Missing Puzzle Pieces

The Earth is My Mother


This face, printed on a box and standing upright in the back of the toy department, demanded my attention. I abandoned my destination, left the main aisle, and walked between Fisher Price and Preskool for a closer look at this interesting woman with the wise eyes.

She wasn’t what she appeared to be at all. This face was a jigsaw puzzle, and the picture was of nature, not a human being. What I had mistaken for wise eyes were actually animals, twigs, flowers, and stone. Gravel and water formed the illusion of lips and teeth. A young girl sits beside the earth-constructed nose.

Even if I hadn’t been a jigsaw puzzle fanatic, I couldn’t have left the store without taking this picture with me.

My first mistake was in working this puzzle on my bamboo-colored dining room table, where there was little contrast between the colors in the puzzle pieces and my workspace. The second was in allowing the kids to help, even though it was a tough puzzle to work alone. I wanted to frame and keep this puzzle, but when we finished, a piece was missing.

We searched the furniture and hardwood floor, same color as the missing piece, for several days before I gave up and decided the piece must have been missing when I opened the box. Disappointed, I took the puzzle apart. Of course, as soon as I did this, the missing piece showed up under the piano.

The second time I worked this puzzle, it was much easier. I did it on a green board, for one thing. The real break was in familiarity with the individual components of the bigger picture. I remembered which eyes belonged to what animals, and where each of those creatures fit into the bigger picture. With little effort, I could tell the difference between bird feathers and tree bark, pebbles and pinecone petals. The puzzle was more pleasant the second time; so much so, I took it apart and worked it again.

I placed the green board and completed puzzle under my bed, waiting to find the right frame. The dog ate a piece of the puzzle. I boxed up the remaining pieces, and moved them to my new home, still hating to part with the brilliance of Bev Doolittle’s art and vision

Healthcare Costs – How We Turn Molehills into Mountains

I live in this body and know it well. I know how far I can push it, when it needs a tune-up, and when I need to park it for a few days.

I am fully qualified to take my own temperature, monitor my energy and pain levels, and know when dragging my sick self to work will have a negative affect on my health, my work, and/or my co-workers. I know how to treat most conditions, that many have no treatment and must run their own course, and when I’m in over my head and need a doctor’s assistance.

I also know my doctor trusts my judgment and does not want me in his office exposing him, his staff, and his other patients to the flu or a virus. Nor does he want the patients who need him that day to wait in line behind me because I’ve called with an emergency that only exits in my employer’s imagination or suspicion.

Yet employers demand validation from doctors before excusing medical absences, and few employees question the legality of this request, or the unethical abuse to the healthcare system and cost. These unnecessary doctor or emergency room visits not only drive up the cost of healthcare and spread disease, they also delay recovery of conditions that require rest (most), and cause undo stress for patients with conditions that require immediate access to the toilet (many of the common ones).

After seeing how willing Americans were to abuse the healthcare system at the employers’ request, our school system joined the cause. If we can’t trust adults to know when they are sick, how could we possibly allow them to determine when their children would be better off at home?

This one turned into a crime. Parents are arrested for keeping a sick child at home without a doctor's note. Tough luck to those who don’t have insurance or money to pay for an unnecessary visit to the doctor, and who can’t get into the overcrowded clinics; the children will be better off with their poor parent in jail.

The underlying psychological surrender of freethinking and personal accountability in our society makes the individuals who fail to question these practices as guilty of destroying their own system as the corporations and systems are. We must question inappropriate use of authority in order to protect the things we need, like affordable health care. Refusing to see doctors unnecessarily is one small way we can do that.




Physician Visits
Total Number of Doctor Visits Last Year - 829 million (about 3 visits per person)
• Number of Unnecessary Doctor Visits - 207 million (25%)
• Average Doctor Visit cost - $55.00
• Yearly Cost of Unnecessary Doctor Visits - $11.4 billion
E.R. Visits
• Total Number of E.R. Visits Last Year - 75 million
• Number of Unnecessary E.R. Visits - 41 million
• Average E.R. Visit Cost - $360.00
• Total Cost of Unnecessary E.R. Visits - $14.7 billion

Empty Shirts and Empty Hearts

Today marks three years of war. It seemed appropriate and compassionate to stand on the busy street corner with others who wanted to remember those who died in this war. Wearing black, standing alone and silent, felt benevolent, at least for much of the three-hour tribute.

I appreciated the clothesline of empty tee shirts, one for each of the 2000+ Americans who have died in this war, because it made me think of the individuals. However, the big picture slammed me where it hurts a couple of times when I looked down both sides of the road, saw those empty shirts flapping in the wind, and imagined the crowd of strong, young bodies that should be filling them.


Sure tears and wind would play havoc with my eyes, I shied away from the big picture and adopted the five shirts in front of me. The red one was small, but well protected by the two on either side of him. Rabble-rousers flapped on either end of my group. I’m sure their spirits snickered each time they wrapped around the line and I walked over to untangle them.

My group remained anonymous; my daughter had a boy with freckles in hers. The pizza lover was farther down. Two fathers hung across the street, one who died before his first child was born, which made the pro-war protesters who came to call us baby-killers sound rather foolish.

