounds.

“Plant Fat Good, Animal BAD”


**REMEMBER—PLANT FAT IS NOT THE DANGER—ANIMAL FAT AND TRANS FATS are the KILLERS!

TO REDUCE DEPENDENCE ON DIET DRINKS—
Dilute half a can of REGULAR Coke e.g. with half a can of COLD carbonated water. Unless you are a diabetic you are much better off with sugared drinks than the Nutrasweet or Splenda ones. BEST of all, just drink WATER, or TEA. If you must use sweeteners, try STEVIA, or turbinado sugar, even molasses or honey.

D) MYTHBUSTERS:

1) Eating late at night is NOT a problem. If really doesn’t matter when you eat, weight gain is more dependant on DAILY TOTAL CALORIC INTAKE. Thus, to LOSE WEIGHT, 1) AVOID the above toxins AND 2) keep calories under 1500 per day. To maintain weight eat 2000 calories with moderate exercise (walking 2 miles/day).

2) Low carb diets mean STARCHY carbs, highly refined flour, breads and potatoes, not fruits and veggies. However, as my own very high starchy carb (WHOLE GRAINS ONLY, however) can attest to, you need not sacrifice starchy carbs to lose weight!

I think these Atkins-type diets are harmful for the long term and ultimately will fail you. If you stay off the toxins above, keep your calories under 2000 a day and exercise a little—just walk a mile or two a day—you will not gain weight, you will have more energy and feel much, much better—I GUARANTEE IT!

3) Fat is NOT bad (see above), but any animal or manufactured fat (trans fats) ARE bad. I gave up all meat, and truly don’t miss it at all. I feel better, NEVER have indigestion AND I don’t have to take a cholesterol pill anymore. But you need not give up meat if you at least give up trans fats and artificial sweeteners, just cut back. Of course with anything other than organic chicken you are also ingesting tons of hormones and possibly a fowl with the built up neurosis of living its whole short life literally on top of and beneath THOUSANDS of its other defecating, pecking brethren in wire cages. Y-C-C-H-H-H!


“Soy & Spelt & Rye—OH MY!”
“and God said, Look! I have given every seed-bearing plant and fruit tree for your food.” Gen 1:29

[NOTE: This biblical verse is just a coincidence, NOT the reason for my food choices]


E) MY FAVORITE FOODS: (a partial list)

1) Sprouted SPELT bread, double toasted, one slice slathered with VEGENAISE (made with grapeseed oil, brown rice syrup and apple cider vinegar it tastes better than mayo and NO CHOLESTEROL!) and mustard then topped with soy bologna or ham, maple flavored eaten like a slice of pizza—this is the best, simplest food that brings me more pleasure than the finest meals out that I have ever eaten.
2) Indian buffets—vegetable masalas, sag (creamed spinach dish)
3) Middle Eastern buffets—tabouli, hummus, baba, mjadara (a lentil dish)
4) Tofu based salads, either curried or Greek salad style—from Good Foods co-op, Lexington
5) Chopped broccoli, cauliflower, green/red pepper and cabbage salad, with vegenaise and/or oil and vinegar –from Good Foods Co-op.
6) Celentano brand frozen eggplant parmegiana vegan (no dairy or meat).
7) Green Guru brand frozen Indian tofu maneer
8) Morningstar or Boca veggie burgers
9) Many fruits and veggies especially apples, grapefruit, cucumbers, mini-carrots, raisins
10) NUTS about nuts—peanuts, cashews especially. The BEST that I’ve found: peanuts-Planters, dry roasted, lightly salted 20oz for under $3; cashews-Planters 21 oz WHOLE cashews for $6.99 AT TARGET, the best quality and most for your money cashews you will find! Forget cashew “halves and pieces” as they don’t taste the same as whole.
11) PLANTER’S trail nut mix “Nuts & Raisins” you can find at Walgreen’s or Rite-Aids. THESE ARE AWESOME!
12) Mini carrots with hummus drizzled in olive oil and paprika
13) CEREAL MIX: Health Valley Oat bran flakes cereal, Uncle Sam’s with mixed berries, Bulk granolas and messily from Wild Oats—ALL WITH SILK BRAND UNSWEETENED SOYMILK—I GUARANTEE you will like this better than milk. Remember—cows wean their young OFF their milk when they reach a certain age, so why do WE continue drinking milk long past childhood? Oatmeal is great as well.


