The Specter Switch -- a New Dance: I was absolutely thrilled by the momentous switch of the long time Republican Arlen Specter, to the Democratic Party. It was brave, it had foresight and it showed a pragmatic insight into the political realities of our time. It was brave because it is a difficult undertaking to switch parties when one has been a member of the federal legislative branch for such a long time. It was brave, too, in that Senator Specter knew the predictable risk of being accused that it was done simply because he saw the Republican primary polls for him in the next election were, as he stated, bleak. That fact, however, gave him the chance to be pragmatic, see the changing national demographics and with savvy represent the state of Pennsylvania and our country more effectively.

There is more to it, though, than that. The Democratic Party now has within it what the Republican Party lost. The Republican Party, sadly for it, lost its big tent and the Democratic Party, effectively constructed one of their own. Within the Democratic Party there is room for debate, dialogue and flexibility. This is, in my opinion, its biggest asset and has been one of the greatest reasons for its recent legislative and presidential success.

The Republican Party took the 1964 presidential Republican nominee Barry Goldwater’s memorable convention speech phrase “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue” and used it as its mantra to create over the past forty years a change in the Republican brand. Over time it served to work against itself as it eliminated a permanent Republican majority by eliminating differing views of its moderates. Clearly, extremism on either side of the political spectrum is the greatest vice and moderation the greatest virtue. The Democratic Party has developed a new dance and acquired what the Republican Party has lost and that is the ability to hear the other side, to rationally and less ideologically discuss the issues and to make more people feel their opinion counts.

I posted this on McClatchy blog at 10:30 p.m. August 23, 2009

To Much to Do: Let's see there is Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, the Taliban, the Taliban in Pakistan, Pakistan's nukes, Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iran, bin laden, Israel, the economic disaster, no health care for half the country and the other half has inferior health care, our bridges, roads and infrastructure are crumbling, our education system stinks, and now tac on torture. No wonder Larry Summers fell asleep. We do not need one president, we need TEN. Oh yes there's the swine flu. I thought flu season was over. I'm tired. I'm going to bed!

The Torture Legacy: It is unfathomable to me how an administration could commit the abundance of illegalities that we know for certain the Bush administration did and not think, with all the years of experience some like Dick Cheney possessed, that they would not have to account for their nefarious behavior most especially with respect to torture. For the first time former Vice-President Cheney is making the media rounds to try to explain his side of the story. No matter what Dick Cheney has to say it cannot and will not erase the indictments of so many, a significant number of whom are experts in interrogation tactics and others who will start coming out of hiding to expose the dastardly deeds so they can sleep at night and, most importantly, for their defense in the probable legal onslaught. History, of course, will be the final judge. My suspicion is the positive legacy the Bush administration allegedly so furiously covets will be one of the worst to befall an administration in US history and there is nothing they can do about it.

A footnote: Paul Krugman's article in the New York Times April 24, 2009, says it all more eloquently than I. Here is the link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/opinion/24krugman.html?_r=1

Another expert opinion -- Philip Zelikow, a former Bush administration lawyer interviewed on Rachel Maddow. He was asked to write an opinion on the legality of torture. For the Bush administration he wrote the opposite of what they wanted to hear and, of course, left, his opinions mysteriously vanishing. I suspect they may once be lost but soon, HOPEFULLY, found. He writes the following in the NYT as an Op Ed Contributor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/opinion/24zelikow.html

The Folly of Fascism: Kudos to Scott Lehigh on his April 22, 2009 Globe editorial "The conservative cries of fascism." The vast pool of ignorance in which the American public swims astounds me. They simply do not know the definition and the difference between Fascism and Communism and its varying degrees of political thought which fall in between. Clearly the fascism of Mussolini of Italy, Hitler of Germany, Franco of Spain, or Hirohito of Japan were different from the politics of Roosevelt, Churchill and even Stalin no matter how many labeled all of these men interchangeably. It is inane to do so.

Nomenclature has meaning. The American public, generally speaking, would not know the difference between a fascist, a Communist or a socialist if they tripped over a Webster's dictionary explaining their essence. To understand all of it one would have to know where the term fascist originates. It had its etiological meaning as a bundle of rods or fasces tied together with an axe-like blade on the side which were carried by Roman soldiers. It signified a symbol of the power of the state. Mussolini used it as a symbol of the Fascist movement he tried to create. To understand Communism, of course, one would have to understand Karl Marx and his philosophy which made a vain, albeit unsuccessful, attempt at the humane equalizing of social class. These two extremes are quite different from one another. There is nothing about fascism one could label humane. They both, though, make the individual subservient to the power of the state.

These political philosophies are complex and can be discussed at length. Most of the American public cannot do that with ease so talk show hosts take advantage of ignorance by screaming that people are either one or the other when they are neither. There are underpinnings to these political ideologies but most do not understand them. Obama is to Fascism as an orange is to an elephant. It is ridiculous to compare the two. This is more evidence of the American public's slant toward anti-intellectualism. That is the saddest "ism" of all.

The Fabric of American and other Life -- Tea Anyone? The latest teabag anti-tax (and many anti other things) mostly right wing inanity was an embarrassment. The threads of anti-government, anti-tax and the indictment of the latest fashionable ethnic group running through the historical fabric of American culture is chilling. The worst patch of the American quilt, in my opinion, is its traditional anti-intellectual assault on reason. THAT is the one I fear the most because through that all other extremist views are sewn. One can see it from the violent scourge of Fundamentalist Islam, Fundamentalist Christianity and, even among my own people, the popularity of Orthodox and Hassidic Judaism the most extreme and uncompromising forms of the faith.

The churches of change such as Unitarians, Congregationalists and other thinking Christian faiths as well as reform Judaism, in modern times, I think, take a hit as people want certainty. The Islamic faith, too, has a few moderate strains but many annihilate the disagreeing other by the most grotesque and bestial methods possible and, within the parameters of my limited knowledge of it, has no popular active liberal reform movement for obvious reasons. I have heard much of moderate Islam but nothing of reform Islam which would obviously encounter great risk to adherents. Dangerous times somehow advance the dangerous agendas of dangerous and often violent people incapable of listening to another side or questioning much of anything.

I hope man's divinely supreme intellect, proclivity for learning, and his love for rational thought ultimately prevail. It USUALLY does but, as history tells us, not always. It is my greatest fear because the stakes of annihilation from a nuclear reality by people who think they possess the ultimate truth is possible and terrifying. I am hoping smarter thought prevails and its attendant art form, compromise, not forgotten.

Civil Liberties and Domestic Surveillance: I have always had mixed emotions with respect to the NSA's collection of domestic telephone and email exchanges. Lofty principles are wonderful in an age when nuclear weapons are not a reality. That is not the age in which we live. Yet, what is more representative of the essence of our nation than its civil libertarian devotion. It is the reflection of who we are and, often, at least the verbal justification for our military and diplomatic intervention on the world stage. While I understand the grave existential threat of physical attack, I worry about the existential erosion of those very ideas that make us, as a nation, who we are. The body and the body politic consists of both ideas and biological realities. They are united. Can one live without the other?

While there is a certain amount of government surveillance which, I believe, is necessary, the dragneting of thousands if not millions of harmless citizens' phone calls and emails is a waste of time, money and surely is, I believe, ineffective in keeping the nation safe. We are wasting resources capturing email and phone calls of an elderly grandmother living in Boca Raton whose daily routine includes meals at her assisted living, bingo and phone calls to her daughter in law in Paris. Our country needs to be protected but the protection requires pin point accuracy of who is the real threat and who is not.

A New Sealing of Fate: When I first heard about the rescue of the captain of the Maersk by the Navy Seals my level of depression about the economy, more American soldiers killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other problems facing our nation, went from ten to zero in an instant. Finally, an Easter/Passover metaphor -- the resurrection of hope in a sea of despair. Over the course of three days I thought the captain of the Maersk would be killed. That he was not reinforced a debate I had with someone recently over the competence of our military. I believe it to be the most competent in the world. My opposition, surprisingly a veteran, said he thought not. I decided Sunday my opinion was vindicated as I rehearsed in my mind over and over again what our modern military has been asked to do. Our professional all-volunteer military performs perfectly and have done what they have been asked to do every time. They are the military. They are NOT politicians nor are they members of the State Department or Congress. Their job is to protect and, if necessary, to kill for, American interests period. In my opinion, they do it with phenomenal bravery and incredible preciseness. What were the odds the captain and his crew would be rescued successfully? As each day passed the odds began to look slim.

Barack Obama said nothing while the ordeal was occurring. I suspect he worked with many entities in the utmost secrecy to make the operation work. We will probably not know the true extent of his machinations for many years but I know enough about our president to believe he is cautious, he is deliberate and he is very very smart. He is the exact opposite of the eight years of knee jerk militarism and paucity of intellect which was team Bush. Recently, when Bush's former UN ambassador Bolton was asked how he would resolve this difficult pirate issue his reaction was a military assault on Somalia. That would mean, of course, an escalation of war and possibly yet another occupational quagmire of an anarchistic East African entity in the Horn of Africa which cannot even be considered a nation state. We would add a third or some say even fourth war, if one counts some of Pakistan, as a target to our military's burden. We cannot employ that kind of foreign policy again and again and again. We do not have the lives to risk, the money to spend nor suffer the worldwide ill will it would engender if the US reacts with overwhelming military force to meet every threat we may face.