I wish I could say they stopped at foolish, but there’s no such luck with pro-war people. Lefty hippies left over from the sixties didn’t bother me. It’s true enough for me, but didn’t impress me as the most intelligent name-calling when used on people who were obviously born after the sixties. Likewise, tree-huggers and liberal freaks didn’t hurt.

The real discomfort started when an overweight, teen-aged skinhead asked the woman behind me when she had been in Iraq. Assuming he had a heart, she told him she hadn’t been, but her son had died there. Skinhead told sad mother to love it or leave it.

Another pro-war advocate dodged the line of police officers attempting to hold them under control, and came to my space. “This is world war IV,” he said. I walked away to unwrap my rabble-rouser. He followed. “Those terrorists want to kill you.”

His tone said he did too.

My little red guy wasn’t wrapped, but I thought he could use some attention anyway. I moved down and straightened his sleeves. Obnoxious, disrespectful Pro-War Daddy stepped closer, really crowding my space.

“My son’s over there,” he said.

With tears, I looked him in the eye and said, “I’m sorry.” And I meant it, assuming he would be too. Who could not be sorry his child was away at war, even if he supports the war?

He laughed as the police officer sent him back to his side. Later, he shouted at me again. “Lefty cry-baby.” His friends liked the new name so well they all shouted it a few times. He added, “Why don’t you stop whining and support the troops.” Not a question, a command.

My letter writing, phone calling, constant campaigning for decent equipment, uncontaminated water, benefits, VA hospitals, and bringing them home is how I support the troops every day. This man couldn’t see that by standing on that corner, enduring his disrespect and ignorance in order to remember the lives lost, I was supporting the troops and their families today.

The least intelligent pro-war chant I heard today was, “You just want to support Iraqi abortion clinics.” No, but I suppose the pro-war gang just wants to support killing everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Iran, according to their signs), including pregnant women. Do they even think?

I’m not as strong as I want to be. By the time I left that corner, I wanted to hurt someone. My choice would have been the man who stood in my space and breathed his hatred on my five shirts.

I also wanted to counter their ‘God bless Iraqi Freedom’ sign with one of my own - ‘God Damn the Warmongers’

I Want Candidates Willing To Discuss Issues

I am not looking for a spouse, parent, teacher, or preacher. I don’t think being any or all of these things qualifies a person to represent my political interests, nor do I believe any of those titles tells me one thing I need to know about a candidate. Yet, I’ve answered the phone four times in the last few days to a recorded, “Hello, I’m Candidate Snowjob, a proud husband and father who regularly attends church,” or “Hi, I’m Candidate Snowjob from the other side, wife, mother, previous school teacher, with church experience.”

George Bush is a spouse and parent, who regularly attends church. He is also a liar, a cheat, a lazy employee who is away from the job more than on the job (for that, I guess I should be thankful), and he has never succeeded at anything in his life by my standards. Anne Northup is a wife, mother, previous school teacher, who regularly attends church and she apparently has no mind of her own. The intelligence level demonstrated in her form letters and speeches almost make me glad she’s a politician instead of sharing her knowledge with students.

If this is the best we have to choose from, I don’t want to vote. Isn’t anyone out there willing to tell me what he or she believes or will do if elected? If so, I’ll gladly listen to all you have to say, and respect you for your honesty. I’ll probably vote for you, even if I don’t agree completely with everything you believe, because I will at least trust and respect you. And that’s a lot more than the current candidates have earned from me.

Behind the Headlines

Immune to sensationalized headlines and rebellious toward scare tactics, I let Are registered sex offenders living near your child’s school bus stop slide, with borderline indifference the first few times I heard the blurb. The follow-up catalyst for outrage, how safe are our children, caught my attention.

With martinchill’s recent attention to journalistic integrity still fresh in my mind, I cringed through the complete story. I don’t think the emotions I worked up were the intended response toward the target offenders. Behind-the-scene issues and where this article might lead the community bothered me more than where sex offenders live.

Having survived twenty-three years with children in the school system in question, hundreds of reports of violent attacks on students and not one of them related to registered sex offenders at bus stops, the relevance of the this being headline news confused me.

Assuming my desensitized approach had allowed me to miss something important in the few years since I had a child in school, I prepared to jump on the corrective bandwagon once I had the facts. I searched for reports of registered sex offenders harassing school children at bus stops.

I found a website where bus drivers discuss problems with students abusing one another at bus stops and on the bus, but saw nothing about registered sex offenders. I found the article about the mother who discovered a registered sex offender lived across the street from her child’s bus stop and prompted the news report in question, but nothing in that article about the registered sex offender doing anything to her child. (This article also states that it is not against the law for a registered sex offender to live near a bus stop, and tells us the registered offender saw the cameras and didn’t want to be interviewed and I wonder why that is mentioned) The articles wraps up with “For now, derrick’s family says they don't want his stop moved but they will continue to keep a close eye on him.”

I found two recent stories about teachers either being fired or tried for sexual misconduct with students, several articles about students assaulting one another, a few articles about wanting to amend our laws to remove criminal charges for those who forget they are carrying and bring guns into the schools, but no charges against registered sex offenders at bus stops.