ONE FOR THE ROAD--- Meditative WALKS are great for your body and mind. Just think about NOTHING, and concentrate on your breath—the feeling against your nose when you inhale and exhale as you walk THINKING ABOUT NOTHING. Find a park if you can, but walk like this for 30 minutes. It’s the best thing you can do FOR YOU!

“Flyboys—Movie of the Year!”

ENTERTAINMENT:

A. MOVIES—the sleeper great movie of the year is FLYBOYS, set in France during WWI. I tell you, the storyline and dialogue is perfect, no superfluous or forced dialogue, phenomenal cinematography, great acting from unknowns, heartwarming, tragic and uplifting---SEE IT!

MY uncle Willie can be seen clearly ushering Bobby Kennedy around Eastern Kentucky in BOBBY, a good movie in its own right.

B) SHOPPING

I get a kick just viewing all the goods out there and analyzing just HOW they came to be. From conception, to design and execution each and every product is a culmination of lots of people from lots of lands, all made possible by the progression of each human generation standing on the shoulders of the one that preceded it. What we get for what we pay is so very great indeed if you really think about it!

QUESTION OF THE YEAR: “IS THE EARTH WITH EVERYTHING ON THE SAME WEIGHT AS IT WAS THOUSANDS/MILLIONS/BILLIONS YEARS AGO, OR HEAVIER OR LIGHTER?”



PET PEAVES:

A. WEATHER REPORTING—I like it cool, thus I immediately change the dial when the weather people wax on about “o-o-o-o-h, it’s going to drop down to 40, but then it will turn better, warming up to near 70! 70 degrees is better…IN DECEMBER?! No way. All they ever like reporting is warm, rising temperatures and sunny skies, but let it hit 90 for a month straight without rain, then they START to sing a different tune. They should do as Joe Friday on Dragnet—just give us the facts, DON’T EDITORIALIZE!!! We can determine if we like what’s here or coming, they have no business making our judgments for us. I don’t bother with weather anymore, I get it online or not at all—it’s here like it or not!


B. INCONSIDERATE DRIVERS (like me, although less than I used to be as I am more conscious about it). You know, you’ll be driving down a thoroughfare and a car/SUV at the side street will zoom out darn near right in front of your approach!! Then as you slam the brakes you’ll note them gunning at full blast as if to say, “see, there was plenty of room for me to go.” As I say, I’ve done it too. Not using use turn signals is another annoyance.

C. Undue adulation for athletes or any human: Fireworks and circus histrionics at UK games are annoying and counterproductive. Indoors, the smoke may in fact be harmful, but for me and those around me it is certainly annoying. And showering such adulation on any human, much less young men who are playing a game, is plain inappropriate. Oh, and it doesn’t help at all in their performance as UK has lost more home games than ever the last few years since they’ve instituted these shenanigans.

D. Disease inventing OR inducing DRUG CO. COMMERCIALS!

The typical ad: “Suffering from smockeroporitis? Try Saforu—it works!” Visual: Middle aged couple in slow motion walking amidst blooming cherry trees, hand in hand, she cupping the back of his head as he looks in her eyes with a contented smile, Big Chill music in background. Then the last 80% of the commercial with THESE warnings: “Don’t take Saforu if you’re menstruating, taking vitamins, supplements, aspirin, grapefruit juice, broccoli or Sanka or doing lawn work. In any case Saforu may cause shortness of breath, rheumatism, lockjaw or mild stroke-like symptoms.” Ending--CLOSE-UP VISUAL of Couples kissing, “Ask your doctor if Saforu is right for you!”

My favorite is the Cialis commercial that ends with “if you experience an erection for more than 4 hours call your doctor immediately.” YEAH, RIGHT! Heck, I’m calling my buds, every girl I’ve ever known—especially those single and in the immediate vicinity--but no way I’m calling’ a doc!

“Mother God, Comfort us”

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION NUMBER ONE is to see more of God’s reality. And since God is all, God is woman as much as man, yet I have always said and envisioned God as Him. I will now endeavor to envision God as Mother. While still a mystery, my hope is God will help me get a little closer to the Her truth.