Terrorism whether from pirates or otherwise is worldwide. President Obama brings to his office precisely what our nation needs: meticulousness of thought, thoughtful preparation and slow but deliberate action which produces the optimum result but does not incur world-wide animosity in the process. The Obama Doctrine is smart and it is deliberative. The indictment many have had the past eight years has NOT been of the military but of the politicians who craft stupid poorly thought-out policy and then cavalierly play roulette with the lives and fortunes of those who would implement it.

Thankfully, the US has wonderful geographical coordinates. It is removed from many anarchistic forces who wish to destroy it. Technology, though, as 9/11 proved, makes all nations very close indeed. President Obama showed smart, deliberate poise while he monitored the problem and then gave his permission to those who could perfect the desired result. They, perfectly, surely did.

Bribery Pirates -- Frontline April 7, 2009 -- "Black Money" international bribery: As usual PBS and Frontline presented an interesting broadcast. The program on international bribery made me reflect. If only I did not have to worry about money. I, disabled and suffering in this economic recession/depression, watch, as the economic conditions worsen and my own body from polio will no longer do at 60 what it did years ago no matter how hard I try.

I ask myself the very moral question that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia and others talked about in this Frontline episode in relation to his being paid huge sums of money under the radar screen from the British aircraft company BAE in exchange, of course, for huge contracts in Saudi Arabia. Is bribery for enormous sums of money really that bad? After all as he stated so many do it, it's simply human nature and man is a fallen angel. Wouldn't it be so wonderful never to have to worry about money again? Life is so short, why not live it in style as one lives only once? Why not as, in the final analysis, we can only account for ourselves and no one really cares about me except for me.

There are laws against international bribery for a myriad of reasons. Arms sales between countries surreptitiously are dangerous by their very nature as today's friend is tomorrow's enemy sitting with your country's killing machines in its lap easily turned on you when the time is appropriate. The Iraq war was testament to that fact. What if our friend Prince Bandar and his father are either removed from power or what if both turn on the west as China and other nations become titanically powerful economic forces? Then what happens to the arms, the planes and the equipment the west sold to him? It is, though, not only EVEN about simply that, although that is surely important. It is about personal morality.

Even with my difficult position in life, even with my handicap, even with my fervent desire to not have to worry again, if I were in a position and someone came to me with an offer there is NO way on planet earth I would succumb. You may say that is easy for me to say now because no one ever has but truly I could NEVER be corrupted not by international finance, not by Wall Street, not by being a Congressperson (if I were one), not by anything or anyone. Why? Because it's wrong, it's unethical, it's not fair, it is illegal and it is downright dangerous. I would NEVER do one thing to compromise my integrity -- ever. No amount of money could make me do anything at any time to potentially hurt another human being, this planet or most especially my country. That is how much I value all of those things. I value those things more than my own difficult plight.

Some would pocket billions of dollars SIMPLY because, as Frontline indicated, they COULD, I would NOT pocket billions or millions (assuming I had the chance) simply because I COULD NOT. It's that simple.

The Mystery of Mental Illness: Sent this to the Metro News responding to an editorial on mental illness.

I agree with Dr. Gordon's April 7, 2009 editorial "Don't Stigmatize the Mentally Ill." I believe, though, some critical comments about mental illness and its treatment are in order. It is true mental illness should not, of course, be stigmatized. We are advanced, at least SOME of us are advanced, enough to know that the brain is an organ just like any other in the body. Sometimes as one's pancreas, for example, it does not function effectively for a variety of reasons. However, the stigmatizing, I think, that is accorded mental illness is that it is behavioral and not simply systemic in nature. Unlike other illnesses mental illness CAN produce threatening behavioral manifestations. I submit, it is the nature of how mental illness presents itself that is often the reason people fear it, stigmatize it and isolate people who show symptoms of it. We can clearly, I think, state that the man from Binghamton who killed so many innocent people was mentally ill. That does not preclude the fact that he posed a very clear and present danger to the community and no one knew it. When people present with bizarre behavior or speech people often do not know and fear what they will do.

Dr. Gordon and others in the mental health field will say that there are treatments for people with mental illness as there are treatments for people with diabetes and that is true. I though, maintain, the treatment offered to the mentally ill is sporadic at best and ineffective at worst. The treatment for mental illness shown in the panoply of medications offered for it are delivered often by trial and error. Treatment is haphazard as medications for certain diagnoses are seemingly thrown into a hat and then selected. Even the diagnosis itself is subjective. There is, in my opinion, no effective scientific measurement yet to determine which mental illness one has and which treatments are proper for it. We can only guess. That is not the case with diseases such as diabetes. Much of mental health care is, I submit, guess work and it often does not achieve the effective result. Drugs seem to work for a time, then medications must be increased and finally stopped as they become ineffective or cause unacceptable side effects.

Further, to complicate matters, drugs to treat mental illness can get expensive. We know the record of insurance companies paying for the average disease is often less than desirable but it is worse than that when it comes to mental illness. It is NOT treated by insurance companies with the same procedural equality as other illnesses may be. Co-payments are often large and sustained treatment sometimes not available ESPECIALLY for people who fall into the middle of the socioeconomic strata who have a difficult time -- especially in a down economy -- of getting treatment for anything much less for mental illness.

In my opinion, mental health professionals must work most especially on developing scientifically precise measurements of the brain and blood chemistry of mental illness. Insurance companies, too, should be forced by law to pay for the necessary treatment as they should for any other disease. It is only then, by the successful treatment of mental illness and the patient's ability to pay for it that its behavioral ramifications will be ameliorated and the public stigma reduced.

Bill Maher -- I have seen better shows: Wrote this to HBO and Bill Maher

I have been an avid fan of Bill Maher for years. I will continue to watch his show. I do, however, want to convey my irritation lately about his shows. Last week, Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and Mos Def were the guests. Rushdie and Hitchens are significant intellects with much creative thought to offer. I believe Mos Def, whom I have seen on Maher's show before, yet again was not only out of place but obstructionist as he, in never ending fashion, interrupted the other guests and had little well thought out ideas to convey. He was, I thought, inarticulate noise and prevented my enjoyment of the other two intellectual giants. I thought this was an extraordinarily incongruous choice of guests by Maher and HBO.

This week Bill Maher had on the conservative journalist David Frum who is absolutely humorless and boring. Sam Donaldson, Reihan Salam, and Carol Liefer were interesting. Bill Maher himself was, I thought, obnoxious, disrespectful and crude to both Sam Donaldson and Carol Liefer. First, he forgot Liefer's book which I am sure was an important part of her appearance on the show, next he used insulting words about her body as she described her scare with breast cancer. If that were not enough he used a disgusting reference to her about female genitalia. She, I thought, did NOT deserve that. Moreover, Sam Donaldson, a cultivated journalist, was insulted, too, by Maher when he made reference to his hair. Bill Maher should have refrained from making reference to his "rug." It sounded insensitive, crude and ignorant. Mr. Donalson was a gentleman about it. I thought, however, he was embarrassed by the insult and that Maher's treatment stifled Mr. Donaldson's thought. He, it seemed, did not give the audience enough benefit of his vast experience on the world stage. Surely Mr. Donaldson deserved better treatment than he was given. I, too, in my opinion could have easily done without Joe the Plumber. I believe he has NOTHING to offer. He has no intellect, no achievement, no well thought out ideas and has been merely a media creation with no purpose.

Surely, Bill Maher, a talented man, with many gifts for comedy, political satire and criticism does not have to resort to vulgarity and insult to guests who deserve better. I will give The Bill Maher Show some more viewing time but, truly, if more thought is not put into the congruency of whom Maher has on as guests and WHAT vulgar verbiage Maher uses I just may not view him any more. Time will tell.

The Place of the Jewish Holocaust: A letter appeared in the Metro West Daily News, April 1, 2009 from an Armenian gentleman, Mr. Demoorjian, whose opinion was essentially that all genocides were the same in that they were important to the individual group which was the subject of the onslaught and equated the Armenian genocide to the atrocity of the Jewish Holocaust. In fairness to him he did not belittle the Jewish Holocaust BUT he did create what I saw was a rather egalitarian concept of the 20th century Jewish Holocaust in Europe with respect to all others. I took issue, in part, because I do not believe all genocides, while horrific occurrences in and of themselves, to be the same. Thus, I wrote my own editorial to the News commenting on it. It stated as follows.


What Mr. Demoorjian's says has, without doubt, merit. One cannot calculate the human suffering of genocide whether in Armenia, Cambodia, Sudan, the slums of Mumbai or of the Jews of Europe. I as a Jew and as one whose politics have been shaped by the Holocaust, have long advocated for world admission of the Armenian genocide. There is no question about its reality and no question of its horror.

While, in my opinion, the near complete eradication of the Jewish people in Europe reigns sadly supreme among man's inhumanity to man, the Armenian genocide comes close to equaling its scope. Still, as horrific as other attempts at genocide are, in my opinion, nothing on planet earth rises to the Olympian heights of the Jewish Holocaust. It was unparalleled in its length, in its scope and in its near successful completion as man used all his technologically sophisticated machinations to arrive at the German self-proclaimed Final Solution.

What does the word Final mean? I believe we must look not only at the deaths of the six million innocent men and women -- a million of whom were children -- but we must look also at the progression of Jewish history throughout the ages to see what the word final really means. Final means, to me, the end, the last, the climax of the 2000 year historical orgy of anti-Semitism born from Judaism's early schism with nascent Christianity.