My beef is not with addressing a concern every parent and citizen should have, or with the advice to know the community and watch over children. I have a problem with what I see as little regard for the validity of the presumed problem (How safe are our children) and the false security offered in the subliminal suggestion that we ostracize the registered sex offenders. Logic and experience tell me registered sex offenders are not the biggest threat to the safety of our children.

Registered sex offenders have been caught, done their time, reported their addresses, and know everyone is watching them. I doubt they pose near the threat of abusers who have not been caught or have not registered, and are more likely friends and relatives than strangers across the street from the bus stop. We do our children a great disservice by pretending otherwise, or offering them a decoy to fear more.

My biggest questions are: what will people do with the information after searching the registered offenders list, and will they be so focused on this that they will not ask why the school system is not doing more to protect our students from teachers and one another. Unless I missed something in my search for specifics, I wonder how this story originated and why it was given the attention it received.

Application Denied

Occasionally, a doctor leaves a blank on the application, or forgets to include the CV, or proof of insurance or license. If everything else looks promising, I request the missing information – once.

If this applicant refuses to provide the missing information, I don’t spend months begging for it so I can make an informed decision. The applicant’s original failure to provide the routine information hinted carelessness. Refusal to honor my request confirms one or more of the following: the applicant is not interested in the position, the applicant has something to hide, the applicant is not qualified.

No one expects me to grant this applicant an interview; much less trot out on my own to search for the information he refused to provide. No matter how many of this friends and relatives vouch for him, his actions outweigh their biased confirmations of his character.

We, the people, are the employer. John Roberts is this incompetent applicant. His application should be denied the same as that of any other incompetent, disrespectful applicant.

~ ~ ~

I am the director of infection control in a highly respected hospital. While I’m away on vacation, an employee calls to tell me a significant number of patients have developed post-operative wound infections. Things are out of control and patients are dying. The public is outraged.

I swim a couple more days and take my time getting back. When I finally get there, I tell the patients on next week’s surgery schedule not to waste my time playing the blame game; I will appoint a task force to investigate the problem after the current patients die.

Reporters arrive. I dress my mother and three best friends in hospital gowns and smiles, and I pretend to console them in front of the cameras. I smirk at the public, and tell them I think I’m great and they should too.

I am a disgrace to my position and a danger to society. My employer should replace me immediately. We, the people, are the employer. George Bush is this incompetent director.

~ ~ ~

I work in the medical record department at this hospital. I’m part of the disaster team and needed when a disaster hits the city. We have an explosion and casualties are brought in on a Saturday. I am not scheduled to work on Saturday; besides, I don’t treat patients. I ignore that request and go to the mall instead.

Considering my lack of concern for society and my position, my employer should request my resignation, or let me go. We, the people, are the employer. Condaleeza Rice is the employee with inappropriate priorities.

~ ~ ~

My vacation time accrues in direct relation to the hours I work. Most days, I come in long enough to let someone see me, and then sneak out to ride my bike, play a game of golf, go home and visit friends, or just disappear without an excuse. I have actually worked less than a quarter of the time expected of my position, but insist I deserve comp time and take off a month each quarter. I am a dishonest, disgrace to the company and the stockholders.

We, the people, are the company and the stockholders. It’s time to clean house and protect or assets.

Strawberry Lane

I spent one of my fifty-one years in a meager apartment on Strawberry Lane, in a rundown business district of a fading neighborhood. The bathtub didn’t hold water and my bedroom window was at ground level, separated from the parking lot by a narrow sidewalk.

Headlights, slamming door, screeching engines, and squealing tires guaranteed interrupted sleep, night or day. Metal closet doors popped off track daily and the olive, apartment-sized stove clashed with the copper refrigerator that required weekly defrosting. The single, unadvertised amenity was a slow draining kitchen sink that provided an excuse to dine out frequently.

I moved on to nicer apartments with matching appliances, walk-in closets, and adequate plumbing and eventually bought my own homes in residential neighborhoods. Still, at the lowest points in my life, I was homesick for Strawberry Lane. Decades later, I finally understand why.

Home is where the heart is. I had sown the seeds of my hybrid heart on Strawberry Lane, when I settled as comfortably into my role as wife and mother as I had been in my role as daughter, and realized I didn’t have to give one up to have the other. I reveled in the one opportunity I had in life to have my cake and eat it too - freedom and independence yet with the security of a husband and extended family to pick me up if I fell. My world was safe, my opportunities endless, and life couldn’t have been better.

It wasn’t the building or neighborhood I longed for when I was homesick for the apartment on Strawberry Lane. I missed the promise life offered while I lived there. Today, I feel the same homesickness for my country.

I long to return to an America that protects me and offers endless opportunity instead of glitzy amenities. I miss the Strawberry Lane America that feeds the hungry, houses the poor, medicates the sick, and hugs the lonely. I want an America where there’s a party in the courtyard at night to make up for the headlights in the bedroom window. I want to have my cake and eat it too, not sacrifice freedom for a façade of security. When I moved to Strawberry Lane, my father didn’t sell my security blanket to buy himself a new golf club. I wish America still loved me the same.

Daddy died of cancer in 1989. The apartment complex on Strawberry Lane burned down in 1992. A bush stole America in 2000. Maybe it isn’t too late to recover the last one.