Anyway, I am a very lucky guy. I appreciate your friendship and look forward to the new friends I’ll make in the coming year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! RFD 12/31/06

Jesus, Mary and Joseph—illegal immigrants in the land of Egypt

Immigration controversy during Christmas seems so out of place. After all it is the season we celebrate the birth of Jesus, whose very life defined charity, mercy and love. Yet the timing could not be better for there are parallels between the nativity story and today’s hottest issue that can enlighten our path.

You see, Joseph, Mary and Jesus were themselves immigrants. They fled to Egypt to escape the murderous clutch of King Herod, who was looking to kill baby Jesus, the newborn king about whom the wise men had spoken.

This begs the question: What if the Egyptians had treated Jesus like some would today’s immigrants who are here without proper authorization? They’d have sent them packing back to Bethlehem, in Judea, where Herod would have killed him.

Never would we have known about Jesus, God’s shining example of how we should order our lives. No Prince of Peace, no shepherds or silent nights, no peace on earth, good will to men. No reason and thus, no season.

Earth would be a more hard-hearted orb, one with less mercy, less justice and no concept of forgiveness, redemption and eternal life. And while ages upon ages of human-caused misery attest to the distance we still have to go it would have undoubtedly been even farther without Jesus’ leadership.

This is not to minimize or ignore the problems associated with newcomers to our country, documented or not. Yet they also contribute mightily to the ever-growing quilt of America. The good far outweighs the downside. And after all, if you were drowning and about to be saved by an immigrant, would you stop and ask to see their papers?

Surely we can fashion policies consistent with Jesusian principles, chief among them the precedence of the Golden Rule over any man-made political boundaries. Steps along this higher path might include some of the following:

1) A guest worker program,
2) A requirement for employers of undocumented workers to enlist them in this program, collect payroll taxes and otherwise pay and treat them as our law demands for citizens;
3) A track to citizenship for those working and obeying our laws, including education and indoctrination on the rights and responsibilities of living in America;
4) Bi-lingual education only as a means to learning English.

We are able to celebrate God’s greatest gift because of the welcome reception given Jesus by the Egyptians. We can do Jesus no greater honor than to similarly treat the newcomers in our midst.

And by so acting with the faith we profess we will fulfill the true spirit of Christmas.

Richard F. Dawahare 12/5/06

The Assassination of America

I must share the flood of emotions upon seeing “Bobby” today, the movie about Robert F. Kennedy and the day he was assassinated. First, there was the image from my youth of the Kennedy brothers, the very embodiment of humanity’s ideal. My Uncle Willie, the mayor of Hazard (and a proud Republican, but NOT in today’s ideological sense of partisanship, see below), in addition to teaching me about Churchill, Roosevelt and Khrushchev gave me a commemorative coin stamped with JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, rather what you can do for your country.”

Then November 22, 1963. The third grade teacher was called away then came back crying and told us we’d be going home early as President Kennedy was shot. It was a cold, gray late fall day, the kind all such seasonal days were back then, before we ever heard of “global warming.” The neighbor boy and I would feign shots at one another in our front yard, keeling backwards as we shouted “SPY!” My parents were visibly upset, but as kids we did not sense the utter destruction of hope, of purity of thought and purpose that was to befall the idealist followers and believers of JFK’s mighty vision.

That Christmas came, and a few more, before the full fruits of a disillusioned generation blazed its way across the TV screen and headlines. Pinko protestin’ hippies, all of em drugged out on LSD or marijuana were, in my mind, evil, bad, the antithesis of “apple pie and Chevrolet.”

I had heard something about another Kennedy, Bobby, who was running for President. I had little inkling then of all that he stood for: a nation united by compassion, charity and justice. The morning of the first day of summer vacation my parents had a shocked glaze as they came out of their bedroom: young Bobby’d been shot, shot by someone called Sirhan Sirhan, which seemed then and seems even now so surreal.

The movie brought all this back to me, but then something truly awoke me. UNCLE WILLIE! As mayor of Hazard he ushered Bobby around the Eastern Kentucky’s coal fields, meeting the poorest of America’s poor, so Bobby could see first hand Appalachian poverty. There he was in the actual footage, with his brown hat and thick black glasses of the day Uncle Willie hosting Bobby Kennedy, which was old news to me as I’ve seen the black and white photo Uncle Willie was always so proud of. http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2004/08/when_kennedy_ca.php

The thing is this: compassion, the idea of using tax dollars, our pooled resources, to alleviate others’ suffering is neither a Democratic one nor a Republican one. My uncles, my dad, all favored such action, and they represented both parties. Politics back then was more gamesmanship than the ideological fight (to the political death) end that it has become today.