Throughout generations, Christianity, uncompromising and extreme, laid a claim no other genocide ever did. The New Testament accusation against the Jew for the crime of deicide -- the actual killing of God --, in fact, made centuries of cruel, restrictive and brutal treatment of the Jewish people possible. Its orgasmic climax became the Holocaust and Europe's attempt to finally rid itself of a people the indictment of whom was a part of Christian doctrine for two milenia.

No other hatred has been as long, as wide spread, and as continuing as the hatred of the Jew. Moreover, while that kind of anti-Semitism we may consider now obscurantist (even though we do see some of it in modern Europe today), the baton of it has been relinquished to other Middle Eastern peoples who often use identical anti-Semitic spewing heard in the ghettos of yesteryear's Europe to justify the violence they spread.

It is with that historical milena in mind that I make my argument. I DO, though, understand the horrific nature of the Armenian atrocity and my thoughts, I hope, in no way diminish its historical importance to the world.

Watching the Wolves: Jeff Jacoby's April 1, 2009 op ed "Beware of wolves in suits" is a superior piece. I agree with every sentiment as my blood boils over the egregious abuses of the partnership between government and the people's money irrespective of political party. In circular fashion our money ends up often in our elected officials' or their appointments' pockets. They at times give back little and even sometimes nothing to the job they hold or to the people they represent. Much of the behavior such as collecting salaries and pensions at the same time, which Jeff Jacoby illuminated, is or should be illegal and if not illegal is certainly hugely unethical. As Jacoby says, it is especially unethical given our severe recessive economic times. Whether it's Wall Street bailouts and bonuses or pension funds and salaries for public employees, in the final analysis, it is the taxpayer's money. There must be strict oversight and intense regulation of those who could breach the public trust as human being's natural proclivity for greed is taken by some to Herculean heights.

We are, indeed, the sheep who do not have even a chance against the wolves who guard the hen house too because, often, the public's memory, unfortunately, is short. We read an occasional editorial exposing corruption one day and the next day it is forgotten. Perhaps it is because we feel powerless against government corruption and because there is so much of it. If we do not have our governmental officials to protect us then who do we have? In that case, it is up to the press to relentlessly pound the drum exposing the slime under the rock. It is then up to the people in a democracy to demand clean-up and watch ever so closely exactly what the wolves are doing. If our elected officials and their cronies breach the ethical divide we can use our power by giving them either the prosecutorial or electoral boot.

John Hope Franklin -- A man of hope: What a marvelous man the eminent historian Dr. John Hope Franklin was. It is all together fitting that his middle name was Hope and that his efforts to chronicle, understand and improve the politics of race provided just that -- hope. The presidency of Barack Obama I am sure realized a dream embedded in Dr. Franklin's DNA and, indeed, embedded within all of our DNA who value justice, fairness and equality promised in the Constitutional foundation of our nation.

Dr. John Hope Franklin, who died March 25th at the age of 94 and whose obit, sharing so much of what this man accomplished, appeared in the March 26, 2009 edition of The Boston Globe, was a gentle man of infinite scholarly preeminence and wisdom. He was a credit to all humanity everywhere whose thirst for knowledge could not be quenched and which knowledge was imparted by him to so many. I will miss his sweet tones and brilliant analysis of historical events I heard often on various media and read in his book "From Slavery to Freedom." Rest well, Dr. John Hope Franklin, a beautiful man, who was an inspiration to so many. You will be missed.

Moving the Money: I do not think the eschewing of large profits is what most are advocating as a remedy to our current economic crisis. If one is truthful, most of us would probably love large profits. The issue, I believe, is the running of the ship of state into the ground by the few who would scandalously use often fraudulent economic structures under the noses of the powerless and poor to sweep up for themselves, with government help, an immense and wholly unequal share of the public wealth. The question is, I think, who are we as a culture, as economic graphs show, if a gargantuan part of the wealth of a country is concentrated solely in the top 1% of the population? The answer is we are not a very comfortable or happy place in which to live as the so called American dream -- financial security for us in our retirement years and our progeny for their future -- becomes impossible for most to achieve. This cannot stand and it did not historically stand as the great trust busting years of Theodore Roosevelt show and, later, as Franklin Roosevelt proved during the Great Depression. Sadly, Ronald Reagan, the so called "great communicator," told us to reverse course that little government was the best government and that the forces of the market would wield their magical brilliance for the greater good of everyone.

Again and again, this has proven to be a fallacious philosophical argument as repeatedly we have seen wealth concentrated in the hands of a few means often economic catastrophe. Wealth in the hands of the very few does not, in fact, as Reaganomics told us ad nauseam, trickle down but, rather, stays in the hands of the very few. The few co-opt the many as they tap into a tired old long-time American anti-tax tradition. Anything with the word tax in it can be exploited to convince the American people that government is their enemy not their friend and that the best tax is NO tax at all while the monied class runs off with the store.

I submit government is NOT the enemy and it, indeed, CAN be your friend IF the majority understands the shell game some at the very top try to play. I am not a socialist but I am a fairist . I believe in a fair and transparent economic structure which does NOT soak the rich BUT, rather, requires them to pay their fair share which, I believe, quite ethically, should be more than those who occupy the lower ends of the socio-economic ladder. Through microscopic regulation of big business, government must ensure that too-big-to-fail corporations be disallowed, split up, reorganized and ultimately those that are left contribute their fair share to the tax structure. It means eliminating off-shore accounts, tax havens and unfair trade practices as well.

If the President and his economic team can ever untangle this mess, the bloated few who were responsible for the sub-prime loans, short selling, derivatives, hedge funds, credit default swaps, and other unsavory stock instruments which have nearly brought this country and, indeed, the world, to its knees, be neutered and a new fair redistribution of the wealth enacted through the tax code. Only government can ensure that Wall Street is regulated properly, that too-big-to-fail corporations be broken up, that unfair procedures be terminated and that those who committed unparalleled fraud be jailed. Everyone LOVES the things such as education, roads, bridges, and health care only government could provide everyone but seemingly NO ONE wants to pay for it. It's time someone did.

The Pecuniary Papacy: In response to the March 24, 3009 article in The Boston Globe entitled "Pope urges help for the poor as he leaves Africa," I am always stunned when the Pope, in this case Benedict the VI, the head vicar of Vatican opulence, states that he "urges" help for the African poor. If the Vatican and the Catholic Church are so concerned about the African poor and dispossessed I suggest they sell a few priceless paintings, artifacts gold pieces, rings and other prayerful items suggestive of the Vatican's overflowing fortune to help those poor about whom they, supposedly, care so much. While they are at it they might look into the billions of dollars in secretive Vatican investments, the coffers of which, despite the economic downturn, I am sure are sufficiently well stocked!

Mary Tyler Moore Idol NO MORE -- A Response to a Parade Magazine Interview:

I grew up watching without fail Mary Tyler Moore shows. Laura Petrie and Mary Richards reflected their times. They showed a moral goodness, innocence and a beauty that was what we thought life was like in this country. She sat high, for many years, on the pedestal I built for her until I read the Sunday Parade Magazine interview. I was surprised -- NO I was shocked -- to read about Mary's political support. I simply could NOT believe it. We all have a right to our opinion, no doubt. I, though, believe one's political beliefs ARE one's principles and one's principles are one's character.

I could not understand her support of Republican candidates most especially John McCain with his insipid side-kick Sarah Palin nor could I at all understand the excuse she used for George W. Bush's unconscionable and egregiously immoral stand on stem cell research. I was not angry. I was simply disappointed. It is beyond my imagination how a person nearly killed by the onslaught of diabetes and alcoholism, one who has suffered so many internal struggles and so much tragedy could support candidates whose sympathies for the feelings and conditions of others are so lacking.

Ms. Moore's inability to realize the necessity and the value of our Constitutional separation of church state clause is also staggering to me . It is the height of irony that a woman who needed most the advocacy for her plights would eschew candidates who could give just that to her. I, too, could not understand a woman of the theater, who most definitely in her career must have known many homosexual people, yet throws her support to candidates whose so called "moral" position on homosexuality would be that those people either not exist, deny their feelings or deny their rights which other American citizens take for granted. It is unconscionable to me that a woman of her stature could not think about the people she supports and look with suspicion on the company they keep. I might, respectfully, tell her, too, that George Bush did NOT reject embryonic stem cell research BECAUSE he “had an obligation to his religion …” On the contrary; others who have known him relate that he truly held weak religious belief. He USED religious belief, however, to appeal to a base he thought he needed to attain political power.

Ms. Moore's diabetes at this moment in time COULD have been cured IF George Bush had not been president wasting eight years while lines of stem cells were thrown in the trash. Those lines could have helped cure her diabetes and Michael Fox's Parkinson's and Chris Reeves’s paralysis and even MY paralysis from polio and millions of others who suffer from hideous diseases every day of their life. Chris Reeve could possibly be alive today if it were not for George W. Bush. George Bush had NO trouble sending thousands to their death but could not see fit to protect full term human life. This, Ms. Moore, says is because of his moral compass. I say WHAT moral compass. He had none.

It is sad in our time to see our idols fall from grace but fallen she has at least from MY Mt. Olympus. I wish her well but I SURELY hope those whom she supports as political candidates NEVER in this country and in MY time again gain the immense power they once had to create the kind of destruction we see today. Our president now may be our country's LAST chance to redeem its image; an image that was reflected by the innocence and beauty of the television of which, for so many years, Ms. Moore was a part. It is sad for me to see that she is not exactly who I thought she was.

I wrote this in response to a Newsweek article that said Obama was giving the country a too rosey scenario of the extent of our fiscal crisis.