You Will Have A Concrete Garage

“Call the fire department!” Ira shouted for his wife as he unlocked the back door to run out to his burning garage. Flames rolled out the side windows and crackling wood discouraged him from going any close than the picnic table midway between the house and garage.

His wife and father-in-law joined him, leaving the mother-in-law watching through the window with the children. They waited, in shock and awe, as the sirens approached. “How could this have happened?” the father-in-law wondered aloud.

As the fire engine turned into the alley, Mr. Ame from two doors down backed his SUV out of his garage and blocked the passage, ignoring the engine’s horn and orders to move from the firemen on board. “Go away,” Mr. Ame shouted. “This isn’t your business.”

Too angry to think about the danger, Ira ran past the flaming remains of his property, through the back gate, and confronted Mr. Ame. “Move your truck. My garage is burning.”

“Don’t fight me,” Mr. Ame warned. “It’s for your own good. I want you to have a concrete block garage.”

The firefighters jumped off the truck. One tried to wrestle the SUV key from Mr. Ame but was stopped by an army of police officers who had been waiting inside Mr. Ame’s garage.

“Stay back or we’ll have to arrest you for insurgence,” the leader of the pack warned.

“Are you crazy?” the driver of the fire engine asked. “This is our domain. There’s a fire up the block, and it is in our district. Move the SUV.”

“Mr. Ames is the wealthiest, strongest man on this bock,” the cop explained. “If he wants Ira to have a concrete block garage, then that’s what Ira will have. Butt out.”

“But I don’t want a concrete garage,” Ira argued. “I’m happy with wood.” He looked back at the flaming mess and shook his head. “I have pigeons in there. My Hyundai. Things I care about are being destroyed.”

“You ungrateful son-of-a-bitch,” Mr. Ame shouted. “I sacrificed an hour of sleep to get out her early enough to minimize the risk to your family and the neighbors. My family is forfeiting a European vacation to build your concrete block garage and this is the thanks we get?”

“Bull,” Ira countered. “Your brother builds concrete garages. Don’t tell me you are sacrificing anything. I’m losing my property. I built that garage myself.”

Mr. Ame’s family rallied around him, “My husband is a good man,” his wife spat. “How dare you look a gift horse in the mouth?”

“I don’t want your gift,” Ira said. “I want my garage just the way it was.”

Frank Herman bound through the gate across the way. “This argument is ridiculous. A brick garage is what he needs.”

Mr. Ame backhanded Frank. “You’ll rue the day you contradicted my will,” he frothed. “This is between me and Ira.”

“How?” Ira asked. “I didn’t welcome your input. I didn’t ask your advice and I don’t want your concrete. Leave me in peace to live the way I want to live.”

“Oh, no you don’t” Ira’s father-in-law chimed in. “He’s going to repair the damage he’s caused now. He ruined your garage, he’ll fix it.”

Mrs. Ame rolled her eyes at a police officer. “As usual. The old man’s asking for charity. First they insult us, and then they want our money when times get tough. Same old story.”

“Yeah,” an Ame daughter shouted from the background. She waved her pom poms. “Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, waaay back,” she chanted.

“Let me beat up Ira Junior,” her twin brother offered. “Can I, Dad?”

Mr. Ame gave his son a thumb up. “Your loyalty warms my heart. Go get him. He asked for it.”

Uncle Charles Hates Towel-heads and Queers

There I was with fifty years of love and admiration invested when I discovered his love meant nothing at all. What do you do when that happens?

This man had shown up on every holiday, picked me up when I fell, cried when I cried, laughed when I laughed, clapped when I sang, carried my furniture up three flights of stairs, visited me in the hospital, danced with me at my wedding, and dried my tears at funerals. What did that mean if he could just as easily hate other people for no reason?

“Nuke them all,” was the first sign. I thought it was a joke (not a funny one). But he didn’t laugh. “We need to nuke that whole area off the map,” he continued.

He would get over it. He would realize how wrong he was to say that, and regret the confusion that allowed those words to slip between his lips. I had faith in him; he would never truly wish innocent people dead.

But he didn’t take it back. He never did laugh, or apologize. He didn’t catch the splinters of my heart as they scattered in unexplored directions.

Those people became towel heads. He wanted them dead. He said it often and loud.

I heard every possible rationalization for continuing my relationship with him from other family members. He’s family. He’s a good Christian man. He donates time and money to charities. He hasn’t ever done anything to you. He’s entitled to his opinion. Did they agree with him?

“We aren’t taking sides,” they said. “Don’t ask us to.” I wasn’t asking for sides, I was asking them to stand for principles. Everyone should have their own principles and standing for them isn’t taking a side. It’s being real.

As the political climate changed, so did Uncle Charles’ vocabulary. Nigger and queer joined towel head and spic. Uncle Charles hates them all and his ability to hate came as a devastating surprise. I had assumed he loved everyone the same as he loved me. Should I be grateful for the climate that made openly expressing his hatred so comfortable for him, so I’d know the truth? Or was this a case of what I didn’t know didn’t hurt me?

“If you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything,” my mother advised. “He has a right to his opinion.” He has a right to hate people he doesn’t know? I had to think about that. On the surface, it made sense but deeper, where my heart and mind dissected the situation into possibilities, probabilities, and consequences it wasn’t acceptable. Was it my business?