Hope died that June day with Bobby’s death and America has never truly recovered. It is partly why we are constantly wondering how we drifted away from what we wistfully recall as the good ol’ days, when there was honor, modesty and deference—to the government and to each other.

Instead we’ve allowed the airwaves to be as polluted as our skies with trashy programming and even trashier, and evermore dishonest, so-called news and comment shows. Irreverence is the new standard in entertainment, in news reporting, and in politics. We flail about helplessly, unable to stop our slide down the slippery slope of self-justification that has made us sacrifice any claim America once had to moral leadership.

Decent Americans feel it and see it yet feel powerless to change this sense of hopelessness that has its roots in those Kennedy assassinations. We still see no way out.

Worse, we’ve mostly stopped searching.

Rfd 12/17/06

Used to Be

Used to be I shunned my shoes. But pointed mom to a man with no feet and then I had no further blues.

Used to be I’d eat this and skip that and often whine if it wasn’t just right. Then one day my dad would say, about the scraps I’d thrown away, “what a feast they would be for the many hungry who have nothing to eat but misery” and now each morsel is as dear as can be.

Used to be I’d give thanks for my food and eating to fill sit contentedly still. Then I’d see folks for whom chew was a chore, while for others digestion was for them very sore. So now I am thankful for each bite I take, every swallow I make and for flow-thrus that go just as easy as cake.

Used to be I’d be nimble and quick, move to and fro with no thought to this trick. Then I’d meet people who hobbled about, some with game knees, bad hips, goiter or gout. Now I’m so thankful just to walk in the park with a gait free and easy and pain be without.

Used to be couples I met who divorced, I’d feel sorry for both and had great remorse. But having gone through a similar course—and one I never ever dreamed I would source!—I know how important that empathy is. Even more so did my faith in God grow, and stronger it grew as God carried me through. And while teaching me how very little I knew, that though She/He be a complete mystery, all I need do is believe in what’s good and, too, in what’s true.

Used to be my eternity depended upon the Holy Trinity. Yet to put God in a box built by men orthodox that over the ages became petrified thought denies a reality that lets God be what God is which is all that we see and all that we don’t and even, too, all that we won’t.

Used to be “In the beginning there was the Word.”

Now words just get in the way.

Rfd 11/25/06

A Solution for Iraq, A Second Chance for Bush

It’s over. Yet it’s just beginning, a seed of hope that could sprout both a new chance for peace and a salvation of President Bush and his stature in history.

His recent conciliation and expressions of desire to work with the new Democratic leadership is a 180 degree turn from 6 years of bull-headed charges in the wrong direction, a course which has lead to fear and loathing throughout the world, and drapes-pulled-from-the-eyes discontent at home.

If, as his recent stance seems to indicate, his attitude is truly changed, he can retire in two years with a shiny epitaph and restored reputation as a human who erred, yet for the good of humanity, did all he could to right it. Here’s how.

The world is ready. They have renewed confidence in the American public that we too have seen the error of our unilateral and dangerous aggression and want to re-join the community of nations in the quest for shared security and well being for all countries, not just the U.S.

Therefore, they will gladly work with us in bringing peace to Iraq and the region. But President Bush must actively seek and sincerely want their partnership. He must not merely accept, but honestly insist on other nations’ best and equal involvement in solving the quagmire, asking only that any such nation be in it for the right reasons: the welfare of Iraq, the region and the world at large, and not just for what they stand to gain.

This seemed all but impossible before the President’s post-election speeches and firing of Donald Rumsfeld. But such is his power that even with a Democratically controlled Congress it is his demeanor and actions that can continue to break or instead repair us.

With the holidays nearing an analogy to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol seems appropriate. As the ghost of Christmas Future ushers us about we see the world as it will look a few years hence if the present course remains unaltered. Headlines of death, despair and contempt, a presidency ranked at the bottom, President Bush a tragic example of what one should never to be.

Yet, behold! This is a nightmare vision of what might happen. And like the joyful Scrooge upon the discovery that he still COULD change the future, George W. Bush has a second chance. Tomorrow’s headlines full of hope, peace and progress. President Bush, smiling from the cover of his new best seller, “From My War to Our Peace, a Tale of Grace and Redemption,” his legacy secure in the annals of history.