In response to the Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart article entitled "Don't Buy the Chirpy Forecasts" if President Obama came out and said the prospects for economic recovery any time soon look bleak and the economic downturn will most likely last a decade then the media and the public would be screaming from the rafters that Obama does not inspire confidence. You cannot have it both ways. I think the president is doing the best he can given the can of worms he was handed. He tries to exude hope and realistic Rooseveltian optimism. The example presidencies of Lincoln and Roosevelt from which the president seeks direction serve us well. It was Lincoln's sagacious ability to look at issues with multidemensional heart and Roosevelt's optimistic oratorical brilliance which kept the country's spirits buoyed to save a nation.

I cannot imagine a worse scenario than to have an economic catastrophe and a president at the helm with a lemon-like Calvin Coolidge personality or a deer-in-the-headlights helpless impotency of a Herbert Hoover. We are lucky to have a president of substance and ability after the dearth of leadership we have experienced in the past decade. Will the president have missteps? Of course he will. Look closely at what his inept and incompetent predecessor did. Bush was, in my opinion, a disaster to this nation. The American public should never forget and be thankful someone brilliant, competent and hopeful occupies our highest office. Moreover, our speed dial McDonald's nation needs to understand President Obama has been in office a mere two months. Give him a chance. I think, perhaps, our nation, with any luck, may luck out once again.

"Ethical Embroys": Before I even read Jeff Jacoby's March 15, 2009 Boston Sunday Globe article"Embryos and Ethics" I knew my blood pressure would soar. It did. Curious how the right wing's moral compass is all atwitter about a frozen group of cells used in embryonic stem cell research but wars that kill and inflict horrendous suffering on often innocent full term human beings goes off their radar screen. Hypocritical as usual, the right wing often marches to every beat of a war drum but beats up on the possibility of cells in a petrie dish curing disease.

For me, a paralytic polio survivor since the age of five, this issue literally has legs. 30 years ago I was told about the possibility of the regeneration of nerve cells in my spinal cord and that regaining the use of paralyzed parts of my body was not simply the stuff of science fiction. More research, at that time, needed to be done. It never happened because of the right wing's oppressive agenda and because of George Bush who for eight long years limited research on it to only a few existing stem cell lines. Other lines created after subsequent fertilizations could not be used and, in morally dubious fashion, were thrown away. My leg and other parts of my body remain paralyzed.

I do not care a wit what Charles the ideologue Krauthammer thinks about this issue or if he cares about his own physically compromised life. I care about mine and others. He and Jeff Jacoby are wrong. This issue will never be like the Tuskegee experiment which was so immorally done on full term African American human beings. It is not even remotely the same and experiments such as that have nothing to do with stem cell research. A clump of blastocysts could promote tissue repair and cure hideous diseases. What a boon to all mankind that would be. I cannot think of one thing more that I would love my tax dollars to go to than to help cure human beings who suffer unspeakable torment every day of their lives. The people in our democracy must believe that too since they elected Barack Obama who was unequivocally supportive of stem cell research in his campaign. It is a breath of fresh air that he finally brought some intellect and rational thought to the White House. It gives hope to millions including even to me!

Written to The Boston Globe in response to Jacoby's March 11 editorial

I agree with Jeff Jacoby's March 11, 2009 editorial "History's Oldest Hatred." His article was flawless and his comparison to the Jewish festival of Purim well taken as it celebrates, in ancient history, the foiling of a Persian plot to kill all the Jews.

I once, many years ago, viewed the PBS documentary "The Longest Hatred." It explained the historical progression of Anti-semitism but began mostly with early Christianity. The truth is, the etiology of Anti-semitism is even further removed from that as the Jew has so often, even in ancient history, been the other. The uniqueness of Anti-semitism as he says is its protean quality and its ability to evolve over historical time.

He is quite correct to say it endures as an "obsessive and indestructible hatred" the lethality of which has been its legacy for so many Jews. The Jewish people have been condemned to this fate but have endured. It is why, though, ever vigilant will always be my motto.

This was in response to the story about the woman who had recently given birth and stole another new mother's purse from the maternity ward at a local hospital:

The sadness that exists in this world is sometimes hard to fathom. Why people do what they do to themselves and to others will often be an enigma. Poets, philosophers, writers and the like have written about it for centuries. Unless one can walk in another's shoes one cannot know for sure the why of things. It is up to us, I believe, to have the empathy to try to understand. In Truman Capote's book 'In Cold Blood' I believe he entitled it as such to give us a glimpse into the motivation of the perpetrators of a heinous crime. I think Capote was saying nothing is ever done in cold blood but, in truth, much ill that is committed has reasons, often volcanic, which explain the etiology of pathological behavior. On the face of it we only see the horrific nature of some crimes and we never get to see beyond it. The victim, too, has rights and deserves justice. Crime affects all of us as we use our precious tax dollars to pay for police, judges, juries, lawyers and, ultimately, if necessary, incarceration. We all pay for what others do as we are all in the boat together. If the boat is rocked we are rocked with it.

The nature of addiction is not known. Some say it is in DNA. If so one can only hope she gets the help she needs to manage and overcome it, if possible. It would behoove us, I think, as a society not to punish with verbal vitriol but to try, in some way, to offer hope that she gets the assistance she needs so she and her child not suffer any longer. We as the community, who must pay the price and bear the burden, should hope she receives the help she so desperately needs since even once removed if it happens to the least of these it happens to us as well.

Islam and Freedom of Speech: Jeff Jacoby's interview with the Dutch politician Geert Wilders in the March 8, 2009 ListenOP section of the Boston Sunday Globe entitled "Islam and Freedom of Speech" was commendable. I agree with Mr. Wilders entirely. Every country with no exception which considers itself based on Islamic law subjugates itself to a literal and unquestioning view of Koranic belief. Any perceived rejection of that will visit a death sentence or fatwa against the person postulating disagreement.

When religion is entwined with state it is so obvious the toxic and cruel brew that results. I believe the First Amendment to our Constitution is the most important and within that, freedom speech and freedom of the press go to the head of the class. It is why the potential restriction of that speech by a man like our former president was so threatening. It was threatening because our nation would be forced to subject itself to the whim of simply one man.

A nation whose life blood is a religious document with no escape clause becomes no less threatening. That nation is subjecting itself to the unquestioning statements of one document no matter how perceptively unjust or conflicting those statements may be. The separation of church and state is more than an extraordinarily important doctrine. It is life saving.

One, I think, could not argue with much Mr. Wilders said or one could. I would, though, as Voltaire said, defend his right to say anything he chooses. Too bad the UK government by not permitting the Mr. Geert Wilders entry into their country does not see it the same way.

Peter Singer -- A Different Song: In response to Jeff Jacoby's March 4, 2009 op ed article in The Globe "Intelligence is No Guarantee of Goodness" even I a 150% supporter of abortion rights and free choice have a hard time accepting an ethical argument of Peter Singer that parents along with doctors have the right to determine whether the life of a newborn child with severe disability can be ended. That is, indeed, to me, a right for which it is difficult to argue. Ideas such as that, while in theory seem to have humane intent, in practice are very hard to employ. When does even a doctor much less a parent consider a child born with severe disability unfit to live? I envision the abuse of determinations of that fact as families think about the financial costs incurred supporting that child through its life even when the parents are not there.

There is a line, as a free choice advocate, which must be drawn. Full term human life is not the issue for me. Life in utero solely dependent on the mother to sustain it is for me the essence of the abortion debate. Adults have the ability through health care proxies to let others know what they want. An infant, however,
has no such ability and to think of euthanizing it after birth is too much for my moral psychology to bear. Singer's thoughts reinforce my support for abortion rights more than ever. It allows me to conclude that the freedom to choose abortion is, in reality, pro life. It is a right which could often eliminate the need for a dastardly deed to be done after a full term human child is born.

The Anathema of Yoo -- a letter to Chapman University Law School where, John Yoo, one of Bush administration's lawyers who wrote memos to George Bush justifying torture and other breaches of civil liberties, is a visiting professor at Chapman from the University of California Law School at Berkeley:

I have read your law school's rationalization for the employment of John Yoo as visiting professor of your prestigious university and find it abhorrent. John Yoo has treasonously subverted the very essence of who we are as a nation. He helped undermine the very foundation of our sacred Constitution and subverted our most cherished legal civil libertarian values. He wrote opinions some of which were enacted and some of which were not. Those that were enacted with respect to the advocacy of torture possibly could indict Mr. Yoo for crimes. Torture, as I do not have to remind you, is ILLEGAL in this country.

Employing a visiting professor who harbors a hint of complicity in the advocacy of such policies should be an anathema to you no matter what one’s political persuasion. Those policies he helped justify meant the overthrowing of the entirety of our nation’s system. His opinions try to justify the very tyranny of presidential power we profess to abhor. They serve to justify the imbuing of the executive branch with so much power it COULD have meant even the apprehension of many in your law school, many in the University of California at Berkeley Law School, many in Harvard Law School, indeed, many in any law school, any university, any home, anywhere and at any time. That person could be jailed, literally, forever with no ability to redress his grievances and worst of all he could even be a citizen of our country. The decision to do so would rest with only one man. In Jon Yoo’s universe that decision would rest with George W. Bush alone. Would YOU have wanted your fate determined solely by him?