Education was the answer. Somewhere along the way, he had missed some important lessons in Sunday school. He hadn’t absorbed Grandma’s seldom spoken messages of love, and everyone knew he hadn’t read a book in years and watched the news only long enough to catch the sports and weather. I would help by bringing the needed information to him. He was a good man. He’d appreciate my help.

I collected articles and books, and prepared debates and composed scenarios. He didn’t appreciate my effort. He didn’t look or listen. He laughed. “You sound like a damned hippy,” he shouted. “Keep that crap to yourself. You have a heart and a brain. The heart belongs to the church and the brain will get you in trouble if you go twisting what the church teaches this way.”

“Your church doesn’t teach you to love everyone?” I asked. “Don’t they tell you it’s wrong to kill? That’s what nukes do, Uncle Charles. They kill.”

“I’m not killing anyone,” he offered as his final comment.

Uncle Charles didn’t want to talk to me any more. But his kids had plenty to say.
“You need to keep your mouth shut and get along,” one said. “You hurt his feelings,” came from another. My aunt shook her head. “You’ve divided the family with your hatred,” she accused.

My hatred? My mouth? My division? All I had done was try to talk to him about his hatred of innocent people and the death wish his mouth delivered. I was the bad guy?

Pleas came in from everywhere. “The family that prays together stays together. You have to come on Thanksgiving for the sake of the family, and don’t cause trouble,” they warned. “Don’t ruin our holiday with your negativity.”

I tried. I really did. I packed up my children and grandchildren and joined the rest of the family for a day of gratitude and kinship. Uncle Charles said grace. While he thanked God for wealth and health, flashes of starving Iraqi children with blown off limbs distracted me and ruined my appetite. I bowed my head lower, in shame for what my country was doing to other families while we gathered to express gratitude for not suffering the same fate we forced on them. Is that how God planned it? Should I participate in thanking Him for something I believed He wanted no part in?

“Dig in everyone,” brought me out of my trance. “Gramma, what’s a towel head?” delivered me from my quiet.

“It’s a very ugly name some people call others,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Because they don’t know better,” I explained. “But you do, so don’t ever say that again.”

“Can we teach them better?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

What Uncle Charles didn’t know might not have hurt him, but it did hurt me. When his hatred filtered through his family, and they used it to vote for an administration that would use their uneducated opinions to kill people in my name, they hurt me, they hurt my children and grandchildren, and they hurt innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do people really have a right to be this ignorant, and demand that I keep my mouth shut?

“Don’t brainwash that baby with your liberal bullshit,” the nearest cousin advised, with the amen of his hypocritical prayer still on his breath. “Towel heads are terrorists who’ll kill us if we don’t kill them first.”

My semi-brainwashed baby’s eyes stretched in fear. “Kill us?”

“Nobody is going to kill us,” I said. “Eat your turkey.”

“Are we going to kill them first?” my grandson asked.

“Do you want mashed potatoes?” I answered.

Reverend Stanton

The alcove seemed a strange location for sorting laundry, but who was I to judge this man? He wasn't blocking the entrance or hurting anything. In fact, his sweet smile was a nicer welcome than I usually received from the security guard.

"Good morning," I said as I passed him to open the door.

"That it is," he replied. "God bless you, dear."

"And you." The door closed behind me. He was out of my line of vision as I stood to wait for the elevator, but not out of my mind.

Another employee joined me before the car arrived. "Where's security? Did you see the bum outside the door?"

It was difficult to honestly answer her question. I had seen the man, but didn't want to call him a bum. "He's a pleasant man," I said.

The elevator arrived and she continued her rant as we rode up together. "I'm complaining. We don't need bums out there blocking the door and begging every time we come or go."

"He did neither when I came through," I reported. "Said good morning and blessed me. Did he ask you for money?"

"No, I didn't give him the chance."

Grateful for my third floor exit, I wished her a good day and headed for my office. When I opened the door, I found my coworkers huddled around our frantic receptionist. "I'm calling the police," she exclaimed. "He has no business out there."

"The man in the alcove?" I asked. "Did he do something wrong?"

"He's loitering," a secretary said.

"He smells bad and he's crazy," the bookkeeper added.

The receptionist picked up the phone and I went out the door and down the stairs. "Have you had breakfast yet?" I asked the man.
He continued to sort clothes into two stacks, darks on one side and light on the other. I say light because he only had one white sweatshirt to go with the three dark items.

"Not yet," he answered. "I'm planning out my day now. Gotta get the laundry done so I'll be ready when they call." He moved the darks to the right and the white to the left. "VA's making room for me to have my surgery. Gonna call when they have a bed available."

"Sir, I have a strange favor to ask. Will you go eat breakfast for me?"

"Reverend," he said proudly. "Reverend Stanton. Army chaplain."

"Reverend Stanton, Miller's cafeteria is two blocks away. I'd give anything to run over for scrambled eggs and a bagel, but I'm already running late for work. Can I talk you into going there to eat for me?" I held three dollars out to him. "Please?"

"Gave up my place last week," he said, ignoring my money and my request. "They keep you forever at the VA, you know. No sense wasting rent money while I'm in the hospital."