It is possible and it is doable. President Bush need only act with the faith he so proudly professes and with humility and magnanimity face the mistakes of the past to insure a more hopeful tomorrow.

And in a well-deserved glow of contentment he can end his farewell speech not with “God bless America,” but rather “God bless the world!”

Richard F. Dawahare 11/10/06

When a Rose is not a Rose

The biggest news today is not related to the election. No. It is instead a story about the state of New York legally recognizing that black indeed may be white, that up can be in fact down! Specifically New York is moving forward with a plan to allow people to change the sex on their birth certificate upon affidavits from a doctor and mental health professional laying out why their patient should be considered a member of the opposite sex and asserting that the proposed change would be permanent.

Cool.

Applicants would have to have changed their names and lived in their new gender for at least two years, but there is no requirement for any surgical operation, which is considered arbitrary. “It’s the permanence of the transition that matters most,” says Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City’s health commissioner.

This “recognizes the emerging shift away from viewing gender as simply the sum of one’s body parts.” (Quoting Damien Cave, the NY Times writer of this story, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/nyregion/07gender.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print).

Joann Prinzivalli, 52, a lawyer for the New York Transgender Rights Organization is a human born as a male, but living as a woman since 2000 without surgery said this is a progressive move away from American culture’s misguided fixation on genitals as the basis for one’s identity.

“It’s based on an arbitrary distinction that says there are two and only two sexes,” she said. “In reality the diversity of nature is such that there are more than just two, and people who seem to belong to one of the designated sexes may really belong to the other.”

Okay, value judgment time. Since love should be the guiding rule for all humanity, I will look at it through the eyes of that highest of values. Doing so I say, “GREAT, FANTASTIC, AWESOME!” Undoubtedly there are folks dancing to the tune of a different drummer than the storybook band that convention has decreed as being the only one suitable for the dances similarly dictated as acceptable.

These human souls long for the freedom to be themselves, thereby attaining a peace of mind that we all require to live happily, and by extension, to help others live happily as well. It just makes for a better world.

This recognition, radical and revolutionary to be sure, is for me another sign of God’s mystery. Today’s “Truth” is more than what I thought it was yesterday, and certainly—hopefully--not as full as it will be tomorrow.

Rebuttals to Vote Rigging Charge or Let Jimmy Carter Stay home

I am lucky to have many intelligent friends across the political spectrum. Some have given a different perspective than the one I presented regarding the unreliability of electronic, paperless voting machines. I list them verbatim below.

I believe they each have merit and admit that I truly do not know the level, if any, of fraud that actually exists. I am convinced, however, that the potential for fraud is more than has ever existed with old fashioned paper ballots.


1) There are safeguards. Your a bit overzealous.


2) If these accusations are true, then people should be in prison.


3) We have had electronic voting machines for almostthirty years. There has not been one case of provenvoting fraud with these machines. I know we do havethe Rev. "Mr. "shakedown Jesse Jackson, stating everyelection cycle .. Fraud .. Fraud. I find itinteresting he has not been successful with anydisenfranchisement suit. However, I would argue that voting fraud is not arepublican issue. It is a democratic and republicanissue. We have had cases in New York in the lastelection cycle that 77,000 dead people voted. Additionally, how about states like Maryland who countabsentee votes two days after the polls close. Or,how about election fraud issues in high populatedareas by which senior folks homes and people withAlzheimer's are targeted. I think these are the casesthat we need to expose.

4) I thought the entire point of using electronic voting machines was to cut down on fraud. It was long alleged that paper ballot elections were easily rigged with mountains of fraudulent ballots; now it is said that electronic ballots are easily manipulated. I find it hard to believe that the Democratic Party would stand idly by and do nothing if they thought that a particular election was rigged.

This Election, Send Jimmy Carter to… America!

Can you just imagine the chief executive of the main paperless electronic voting machine maker say, “(I am) committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”? You don’t have to imagine. It happened!

Walden O’Dell, then Diebold CEO made the prophetic guarantee in an August 2003 fundraising letter. Can you imagine what Republicans or their mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh would say if that CEO were a Democrat speaking of a sitting Democratic president?

Yet, the multitudinous tales of election mayhem by Diebold from California, Georgia, Maryland, Florida, Minnesota, Ohio and most if not every state continues unabated. Election fraud will happen this fall and without a paper trail it will be nearly impossible to prove it.