Our Founders were dedicated to avoiding the pitfalls of tyranny and eschewed the idea that one man would be able to exercise so much power that he, on a whim, might use that power to levy punishment on anyone he chose. That person selected, no matter how innocent, would have no right of trial and no right to face his accusers to state his case. This should be an egregious affront not only to ALL those within the hierarchy of most especially a law school but to all of us, too, who love our Constitution and our country's form of government. Mr. Yoo’s memos constructing ideations of presidential power took the history of humankind’s hard slog toward civilized conduct and reversed it centuries. He did not bend, as Dr. King so eloquently iterated, the long arc of the moral universe toward justice but he twisted it to an unrecognizable shape of injustice so that any man occupying the highest offi ce in our land could do whatever he wanted without fear of consequence.

He ignored our separation of powers system. If our Founders wanted the system for which Mr. Yoo advocated in the memos he produced they would have let King George III remain as colonial overlord and the colonists would have been required to endure whatever injustices he wanted to bestow. The abrogation of those civil libertarian values, so necessary for our democracy to flourish, makes our country the laughing stock of the world when we attempt to tell totalitarian governments how they should act.

If our civil liberties cannot be maintained even in the harshest times then that must mean they apply only when times are good. Our cherished civil liberties are NOT simply for times that are easy but for also times that are hard. Mr. Yoo, in my opinion, should not be teaching at an institution that values the rule of law and his employment there or anywhere else in an institution of higher learning should be repugnant to those who value the essence of our nation.

The Fatal Fatwa: The article entitled "The Yoga Fatwa" in the February 27, 2009 The Boston Globe op ed written by Renee Loth says it all. She excellently explains why America, even with its frailties, is preferable to many other cultures. I am not an American exceptionalist impervious to American shortcomings or bad policies but a story such as this which talks about countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Egypt banning something as innocuous as Yoga drives home that point. How can banning something as benign as Yoga or for that matter blowing up ancient statues of the Buddha, or killing someone because they paint a cartoon be defended in any way? Loth takes aim at Europe, too, with their culture clash and the banning of Islamic head scarves. She even admits to our own, at times, American intolerance.

Who in this county would even think, though, to file a bill for the government to ban yoga, blow up Buddha statues, or make the wearing of an Islamic veil a criminal offense? Religious secularism, despite attempts at times to reverse it, still prevails. Multiculturalism is the essence of who we are.

For all of our shortcomings I agree with Ms. Loth. I'll take this country and its secular tradition -- albeit compromised at times -- any day over any other place on earth!

Forgot to add -- The President's Speech -- one word -- BRILLIANT! Now let's hope he can implement it AND I hope the banks do not fail, and Pakistan does not explode! Beyond that I feel safe.

Dowd Does it Again: Maureen Dowd hits yet another home run. How true her thoughts are. This one is entitled "I Ponied Up for Cheryl Crow"
Great reading link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25dowd.html?_r=1


I particularly love the line:

"The bank cloaks itself in a philanthropic glow while wasting our money, acting like the American Cancer Society when in fact it’s a cancer on American society."

While I am at it and do not have much time today -- to sum up the president's first
speech before a joint session of Congress: BRILLIANT !!! This man, if all he says works, yes, will walk on water.

This was written in response to an article by Betsy Hart in the Metro West News entitled "When your child sasses the principal.

The Vulgarization of America: Steve Allen wrote a book entitled "Vulgarians at the Gate" where he talks about and criticizes the vulgarization of contemporary culture. As an attendee of Boston University (the Berkeley of the East) during the turbulent late 1960's I often nostalgically look back on that time as the first time in my life I experienced purpose and hope. That era brought necessary change for blacks, for women, for the environment, for the understanding of sexuality and it encouraged a new found freedom of inquiry and verbal exchange.

I also look back on that era with some profound sadness, doubt, regret and even some guilt. I fear that maybe some of those changes brought with them a variety of dysfunctions. The new found freedoms of critical analysis ushered in a violence, a promiscuity, addiction and a general lack of civility for what is permissible and what it not in the course of human relationships. It became okay to say anything, do anything, sleep with anyone and treat one's superiors like they were not superior at all.

We felt we should get along with everyone BUT we really didn't have to if we didn't want to. I feel so old when I say in my day but I will say it anyway -- In MY day in high school we would NEVER EVER think of "dissing" a teacher even IF that teacher was consummately wrong. We held our breath at the ones who dared. Is is right to be in such fear of after all mere mortals? No, I think not. We must, though, if we are to remain civilized TREAT each other, most especially those who are trying to educate and/or protect us with respect. It is that respect which is missing and I fear the genie can not be placed back in the bottle. There is, indeed, a crudity, coarseness, outrageous behavior and speech which is sanctioned now but never would have been in bygone eras.

When I visited the old South High School over a decade ago the lockers were defaced, doors removed from the bathrooms and there was, I felt, a general sense that the respect WE once had for not only the building but what the building represented, was gone. It made me cry and wonder if our generation ushered in something terribly wrong. Perhaps it did. Still, I would not want to return to the days of yesteryear when we did not question and we were not critical of a system that begged for criticism. I wonder, though, if we could not have done that in a kinder, gentler and more civilized way. Something good, civil and right has, I think, gone and my fear is that we will never be able to get it back.

Why I am what I am: READ this article link below appearing in the Metro Section of the Globe today. THIS is why I cannot let what the Vatican has done go. This is the example extraordinaire that sets my blood on fire. This is the story that makes me feel explosive and shapes my views and is responsible for my furiousness at the fate of the Jews. This story says EVERYTHING about a deep seeded endemic view sewn into the bowels of Christianity that makes a POPE -- a POPE mind you -- want to embrace priests within this horrifically antiSemitic Order to try to in humanitarian fashion "bring them back" into the fold. The Pope has the audacity to say that he did not know Williamson's views when it is clear even from laity who KNOW his views and have heard them first hand or any kid who can use google what those views are. Read this article below and see the spewing told directly TO the people who know Williamson and served him and YOU TELL ME how you are able to defuse an awful anger at the HORRENDOUS injustice that for centuries STILL lives in a part of the Christian and especially Catholic verbiage and belief. Not only does it live there I submit that despite a few Christian fundamentalists who claim to love Israel there are STILL many who are antiSemites of the worst order blaming the Jews for the death of Christ. IF the pope did NOT know this then WHY did not someone in his entourage CLUE him in? Why? Because I submit they are in sympathy with people in this Order and want them taken back.

This putrid belief has legs. Their perpetration of the fundamental basis of the stereotype of the Jew as the archetypal planner, schemer, and owner of all things of money and power in the entire Globe bent on raising himself and annihilating innocent Christianity if not God himself must be held accountable. This they believe is the Jew who is the only one who could perpetrate a fraud of such huge magnitude to get even scholars from Harvard to believe it. It is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for everyone to view. Israel naturally is swept up into this poison of 2000 years. Arabs all over the world use these rancid beliefs, spread them and sell antiSemitic literature and transmit it especially to youth so that THEY believe it is justified to eliminate the Jew. It goes on and on and on and on year after year, century after century and leaves NO room for reconciliation or peace.

Now when I wrap my head around the massive six million -- SIX MILLION -- number I cannot let it go. I can't let it go, I WON'T and I strike out verbally. This link should be spread everywhere. You should read it because it says something and those who have been critical of me and want me to let the strong feelings I have about the Holocaust and those who are responsible for it by belief and deed can see why I just simply cannot. The memory of the six cannot die. It must go on from generation to generation, parents MUST tell their children and their children's children for all time.

Further, the world and Christianity in particular must own up and NEVER forget its assistance in the transmitting the necessary preconditions and dogma for the greatest murder in this history of man. The Vatican MUST be held to account for its part in those beliefs forever as should EVERY religion who holds these ugly tenets. Those bishops who still hold those disgusting beliefs should NOT be allowed "back into the fold". To the contrary they should be RE-EXCOMMUNICATED until they recant those beliefs which
have been in part responsible for the murdering of millions.

Just cut and paste it and send it on.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/20/bishops_vexing_beliefs_have_deep_roots/

Revolutionary Road a Revolutionary Experience: This film has become another in my own personal favorites. If a film makes it to my personal hit parade it means that it is, in my opinion, of intrinsic depth and phenomenal quality. It is so, I believe, in its content and in its acting. Both are superb! Kate Winslet's performance is simply riveting as is the performance of Leonardo DiCaprio. I was enthralled from the first moment the film began to its end.

There is so much in this movie to discuss and I will try to do so limiting and without revealing any crucial information. I could relate to Winslet's character who simply could not, within that time period, fulfill her desire to be something extraordinary. I could relate to DiCaprio's character, too, who wants success, sees the futility of a boring occupation and life but cannot quite allow himself to dare take the plunge into more exciting but unknown waters.

Their marital relationship is torturous because neither can give to the other what each so desperately needs and wants. It is a tumultuous and explosive relationship to say the least as each tries with futility to fill the void in the other's life and be what the other wants. Neither can deliver that. As Ratso Rizzo says in “Midnight Cowboy” there are "gaps" in life. The question here, I think, is can another human being fill those gaps or are we all responsible ultimately for our own satisfaction? What role, too, does society play in allowing us the freedom of movement to fill those gaps and live our happiness?

Too often, I think, one looks to another for the way to ultimate satisfaction only to be disappointed as one human being simply cannot do that entirely for another. The era of the 1950's and early 1960's with its rigid sex roles and unnecessary rules placed women and men too in the difficult position of looking to their mate to satisfy the emptiness in each other's lives within a stricture that does not allow for movement. If one’s happiness is not the other’s what does one do in a culture such as that? Truly, it is an impossible task for both characters to attempt. They are two different people trying to live a singular relationship that a marriage of that era demanded. Irrespective of when they first met, their relationship seemed wrong from its start. They were, however, trapped by the conventions of marriage and of the time in which they lived.