"Reverend, you have to move from this spot before the police come. Some employees in the building are uncomfortable with a stranger on the premises. I'm sorry."
Reverend Stanton gathered his laundry, draping one item at a time over his arm until all four were settled. He used his other hand to hold onto the wall and struggle to his feet. When he turned to face me, he looked at my money but made no attempt to take it.

"Knee replacement. Was supposed to just pray and counsel like my first tour. Only reason I re-upped for the second one was to pray with those guys who had been there too long. Ended up getting my knee blown out." He smiled through foggy eyes. "But I can't complain. God brought me home alive."

"Then take this money as a token of my appreciation for what you did for your country," I encouraged.

He patted the clothes with his right hand. "Would you mind if I used your money for
the laundry instead of breakfast? If I eat, it won't do anything for your hungry."
I opened my purse and took out another five. "Here, have breakfast and do the laundry. You can't take dirty clothes to the VA hospital."

He stuck the money in his pocket and blessed me a few more times before limping away. I watched until he crossed at the corner, hoping he'd find a friendlier alcove in which to wait for his call from the VA hospital.

Going, Going, Gone

Macy stood beside the door to blow her nose on the remnants of her tissue. There was no stopping the tears but she could at least save herself a bit of humiliation by not sniffing at her guest. The timing couldn’t be worse, so she hoped it was an understanding friend.

She wiped her eyes on the cuff of her blouse, stuck the tissue in her pocket, and opened the door to a man she had never seen before. Good. He probably had the wrong address. This would end quickly and she could return to her pity party. Sometimes crying it out was the best way to move forward. Forcing a smile, she nodded her greeting.

“Richard Zwicker,” the man announced, extending a business card between his index and middle fingers. “I want to buy your house.”

A wave of relief washed over as Macy opened the door to take the card. How close she had come to ignoring the bell and missing this opportunity. Maybe luck was on her side now.

“Who told you? I haven’t even called anyone yet,” she said, reviewing the information this man wished to share with the world. He paid cash for houses.

“Your house is scheduled for auction at the court house. Public information. I can help you keep it out of auction.”

Wrestling emotions, Macy curbed disappointment over not knowing her private life was on display at the courthouse and let a real smile emerge for this man who had come to help. “That would be nice. Do you want to see inside?”

He shook his head. “I’m prepared to make an offer. I’ll pay the taxes due and give you fifteen hundred dollars. Keep it out of auction, which you don’t want on your record, and give you some cash to relocate.”

“You must have the wrong information. The house is paid for and I only owe eight thousand in taxes and interest.”

He scanned the top paper in his stack. “I see that. I’ll pay the taxes. You’ll be relieved of that debt and can walk away free.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars? What about the other hundred thousand?” The tears returned.

“You’d get less than this in auction,” he warned. “It’s a nasty business.”

“I’ll have to think about it.” She held his card up. “I have your number.” She closed the door before he witnessed the flood.

The house needed work, but was worth at least a hundred thousand even after deducting the cost of a new roof. Richard Zwicker was a thief. She went to the bathroom to wash her face and opened the medicine cabinet to get something for the headache she felt coming on. More tears rushed forward as she moved the morphine the hospice nurse had missed when flushing what was left of George’s medications.

She tossed the morphine in the trash and pulled a bottle of generic aspirin off the shelf as the doorbell rang again. If the thief had returned, she would tell him what she thought of him this time. Wiping her nose on her cuff, she yanked the door open.

“Macy, you okay?” Olivia Franks stood on the porch with a tall blonde. “I brought Jasmine. She’s in real estate and might be able to help, or at least answer some questions.”

Macy let them in and apologized for the state she was in. “I felt bad enough before that man came and insulted me,” she explained. “I’m afraid he sent me over the edge.”

Olivia went to the kitchen to pour tea while Jasmine and Macy got acquainted. “I had to quit work and take care of George in the end. They gave me six weeks, on account of that Disability Act or something, but the company wasn’t happy about it. Harassed me constantly about needing me to come back. George hung on for two years, ate up all our savings.”

Jasmine shook her head. “That must have been very hard for you.”

“Taking care of George wasn’t so hard, it was worrying about money that made me nervous. Ever notice how one bad thing leads to another? Anything that could go wrong during that time did. They canceled my homeowners policy because I was out of work and behind on bills. Said I was high risk, even though I’d never filed a claim in twenty-two years. And then a storm whipped up and blew the neighbor’s tree on my roof and knocked the fence out. I had to fix the fence on account of George’s dog. He loved that dog and I couldn’t let him get out and get hit by a car or something with George in that shape.”

Olivia chuckled as she came back in the room. “She fussed over that dog almost as much as she did her husband, and she hated the mangy mutt before George got sick.”

“I still wasn’t fond of him, but he was George’s baby. I had to care for him, for George’s sake.” She took a sip of tea. “I’m afraid we’re wasting your time,” she said to Jasmine. “There’s not time to sell the house before the auction. We only have two weeks.”

Olivia smiled at Jasmine and nodded.

“I still might be able to help,” Jasmine said. “I have cash. If you’re willing, I can buy your house as quickly as we can schedule a closing.”

Macy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I hope you’re going to offer more than fifteen hundred.”