There is a guiding rule for public servants and those dealing with them: one must not engage in an activity or accept, or give, a benefit if there is even the appearance of impropriety. This rule has been utterly trashed, and instead its opposite now rules the hearts and minds of our top so-called leaders. But in the voting machine scandals it is not just the appearance, but also the actuality of an ongoing impropriety.

The wolf is not merely guarding the henhouse—the wolf now owns it while we scuttle like lambs from one non-story to another allowing this outrage continue.

Three of the four voting machine makers are major Republican supporters. Chuck Hagel was chairman of ES&S, the voting machine maker that tallied 85% of Nebraska’s votes in his 1996 election to the Senate, the first Republican in 24 years to win that seat.

There are many reports of computer patches, code swapping and hacked manipulations. Just last week Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich, Jr., a Republican running for re-election, said that the voting situation is "approaching crisis proportions." He advised voters to vote with absentee ballots. "I don't care if we paid half a billion dollars or $1 billion," Ehrlich said. "If it's going to put the election at risk, there's no price tag for a phony election or a fraudulent election."

A former Diebold employee-turned-whistleblower, Chris Hood, recounts how in 2002 Diebold, though it was the highest of nine bids, got the Georgia contract for voting machines, and how Georgia essentially delegated the whole voting apparatus to them. He said Diebold employees altered 5000 voting machines (he personally did 56 and witnessed 1200) in the heavily Democratic DeKalb and Fulton Counties with a patch—a programmable memory card that can skew an election to any desired result. Small wonder that though the poles showed Democrats Max Cleland and Roy Barnes ahead six days before the election, both lost narrowly. [Max Cleland, you may recall, was the triple amputee Vietnam War vet who was viciously and fraudulently painted as a traitorous chicken by Republican Saxby Chambliss.]

Beyond the obvious corruption and unaccountability of paperless, ostensibly Republican-run, voting machines is the GOP’s systematic dis-enfranchisement of registered voters. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio’s ultra-partisan GOP secretary of state oversaw the purging of over 300,000 names in heavily Democratic precincts of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo. Not surprisingly there were 50,000 complaints of dis-enfranchised voters following the election. Long lines up to 6 hours, in poorer Democratic precincts discouraged many still on the rolls from casting their ballots.

The United States is one of the very few democracies that allow private companies to run the voting of nations electorate. Just four such companies will secretly tabulate over 80% of Americans’ votes using their own proprietary software with no reliable checks or balances.

Regardless of party affiliation, we should all protest the further use of paperless, electronic voting machines, which without the safeguard of a verifiable paper trail, leave them easily subject to manipulation and fraud.

Equally, we should reject any and all attempts to discourage voting. Such dis-enfranchisement is the hallmark of fascist, totalitarian states, not the world’s supposedly truest democracy.

So instead of sending Jimmy Carter to some far off third world country to promote free and fair elections let’s send him somewhere closer to home. Let’s send him to America.

Richard F. Dawahare, 11/2/06

Kevin Tillman, Pat's brother and fellow soldier: Cauldron of Truth. Bless him!

Kevin Tillman, brother of the late Pat Tillman and fellow soldier in the Iraq war, writes the most truthful and powerful indictment of that folly that I have seen. His courage and leadership are what may yet save America and its democracy....


After Pat's Birthday

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/

Posted on Oct 19, 2006

By Kevin Tillman

Editor's note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.
-----------

It is Pat's birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice. until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them.

Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman

An Ode to the Axle, the Cello and Hugh Masekela

I was enjoying a beautiful Bluegrass ride through the rolling hills of central Kentucky after a day of watching fast women and pretty horses Keeneland when James Taylor’s classic Fire and Rain blared forth. With it came memories of my sophomore year at Lafayette High: football Friday’s and first dates, crisp cold gray days with the multi-hued leaves filling the streets and lawns.

But what makes this such a powerful song? Certainly, there’s James himself, the author and creator. But I submit to you that there is so much more. Whoever planned the cello part was pure genius. Whoever played that cello did so to perfection. Whoever arranged the song and produced it did so flawlessly. And whoever engineered the sound, thereby creating the final product was at the top of their game.

Like any musical recording, it is ALL these working in tandem that creates the tunes so familiarly fabulous to our ears. That cello in Fire and Rain is so powerful that the song could never be the same without it.