The antiseptic yet underlying combustible aspect of the 1950's is evident. It is somewhat reminiscent of the series “Mad Men” when during this ever-so-conventional time human beings submerge their feelings for the appearances of propriety. In that era one simply did not talk usually about uncomfortable psychic issues unless and until those feelings became a Vesuvian eruption seeking outlet somewhere and even then their depth was either misdirected or avoided entirely.

Without giving away the difficult end of the film it made me ever grateful I live in an era which enjoys the benefits of the revolutionary road of the late 1960s. It truly made me appreciate how necessary those changes were as we all strive for our own pursuit of happiness and because of that time have a bit more flexibility within which to move.

This film left me breathless and I fear my opinion above does not do all of it justice. Kudos to two other characters: Kathy Bates gives her usual excellent performance as the 1950’s prototype of a seemingly superficial woman selling real estate within very complex familial issues underneath the surface. Kudos also to Michael Shannon as Kathy Bates’s emotionally disturbed but very savvy adult son. It takes his pathological character to throw into view the depth and pathology of the Wheelers' feelings about themselves and each other. His character was a revolutionary road which threw open the window into the Wheelers’ soul and ignited the appropriate and only end which the film could have had.

This was a marvelous viewing experience.

This was in response to a Feb. 17, 2009 Daily News Story

Pardoning the Unpardonable: The article in Daily News about the now uneasy relationship between Bush and Cheney because of the Libby scandal was interesting. Link below.

When I read it it was as if I were Alice In Wonderland where down is up and up is down. How one could ever justify or promote in any way policies which led to the Libby conviction, I will never understand. How those in the Bush administration view the world and how I view the world is like we are living on different planets.

I believe George Bush is entitled to the last spot on the good president hierarchy. I think he should be judged after James Buchanan for a plethora of reasons. I will not make you endure my recitation of them. Finally, though, I found one thing to laud about George Bush and that is his refusal to pardon Scooter Libby.

Cheney, Rove and others should join Libby in all that has befallen him and more. These men were complicit in outing a CIA agent. To say that what he did is treason is, I believe, putting a good spin on the egregious crime that was committed. He should not even have had his sentence commuted. He should be in jail. The fact that Libby was not pardoned gives George Bush one plus point and one point only in determining the utter failure of his presidency.

Outing this CIA agent compromised our ability to get intelligence on nuclear weaponry. Who knows what Valerie Pflame may have found had her cover not been blown. I do NOT think that it is too extreme to suggest the outing of Valerie Pflame compromised the acquiring of intelligence by our country which could, over the long run, have proved vital. We will never know. Worse they exposed her to justify their own lies perpetrating a war that should never have been waged and which has killed, wounded, and displaced hundreds of thousands including causing the deaths of over 4200 US soldiers and counting. Worse still, if that is possible, it has upset the balance of power in the Middle East handing Iraq a bloodless victory and the Taliban an emergence in nuclear equipped Pakistan providing at least the possibility of nuclear war which could escalate uncontrollably.

Most, if they had done what the Bush cabal did, would suffer an unyielding fate. Those who have committed treason have been tried for much less!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/02/16/2009-02-16_exvp_dick_cheney_outraged_president_bush.html

Iraq the Worst and George Bush dead last: Most of the analysis one reads makes it ever so clear Iraq was the biggest blunder, probably, in US history. The political consequences of Iraq are huge. It put Al Qaeda in Iraq were it was not before, it commands a US presence for decades to come, has killed over 4000 plus of our soldiers, cost our treasury billions if not a soon-to-be trillion, it empowered the extremist religiously fanatical Iran, and worse it made us take our eyes off Afghanistan where the real action against those who perpetrated 911 really was. Worse still is the nuclear threat that comes not ONLY from Iran but more worrisome Pakistan, which already has 100 nukes, as the religious extremists and Taliban knock on the Pakistan door of power. Zadari, I think,is not up to the task. This is what George Bush the incompetent, unqualified and intellectually bankrupt president has wrought. It instructs what can happen when the man in the White House is cerebrally not up to the task. No excuses, we the people put him there.

I would argue the historians wrong to put George W. Bush as number 36, one of the worst presidents. I put him dead last as the threat he manufactured was not simply conventional war but nuclear. He went to war based on a lie and a neocon unquestioned whim to supposedly transform the Middle East. His rationale for war was to prevent WMD's and Al Qaeda in Iraq where each did, heretofore, not exist. Now, ironically, he brought the horrendous potential of WMD's to our doorstep and placed Al Qaeda in Iraq and beyond. He destabilized the entire Middle East.

We suffer the potential of those consequences at the worst possible time. Our economy is in shambles manufactured on his watch and our defenses vulnerable.
One hopes we have something left as we are surely going to need it. Things in the Middle East look very dire, indeed, and our prior gambles there have failed dismally.

I pray for President Obama. He was handed a bombshell.

This was a response to Reg Henry, a syndicated columnist's, article http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/x201660953/Henry-Darwin-and-the-evolution-of-religious-feeling about Darwin which appeared in the Metro West Daily News. I commented.

The Evolution of Evolution: Reg Henry's article in the February 13, 2009 Metro West Daily News "Darwin and the evolution of religious feeling" article WAS humorous as he wanted it to be. I agree with most of it. I think he covered the bases of what should not, I believe, even BE a debate. However, I have a few critiques of some of his thoughts. He says 'While the existence of God can't be proved scientifically, it can't be disproved either.' Of course, the answer to that oft quoted rationale for god is one cannot prove a negative. Moreover, the fact that he says 'Charles Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey must be proof even Darwin believed in god.' This is proof of nothing but the fact that Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey. My family is buried in Sharon Memorial Park, a Jewish cemetery near Boston, but that does not mean everyone buried there all believed in god. Even if Darwin believed in god it still would not prove the existence of god. He is right, though when he says 'searching, souls do find the essence of goodness in myriad places.' There are probably 6 billion different interpretations of god and they find it in many places. Sometimes one can find goodness even by reading the atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion.One of Dawkins's disciples once said to me when I discussed with him my fear of death and the bleakness of eternity without a belief in god, that it is too bad we cannot accept life as it is and find the beauty in life as it has developed, as it existed over billions of years and as it exists now without having to be all consumed by the worry of death and the nothingness of eternity.

Darwin has had a monumental implication for man and science. His impact was multifaceted and absolutely unequivocally correct. Darwin's influence for the good is undisputed and only increases over time. We see evolution at work all around us. Archeologists uncover hundreds of millions of years of it every day, biologists see it in the lab among viruses, the AIDS virus did, if nothing else, prove it by showing us how cleverly the microbiological world can outwit even the smartest guys in the room by morphing so that man cannot develop a vaccine to prevent its poison. We see it when bacteria do the same so that our most heretofore potent antibiotic weapons against infection are often rendered useless as the bacteria changes to avoid its own extinction. We see it, too, as the world adapts to the external phenomenon of global warming. All life on earth is changing and adapting because of it. Evolution is real and it is true. It occurred in the past, occurs now, will occur in the future and can be proven endlessly. It will be true until the end of our time on earth as evolution dictates we all must die and it will be true even after that although we will not be around, singularly, to witness it. One necessary ingredient for evolution is time and planet earth has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have had plenty of that in its 4.5 billion year history. Happy 200th birthday, Darwin, we literally owe the explanation of life on earth to you!

I sent this to Rachel, Keith and Chris Matthews about Congress's grilling of the CEO's yesterday. Not very well written but it gets my point across.


Theater of the Absurd -- Grilling of the CEO's: Interesting post I found on the Huffington Post blog. I must say I rather agree. Although I like Barney Frank he is counting on people to have short memories or NO memories at all of his utter support and entrenchment with Fannie Mae until it was not politically expedient and he turned. THAT is the kind of thing that makes me sick. You may want to talk a little about that or when you have him on nail him on that issue. And you may want to talk about the opinion below. It is at the heart of the sick feeling the majority of Americans have I do not know who posted it but I thought it worthy of conveying.

Here is what someone said:

"What great theater -- many Academy Award performances by the politicians of both parties. There were many Firsts.

Academy Award for Screaming at the People You Enabled Through Deregulation Legislation to Cause the Collapse While Accepting Their Campaign Contributions -- For the First Time Awarded to the Whole Committee, Both Parties.

Academy Award for False Modesty While Simply Renaming "Bonuses" Something Else (like "Awards") So the Good Times Can Keep Rolling While the Middle Class Sinks into Poverty -- Awarded to CEOs of the Major Banks.

Academy Award for Passing Legislation That Lacks the Necessary Protections for the Taxpayers, Such as Criminal Provisions for Misusing the Money and Reregulation So That They Can Appear Like They Are Doing Something While Making Certain the Campaign Contributions Keep Coming In -- Again, the Whole Committee, Both Parties.

Brilliant Performances All."

Eight is Enough: Jeff Jacoby in his February 11, 2009 editorial in The Boston Globe "The choice to have 8 babies" seems to equate the morality of a mother having eight babies plus the 6 she already had with that of the loosening up of society's moral standards which allows abortion, gay marriage, single parenting and the like. I submit he misses the point. It is not the fact that the mother had the eight babies with which I quarrel. I don't care if she has 20 babies or 30 babies or none. That part of it is not my business. I believe it is rather like smokers' rights. Smokers' rights end where my nose begins. Where my nose begins smokers have no rights. Likewise, rights of the mother of 14 to have multiple births end when the taxpayer has to pick up the food stamp, home care and medical bill tabs. Have as many babies as you like just do not ask me to pay, over decades, for any of them.