“Fifty thousand,” Jasmine offered. “I’ll have to pay the taxes you owe, make repairs and update before I can sell it again. And I have to make some profit for my time and investment.”

“Sounds better than the last offer,” Macy said. “I need to think about it. I can’t buy another place for fifty thousand.”

Olivia moved over to the couch and put an arm around Macy. “Honey, you’re gonna lose everything if you don’t do something quick. Fifty thousand’ll pay a lot of rent. All you need’s a small apartment now that it’s just you.”

Macy closed her eyes. She didn’t want to look at her visitors, or at the house George had worked so hard to provide for his family. Losing him had been enough. It was too soon to face another loss.

“Fifty thousand is one year’s salary. Even if I’m careful, that isn’t going to last the rest of my life,” Macy argued, more with herself than the others. “Who’s going to hire a broken, sixty-year-old woman and pay her enough to live?”

Jasmine wrote some figures on a paper and handed it and her business card to Macy. “Think about it. It’s a big decision, and one you shouldn’t make too quickly. You can call me when you’ve decided what you want to do.”

“What about a home equity loan?” Olivia asked after Macy had shown Jasmine out. “You could pay the taxes and fix the roof.”

“Tried that. I need a job and to clean up my credit first,” Macy said.

Frustrated, Olivia reached for her purse. “Why’d you let things get this far out of hand, Macy? What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I had to take care of my dying husband,” Macy said. “My mind couldn’t go beyond that.”

Olivia headed for the door and stopped to offer her final thoughts. “You don’t have much time. Better give Jasmine’s offer serious consideration."

Coddled Insanity

Renee shoved the tank tops aside and pulled a long-sleeved tee shirt from the bottom of the drawer. The out-of-season lecture never lasted as long as the where-did-I-go-wrong martyr fest, and she needed to get out fast. She slapped a band-aid over the new gash on her wrist and poked her arms through the sleeves on her way down the hall.

On guard, on cue, on Renee’s last nerve, her mother looked up from the bible in her lap and hit Renee with the usual question as soon as she entered the room. “Where you headed?”

“To meet Mark. Gotta hurry.”

“It’s ninety degrees outside. You’ll burn up in that shirt.”

“So, I’ll burn up. My choice.” Why couldn’t she have a normal mother, with a normal job, or at least a life of her own?

“People will think I never teach you anything.”

“I’ll tell them I’m adopted. I have to go.” Renee skirted through the room and out the door before the tears or preaching started, wishing she had taken a second to flash the new cut before leaving. They could both suffer.

Worried Mark would sell the Vicodin to the slut at work if she didn’t get there before he left, Renee kicked up to a trot. If he dogged her with that bitch one more time, she’d never speak to him again.

As she rounded the corner and almost ran over Mrs. Lowry, she spotted Mark farther down the block, headed for his car. “Mark, hold on.” She called out, passing Mrs. Lowry without a word. A bonus for Mom. Sympathy when the busybody called to tattle, and an opening for the ever-famous Do-Unto-Others lecture. God, she needed drugs to deal with it all.

“You ass.” Renee stopped in front of Mark and leaned over to catch her breath. “You were going to leave me.”

He opened his car door. “That any way to talk to a friend? Hurry up and get in.”

She ran to the other side. “Is running off without me how you treat a friend?” She asked and slammed her door.

“Told you I couldn’t be late. Try being on time once.”

“Screw you. You sound like my mother. Where is it?”

Mark grabbed her arm and looked at the drop of blood spreading on her cuff. “You’re twisted, Renee. You cut yourself on fuckin’ purpose and think I’m supposed to worry about getting your pain pills to you. That’s insane.”

“Look, ass. I decide when I want to feel pain and when I don’t. Not you.”

He started the car and backed out the drive. “Ever think people might treat you better if you acted like you care about yourself first?” He tossed a bottle of pills on her lap once the car was on the street. “Make 'em last. No more refills on that script.”

“Did you ever wonder what being a drug dealer says about you?” She stuck the bottle in her pocket and threw a wad of cash back at him.

He grinned. “Says I know what feels good to me and want to help my friends feel good too. You know, Love Thy Neighbor, and all that good stuff.” He pulled up in front of her house and she opened the door to get out.

“Yeah.” She giggled. “Love Thy Neighbor. Think I should go inside and bleed Mom to release her anger? Where’d that crap come from, anyway?”

“Bullshit cliches?” He shrugged. “More like coddled insanity, passed down from one crazy generation to the next, if you ask me.”

Lori

Back to the wall and eyes fixed on the door, Lori shook an oily strand of hair from her face and ignored her bladder’s scream for relief. With the bathroom at the end of the hall, she had no way out if he came in while she was back there. She sighed, curled a leg to sit on her foot, and grieved the end of the short-lived reprieve the security system had offered.

Now that the court psychologist had passed the good news on to her prosecutor - Joe is a sociopath and nothing will stop a true sociopath - she regretted the grocery and insurance money she had wasted on lock changes and a security system. It wasn’t very comforting to know the legal system couldn’t stop violent men when they labeled them and predicted their next crimes.

It’s hard to pee with a phone in one hand and the butcher knife in the other anyway. Impossible to shower with both hands full. The bladder would have to understand until she found new courage.