Same with Hugh Masekela’s trumpet in the Byrd’s “So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star.” The song is hypnotic, but it is Hugh’s horn that makes it a heavenly harmony. It soars!

This all reminded me of the axle, that forgotten but essential part without which the wheel would be useless. The wheel gets all the credit as the greatest invention of all time, but where would it be without the humble axle.

Look behind the “stars” of your world. You’ll find a million such axles, cellos and Hughs.


RFD 10/18/06

Unholy Hoax: The "Clash of Civilizations"

The best lie contains elements of truth, thus making it devilishly difficult to expose. So it is with today’s biggest lie: that “Islamic fascists” are bringing on a “clash of civilizations” to take over the world.

The truthful elements are obvious. There have been many acts and statements of violence in the name of Islam by rogue extremists. 9/11 happened and is attributed to this group, who, it is claimed “hate us for our freedoms” and want to destroy us. That image is further tarnished by their seeming intolerance of free speech, most recently shown by their demonstrations in the wake of the Pope’s speech.

Yet, the larger truth is that all such words and actions are but from a very small number of the Muslim world. They do not speak for mainstream Islam. In fact, most Muslims view such extremist terrorists for what they are: criminals. For example, Sheik Fassa al-Guood, an Iraqi Sunni tribal leader is leading a force of 20,000 men to “purge (Ramadi) of these infidels.” He continued, “People are fed up with the acts of those criminals who take Islam as a cover for their crimes.”

Exactly. The 9/11 perpetrators were criminals. Suicide and subway bombers are criminals. As the Sheik correctly noted, they use Islam as a cover. So why are our leaders falling for this bait and actively encouraging an onset of this clash?

One possibility is that they need a foil to serve as a scapegoat against which they can unleash their “solution”: a new era of military domination as outlined in uncanny detail in the Project For A New American Century, PNAC, which you can read online. In it you’ll find that the war in Iraq was planned long before 9/11, that they predicted a “new Pearl Harbor” event so as to convince Americans of the need to vastly increase the military and that our future, if this plan is allowed to continue, will put us on a course of perpetual conflict.

It is far better to deal with terrorists as the criminals that they are, than to create a clash that need not be.

Democracy’s Seven Deadly Sins

“Democracy.” We hear a lot of talk about this all-defining concept. It is the magic elixir for the world’s political ills. Politicians brandish the term as they would a crucifix before a vampire often coating their actions with the honey of “Democracy” in order to win our support.

Yet true Democracy is often different than what we are led to believe, so it behooves us to better understand this most American of our ideals.

To best define something, in this case Democracy, it is helpful to look at its polar opposite, what it is not. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” which I have been devouring the past two months is a divinely ordained wake up call in this respect. In it we learn, by negative experience, the essential elements of a true democracy. That is, since Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler represented the polar opposite of a free democracy, by studying the characteristics of this most fascist of states we can more clearly appreciate what defines our free democracy, and be better able to follow it.

First, the hallmarks of Hitlerian fascism:

1) A populace made subservient by catastrophe and fear;

2) Political leadership more focused on personal gain and/or special interests than the greater public interest;

3) Concentration of power, without the safeguard of checks and balances, in the head of state; who had

4) A powerful military made accountable to that head instead of to the people; and who also had

5) Control of the airwaves that enabled the constant broadcast of false information; and who

6) Gave total priority to corporate interests over those of workers and lower classes; and who

7) Eliminated dissent through intimidation and brutal force, and the fomenting of public opinion against critics of the head of state through appeals to nationalism and patriotism.

These are the Seven Deadly Sins for not only democracy but for all free, communal societies. Now let’s look at the corresponding polar opposites for each of these traits in truly free democracies:

1) A populace with faith--in their country, in each other and in their government;

2) Political leaders, fairly elected and solely focused on the greater public interest;

3) Shared political power with safeguarding checks and balances on the head of state;

4) A powerful military answerable to the citizens through their elected representation;

5) Open airwaves, treated as the public franchise they are, where divergent viewpoints are given equal time;

6) Workers’ interests are equal to those of the corporations;

7) Encouragement of comment and criticism as a patriotic act.



Remarkably, a perfect example occurred as I was writing this. George Bush gave his speech calling for Congress to pass his military tribunal legislation so “…the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September the 11th, 2001, can face justice.”