Reversed Course: Kudos on the dismissal of the Holocaust denier Bishop Williamson as the head of the Argentine seminary where he officiated. One must give credit where it is due. Bravo to the Church for its rejection statements of that bishop and its attempt to repair, yet again, its near irreparable schism with the Jewish people. It shows one what can happen when large numbers of people protest and reject in outrage historically inaccurate and damaging comments.

The promulgation of the 1965 Vatican II first by Pope John XXIII and then by his successor Pope Paul VI condemned historical and modern day anti-Semitism. It showed what a positive effect the Church can have on long entrenched virulent human behavior. The Church's document Nostra Aetate within Vatican II changed, hopefully forever, the Church's relationship to the Jews. It ultimately lead to John Paul II (a Bishop at that time) who recognized and ultimately atoned for whatever complicity the Church shared in the events that led up to the worst horror in human history, the Holocaust. Surprisingly, a then Father Joseph Ratinzger -- now Pope Benedict VI -- was a theological consultant to it. The statements of a heretofore excommunicated Bishop Williamson and his acceptance back into the Church by Pope Benedict the VI threatened to overturn that arduously achieved reality.

It must have been, indeed, a huge outrage which would force the Vatican to reverse course so quickly as it is rare for it to change in such short order and, indeed, is often slow when change does, in fact, occur over time. I do continue to question, too, whether the Vatican, as it claims, did not know Bishop Williamson's views. In the age of Google that is, indeed, hard to believe. Nonetheless, I accept a reverse course and laud them for it. This time the Vatican and the Argentine seminary from whence Bishop Williamson emerged did the right thing.


I post the link to the New York Times story below:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/world/europe/10pope.html

Ever Vigilant: I just picked up my morning Boston Globe and I see the headline that says:

'Vatican tells bishop to recant views on Holocaust. Pope reacts after criticism worldwide ...
The controversy has damaged the reputation of the German-born pope'

I have not read the entire story yet but the headlines I think say it all. The satisfaction I feel cannot be expressed verbally. Suffice it to say tears are rolling down my face as I feel in some very small way I, through my writing in many publications about this event, have contributed to the chorus of voices world wide who were furious at the papal behavior besmirching the veracity of the Holocaust a tragic event which is holy to Jews and many others. I feel like I and others like I DID something for the memory of the six million and something for our oft beleaguered and besieged people!

I will read the story but it seems, at least from the headlines, that the Pope did the correct thing. I laud him for that and hope he monitors carefully what he says and even more carefully what he does. I applaud him for THIS necessary act. I remain ever vigilant.

A Reinforced Belief: I was reading my thoughts about my anathema of Pope Benedict's decision to reinstate a Holocaust denier Bishop Williamson. It was incomplete. In addition to what I said is the actual liturgy of New Testament texts which has sealed the fate of the Jews. Christians simply cannot get around its tradition. The current Pope Benedict is a traditionalist. I believe, more than that, he really has one part of his heart in history when the church was a vicious advocate of its literal text. That is why those three bishops, members of a fanatical Latin oriented Catholic sect and the one who denied the gas chambers of the Holocaust existed, Benedict "rehabilitates" and reverses their excommunication. Other popes, while most all traditionalists, had an element of reform like John Paul II and especially Paul VI in 1965 who promulgated nostra aetate which changed the culpability of the Jews for the death of Jesus.


They tried to bridge the gap between Christian and Jew. John Paul II very much tried to reach out to everyone. Benedict, though, talks a good game but then does things or says things that reverse it such as his indictment of Muslims. He KNOWS perfectly well what he is saying. He says these things and then comes out with an apology and says oh no I'm sorry I didn't mean that. Meanwhile people died because of those words. One cannot put the genie back in the bottle, though, and the words he says he KNOWS mean something. Former Cardinal Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict DID mean what he said about Muslims just as he means to reinstate the Holocaust denier. I think he agrees or wants to put forth that thought by his actions but then says oh no he doesn't believe it. John Paul II was Polish and saw his friends who were Jews just vanish. Benedict is a German and a former Nazi youth but dismisses that fact by saying he was forced into it. I maintain, this is still part of him even to this day. I always knew, if the church picked him as John Paul's successor, what he would be like.

What does it all mean and does the Vatican really have power? Catholics, and there ARE a lot of them, are followers NOT debaters and usually adhere to whatever the pope says no matter who he is. What he says means something to those Catholic billions. Personally, I think he is fraudulently deceitful. He says things and then takes them back and thinks it ameliorates everything. Well it does not ameliorate it with me. I have sent letters to many including Cardinal O'Malley of Boston in fierce opposition to reinstating the Holocaust denier Bishop Williamson. I will and ALL Jews should NOT forget this episode. It should not die with time.

Although many in Christianity have repudiated the indictment of the Jews for Jesus' death it exists in the New Testament, it is in there whether you deny it or not. Others such as Muslims who have NOTHING to do with New Testament text use it, too, as proof that the Jews are INTRINSICALLY bad. Indeed, they are not just bad for their policies but that their very ESSENCE is bad as Europeans said for two thousand years. The baton of anti-Semitic thought passed on to new hands but the old hands still carry its stain. False texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an old Russian and European anti-Semitic fabrication, are now number one best sellers besides the Koran in, for example, Egypt, Syria and I'm sure elsewhere in the Arab world.

In my opinion, the etiology of anti-Semitism rests with that original document which indicts all Jews everywhere for the killing of the Christian god and not just then but FOR ALL TIME. That is a very heavy indictment to shake off and the behaviors it induced over two thousand years leads us to our current problematic disastrous situation in which Jews, especially in Israel but elsewhere too, exist. In my opinion, the existence of Israel and all of its dimensions IS because the Holocaust WAS. The etiology of the Jewish state is really, I think, basically that simple. I fear the controversy is with us until the end of time OR may be responsible for homo sapiens end of time on this earth.

I CANNOT forgive and I CANNOT forget and I cannot turn the other cheek. I am cognizant of ALL hypocrisy and ALL espousal and behaviors of inhumanity no matter who does them, Arab or Israeli alike, but to the end of my time on this sad earth, I will ALWAYS remember the bodies ... six million of them ... a number that cannot be conceived and cannot be erased. There has been NOTHING like it ever in the history of man's violent stay on earth. The history of anti-Semitism is unique. Its unique in its length of time on earth, its spread over vast geography and its cross cultural transmission over time. It is about a people who are less than one percent of the world's population (0.2% to be exact). The six million are NEVER, not for one day, out of my mind and Benedict, by his reinstatement of a Holocaust denier, reinforces all that I believe.

"From Hitler to Hollywood": I highly recommend seeing on PBS "From Hitler to Hollywood." Link below. It TRULY is an amazing work yet again that PBS, the station of incredible excellence, does. This is such a masterpiece documentary of an interesting, and, perhaps, little known time in Hollywood.

It is amazing HOW MANY actors, screenwriters, directors, producers musicians, score writers and the list goes on and on and on who were Jews who fled Europe those terrible years and came here. One by one from around 1936 to 39 when they COULD get out some did. This documentary is about those people...those brilliant and talented people who were swept up in the tsunami of the destruction of Europe of that era.

In a way, Hitler did the US a favor because they came here and contributed to our culture in unparalled ways. People like Peter Lorre, Fred Zinneman (Directed Julia) and a ton of others, Billy Wilder, Ditriech, Heddy Lamar, Paul Heinreid, and a thousand more who contributed so much to the arts especially film. Films like Casablanca, Double Indemnity, The Killers, The Sweet Smell of Success, Citizen Kane, Some Like it Hot, and THAT list goes on and on. I did not realize and have just RECENTLY become interested in film noir that it was almost entirely influenced by the German, Austrian, French, Polish and other Jews and some others of conscience who fled when they saw the handwriting on the wall. Noir is their experience in that they saw the dark side of life, man at his worst and film noir comes out of that.

Some who fled never saw their family again, mother, fathers, etc. Some could never quite adapt well to America but some did. The whole thing is fascinating and I guess
it is an example of why the Holocaust utterly CONSUMES me despite being born after it. It is the intellect of these people makes the depth and the breadth of the Holocaust which is dumbfounding and the people ... these people who were NOT
orthodox Jews but SECULAR Jews but it didn't matter. None of it. It mattered not that they were secular, patriotic, unpolitical ... it just mattered if someone somewhere knew you were a Jew. It becomes SO personal and it wasn't like these people were uncultured, did not like learning, dragged a culture down or were so different from the masses. To the contrary they lifted a culture up, loved their countries and were brilliant men and women like Einstein ... imagine EINSTEIN was forced to flee Europe to the US.

The profound character of those years in every domain whether, arts, literature, science, religion, philosophy, had an impact. It shaped MY own personal politics my entire adult life. After first learning about the Holocaust at age 8 in a movie theater newsreel which they had in the 50's, I became so literally nauseated as an 10 year old after seeing those pictures of bodies heaped on a pile I nearly threw up
not figuratively but literally. So I knew when I was older and became political I would NEVER be a part of the right wing. I knew the right no matter in what form I would be the opposite of what I was. I knew then Nuremberg must apply everywhere OR it applies nowhere.