Bush said his military commissions would ensure a full and fair trial for the accused and that “The Supreme Court determined that military commissions are an appropriate venue for trying terrorists, but ruled that military commissions needed to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress.”

Yet this is not so. First, his is a gross mis-statement of the Court’s ruling in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, where it ruled that any military commission or court-martial proceeding must comply with the law of war as defined by our USMJ and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Secondly, Bush could have had the trials long ago under these well-established rules. Instead he unilaterally and unnecessarily trashed our honored system of justice for no reason whatsoever. He would deny the accused such basic rights as knowing the evidence and witnesses against them, while allowing hearsay and potentially coerced testimony to be used as evidence

So why this need to run roughshod over our Constitution as well as our international obligations under historic treaties? If the government’s case is as strong as Bush tells us it is, then why the need to try them in Hitlerian style? For those kangaroo courts were similarly ordered, the verdicts all but certain before the “trials” ever began.

Further imperiling our Democracy, the president continually grabs more and more power to himself while trying to eliminate the checks and balances our Constitution demands. Most blatant are his “signing statements.” These are done after Congress—a Republican-dominated Congress at that—passes laws that are already reflective of his desires.

But this is not good enough. He has, over 750 times, RE-INTERPRETED those laws even further so that they will mean EXACTLY what he “interprets” them to mean. Never before his presidency has this been done to this degree, and it was never done at all until Reagan’s term of office.[1]

Traditionally, Congress hammers out compromises, the truest act of a representative democracy, and the President signs the bill or vetoes it, which allows Congress to re-address it. Instead President Bush has not vetoed even one bill. He deceptively ushers in members of both parties, smiles, signs and takes photos. THEN, he effectively reneges by making the newly signed law say what the Congress never intended.

These are anything but acts done within a true Democracy. They are more akin to the classic definition of fascism. A non-partisan Congress would not allow this to happen. But like the Reichstag in Hitler’s day, Congress goosesteps to its leader’s tune, ignoring the Constitution, the people and our over 200-year history of representative democracy.

Add to all this: 1) The Administration’s branding of dissenters as disloyal traitors, 2) their complete capitulation to the captains of commerce, 4) a populace made divided, suspicious and fearful, 4) unprecedented levels of scandalous Congressional sell-outs, and 5) a compliant media that has too often abdicated its traditional role as a watchdog for the truth and the commission of Democracy’s seven deadly sins is nearly complete.

I say nearly because in spite of efforts to chill it we still have a robust freedom of speech with many outlets for its voice. We remain Americans to the core, innately connected to the highest ideals of our nation’s noble beginnings. Regardless of the occasional shortcomings of its leaders Americans will in the end defend their democracy.

In the meantime we are left to love the sinner, while hating the sin.

[1] For an excellent review of Bush’s signing statements see: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/

Repairing Our World with Flight 5191

I had planned to say something totally different, and in a similarly different tone, about the governor’s merit hiring settlement.

But I write this as I pray for the family and friends of loved ones lost on flight 5191, grateful that my itinerary called instead for the next flight through Cincinnati, on whose runway I now sit. My last trip was through Atlanta so I could just as easily have been among the dead or dying this ill-fated morning.

While I worried about who I may know aboard 5191 I realized that a co-worker may yet be on board and hoped beyond hope that he took a later flight instead (I later learned that he did).

I then wondered why the gates of our emotion should hinge so surely on our personal connections with those who pass on. After all, we are all brothers and sisters, and each life is equally precious. So while it is understandable that we feel more strongly about those who are close to us, familiarity is no pre-requisite for human empathy.

Thus does another catastrophe put in perspective the supposed hot issues of today, unmasking the truly trivial nature of our daily dramas. In this light the hiring debacle pales in importance.

This is to not to excuse either official mis-conduct or the all too prevalent political penchant for prioritizing greedy self-interest over our greater public interest. Rather it is to use this tragedy to direct our steps up a higher path, individually, and collectively.

Like 9/11 and hurricane Katrina, flight 5191 builds within our breasts a heartfelt human compassion--for the dead, for the grieving, and for each other. It may also leave us with a feeling of remorse as we perhaps regret the opportunities now forever lost to show our love, appreciation or kindly word to one we will never see again.

I recalled something I once heard about how much better our world would be were we to treat each other as if our next time together would be our last. As if we or they may be on the next flight 5191.

And it is by remembering this through all levels our community that we will repair our broken world.

Rfd 8/27/06