This web site of PBS if you are interested is:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/cinemasexiles/

The Middlesex News carried a story today about the funding disaster of Framingham High. It is simply a sad story and a reflection of our times so I wrote to the News:


Framingham High -- a Time to Weep: I am a 1966 graduate of Framingham South High School. My heart aches to see such negative news about it. It is trying to plod its way through the quicksand of inadequate funding, a catastrophic layoff of teachers and, because of that, students are now sitting in study halls since there are not enough teachers to provide more classes for them. It is tragic. I am staggered by the extraordinary rise in taxes over the years which were supposed to go to fund educational facilities. Where did that money go?

It was a brand new school in 1962 when I first entered and I was awestruck. It was the best and we considered ourselves so lucky to have had the first “language lab.” I remember nearly all of my teachers. I still use Latin phrases, and words I memorized in Miss Vancavage's Latin class. I loved that school and my town. My heart breaks and I believe it is nearly criminal that it is so desperate for adequate funding. It saddens me when the quality of what I knew seems utterly diminished. The difficult times in which live and many other things engender such a story.

I went back to see the Framingham South building, which is no longer the high school, over a decade ago and found lockers defaced, bathrooms destroyed, doors gouged with graffiti and a general atmosphere that reflected disrespect for the wonder of a school and a community that would offer a person such a unique opportunity to learn for free. The desecration of that building was nearly a blasphemous experience for me and I was angered.

I cannot say one bad thing about a school that gave me a first rate education for free. I proceeded on to college. A family member went on to Harvard and Harvard Medical through the avenues of the Framingham school system. What I learned there I still carry with me. It was a time when students cared, when few brazenly spoke back to teachers, when there was no such thing as graffiti on lockers or bathroom doors and it was a time when no one heard of a lack of funding for classes. It was a time of respect for our school and the teachers in it.

What happened to that wonderful time when we did not know the ways of a depressing the world? For some, I know, it was not an idyllic era but for me, educationally, it was. I mourn that time's passing. I mourn Framingham High, all the other schools in Massachusetts and our nation that have suffered such a fate. I weep for schools that are a maze of mess where lockers are defaced, the rooms filthy, and the bathrooms overflowing. It is a reflection that few care and, I believe, not many do.

This story is larger than Framingham High, of course. It represents, I think, the vulgarization of our culture and it represents parenting at its worst. Add to that cacophony a lack of funding because of, most importantly, the Wall Street disaster and the brew is toxic. Where has our culture, our state and our country gone wrong? No one has cared and our country reflects just that.

My letter to Newsweek about the Bush White House stonewalling Congressional subpoena claiming executive privilege extends to the president even AFTER he has left office and therefore no one he deems exempt because of it need appear before Congress when he or she is subpoenaed by it.


A Government of One? Thoughts about the Rove Subpoena:

Either the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution with separation of powers or they did not. If they did, which I think they did, and that document no longer applies, as Cheney is to have said "F" the Constitution, then it would be nice for the people to know the mechanics of their government has changed and the executive branch is an entity in and of itself responsible to, in essence, no one. I suspect President Obama does not think that is the case or at least I HOPE he does not and ultimately Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, Josh Bolton and others will be forced to testify before Congress through its subpoena or face contempt charges which will be enforced.

If everything in the Bush White House was done so legally why are they going through hoops trying their darnedest NOT to have to testify? Bush is really spitting in the face of Congress rendering it powerless over the Executive branch. That is not QUITE what I think our founders had in mind. Perhaps, President Obama, too, is thinking long and hard about this as who knows if, after he leaves office, someone will want to take him to task for something or other. That is NOT the way this republic, at least I THOUGHT it was a republic, is supposed to work. The executive above all entities in government must be able to have its singular power checked. The legislative branch is a body of many with built in checks and the judiciary likewise but the executive stands alone with awesome power invested in one man or woman. Either we are a government of the people and our representatives, including and most especially the executive, are responsible to us or we are not. I wish someone would let the people know.

Vatican Verity:It is infuriating, to say the least, that Pope Benedict has reinstated previously excommunicated bishop Williamson in light of this bishop's loathsome Holocaust denial comment. A price, in my opinion, needs to be paid. I read today that the rabbinate in Israel has severed its relationship with the Vatican and has canceled a meeting for next month with it. I laud those actions and would go even further.

I believe the State of Israel itself should send a profound message of opposition to Pope Benedict's actions and should concur with the rabbis in its dismay. I believe the State of Israel, too, should threaten to sever, in view of this egregious act by the Vatican, its relationship with it. The Jewish people and the State of Israel can never again allow such a preposterous slight to go unpunished especially by a Catholic Church whose behavior historically towards the Jews was more than reprehensible -- it was criminal.

Other popes, most especially John Paul, made inroads to greatly repair the damage which reflected a two thousand year church legacy of deplorable actions against the Jews. Benedict, a former Hitler youth, apparently has not forgotten and, indeed, I suspect is still influenced by those roots as he throws cold water on the Jewish people through the advocacy of a number of incendiary policies which knowingly inflame. He utters those thoughts and perpetrates those actions just the same. Pope Benedict slowly but surely is undoing much of what John Paul tried to accomplish by his uncaring comments and spiteful actions which serve not to unite but to divide, not to build up but to destroy, and not to encourage but to discourage decades of hard work by people of good faith. The reinstatement of Bishop Williamson is one insulting policy among others he has advocated. The Pope can make all the audibly pulchritudinous comments he wants but his actions tell a different story.

The State of Israel itself, in no uncertain terms, should STRONGLY condemn and threaten to sever its relationship with the Vatican as well IF it does not demand an immediate apology from and reversal of Bishop Williamson's beliefs. In lieu of that the Vatican should impose Bishop Williamson's excommunication once again.

The Truth and Nothing but--a response to the Palestinian segment of CBS Sixty Minutes: I thought your segment on the Palestinian conflict was incomplete. While there is no doubt the Palestinians who were in your piece were not a fabrication, there is much more to the story then what you presented. If Arabs had not invaded in 1967 that land would not have been appropriated. In some ways it has been Israel's curse. It has been the experience of Israelis when they give back land they get rockets to kill them for a thank you. Gaza is a prime example. No doubt Israeli policy toward Palestinians in many instances should be reviewed and humanely changed. A man should somehow be allowed to return to the city of his birth and soldiers should in no way be allowed to be quartered in a man's house, his children detained all without his permission. This is basic Constitutional Bill of Rights law. BUT there is no doubt, too, that many if not most Palestinians are from a very young age imbued with fanatical beliefs to eradicate the Jewish state and all Jews with it. Jews have historically had bad experiences everywhere they went and Arab lands were no exception to the rule. Jews were kicked out, killed and life made unbearable. Some still remain Jewish in Arab lands at their peril. Let's be fair. The Jewish state is an advanced western style country which treats even homosexuals with dignity. Where in any Arab land can you find THAT? Both sides have their axe to grind but Sixty Minutes showed only one. Maybe next week you will show the other!

The Long Goodbye II to a local paper: I have heard some decry the derisive goodbye chant sung with its accompanying booing as Ex-President Bush left Washington. Some have said it not only disrespects Bush but defiles the office of president itself. I could not disagree more. The entire presidency and honor of our nation has been desecrated by the policies of George W. Bush. Ex-president Bush is responsible for being asleep at the switch before the 9/11 attacks occurred failing to heed and, indeed, cavalierly ignoring warnings of it. He is guilty of invading and lying about the justification for the invasion of a country which did nothing to us thereby implementing the so called Bush Doctrine of preemptive war never before implemented by a democratic state. This has resulted in the killing of over 4200 Americans. The death count will go up, of course, as long as American forces remain on Iraqi soil and, moreover, as long as they are on that soil the threats from Al Qaeda, heretofore no threat from Iraq at all, will exponentially grow. The extrication from that quagmire will take the Wisdom of Solomon to perfect. The Decider, George W. Bush, slaughtered, ashamedly, in our name, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and displaced over a million more. Worse still, he has fractured a Middle East tinderbox. The list of his murderous policies besmirching, soiling and, indeed, blaspheming the sacred Constitution itself goes on and on and on.

George Bush deserves a lot more than simply a few boos and a derisive chant. All those in his entire administration who were complicit in these horrific war crimes deserve investigation and accountability for the crimes they have committed. George W. Bush is lucky if all he receives is boos and a derisive chant. What he really deserves is a cold bed in a cell. If The Hague does its job that may be, if he decides to travel anywhere outside of the US, what he so deservedly could get!

The Long Goodbye: To John F. Malloy in his Letter to the Editor in the January 24, 2099 Globe which says that the uttering of a derisive rock song goodbye chant as Ex-President Bush left Washington and its accompanying booing "marks a new low that not only disrespects Bush but defiles the office of president itself" is in error. I say the entire presidency and nation itself has been desecrated by the policies of George W. Bush. Ex-president Bush is responsible for being asleep at the switch before the 9/11 attacks occurred failing to heed and, indeed, cavalierly ignoring warnings of it. He is guilty of invading and lying about the justification for the invasion of a country which did nothing to us resulting in the killing of over 4200 Americans. The extrication from that quagmire will take the Wisdom of Solomon to perfect. He slaughtered, ashamedly, in our name, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and displaced over a million more. Worse still, he has fractured a Middle East tinderbox. The list of his murderous policies goes on and on and on.

George Bush deserves a lot more than simply a few boos and a derisive chant. All those in his entire administration who were complicit in these horrific war crimes deserve investigation and accountability for the crimes they have committed. George W. Bush is lucky if all he receives is boos and a derisive chant. What he really deserves is a cold bed in a cell. If The Hague does its job that may be, if he decides to travel anywhere outside of the US, what he so deservedly could get!