Three jobs. Damn him. He had caused her to lose three jobs and now she was too nutzo to concentrate, even if someone would hire her. Mr. Johnson knew how badly she needed the money. He also knew it wasn’t her fault the lunatic kept coming into the store to harass her while she worked. Much as she wanted to resent him for firing her, she couldn’t really blame Mr. Johnson. His customers shouldn’t have to dodge sociopaths when they came in to pay for gas or pick up a bag of chips.

Angela had used absences as a reason to let her go, like she wanted her to come in with black eyes and broken ribs. “It would be different if it wasn’t so soon after the week off with the bleeding ulcer,” Angela had explained. “Or if it hadn’t fallen in the same evaluation period with the dislocated shoulder.” The action was mandatory under company policy, not an option. Angela was sorry and even called a time or two to check on her after she left.

Thomas had flat out given her an ultimatum. Leave Joe or quit. He was tired of the personal phone calls. He wouldn’t listen when Lori explained she had left Joe, but that only caused him to call more often. Even when she refused to accept the calls, Thomas insisted Joe still disrupted the office and it wasn’t fair to the other employees or to the company.

Her parents wouldn’t take her back again, especially without a job. Joe wrecked their house the last time, throwing bricks through the window and driving across the lawn. He scared her younger sister and threatened her parents. Who cold blame them for not wanting a repeat performance?

God, she had to pee so bad it made her head hurt.

He should be off work now. If he stopped at the bar, she would have a one-hour window of freedom. That’s how long it usually took him to either start a fight or become so obnoxious Fred had to call him down and he’d leave the bar, sulking. He used to come home and take it out on her. The restraining order put an end to that, but they told her it was only temporary. Eventually, he’d stop caring about the order and come back anyway, madder than ever. First, he’d cut her face, and then he’d kill her. Can court psychologists really predict such things? She’d be foolish to discount it, crazy as it seemed.

Fifteen minutes, she promised her bladder. In fifteen minutes, she would call the bar and find out if he was there. If so, she’d dash to the bathroom. Later, she would worry about the house payment.

Maybe they were right; she should leave town and start over somewhere else where he couldn’t find her. It just didn’t seem fair that she should have to leave her life behind because he was a sociopath. Shouldn’t he have to leave?

Sublime Abandon

Words, subliminal messages
intelligence, freedom, WMDs
Verbiage with malice
planted, dropped, and taught
caught by faithful friends,
patrons of rote beliefs
heeders of borrowed direction
practiced in acceptance without reflection

Lessons and logic forsaken
shaded ethics judiciously excused
news calculated for friends
intent on orthodox ritual

Duality becomes custom
bottom dwellers rise and
despite the repulsive stench
their friends let them ride.

Blinders replace inquiry
wiretap and torture skate through,
wounds soon will fester
unless friends demand truth

Who forfeits power and freedom
with such sublime abandon
and why

Epitomes of Weakness: RW Christians

Joined in ignorant bliss
bound by family and home
you breed hatred and blindness
toward everyone but your own

spewing empty words of love
veiled in god’s name
while diffusing devastation
born in the bowels of shame

I curse your gutless clans
of hypocrites and beasts,
flag-waving bible-thumping liars
epitomes of weakness.

Fuck your big hearts
swollen beneath curdled brains.
Your actions speak your truth
your victims wear your name

Choke on the lies you spew
drown in the tears you produce.
May the blood of those you hurt
wash back over you

Lies

All we were
All we cared to be
All our hopes
dreams and trials
swept away
up in smoke
buried beneath
a pack of lies

All who came
looking for more
gave their all
to try anew
on their knees
forced to fall
buried beneath
the growing lies

All our pride
stolen from us
freedom and
privacy gone
All our love
under the gun
buried beneath
a war of lies

All together
let’s take it back
do all we need
to save our lives
Stand up now
refuse to be
buried beneath
all their lies

A Rattlesnake In the Basement

There’s an elephant in the kitchen
We pretend he isn’t there
He cries about the basement,
says a rattlesnake lives down there
Wanted, dead or alive, he cries
that snake really must go
The elephant in the kitchen
doesn’t have a soul

The rattlesnake in the basement
more rattle than he is bite,
whines about the kitchen
says the elephant isn’t right
Open your foolish eyes, he cries
that elephant has to go
the rattlesnake in the basement
doesn’t have a soul

There’s an army on the staircase
anxious to drop their bomb
to hell with right or wrong
they kill children, dad, and mom
We cleaned out the basement, they cried
snaked him out of his hole
The army on the staircase
doesn’t have a soul

Another One Bites The Dust - Bush Administration Resignations

Tom Ridge announced his resignation on November 30, 2004. He promises to stay in office until a replacement has been trained to change the color on the terror alert system and tell us when to duct tape our homes (likely around elections or when Home Depot can use the tape sales).

What does it mean when the Secretary of Homeland Security resigns because he needs a private sector job in order to afford to send his two children to college? Should we send military recruiters to offer his children the same enticing options other underprivileged students hear now the War President has delivered tuition hikes and grant cuts? Is it time to raise the minimum wage to ninety dollars an hour, to keep other American families from falling into this unbearable level of poverty? Maybe we need to outsource the Department of Homeland Security to overseas workers who know how to survive on pathetic salaries.

Then again, it might benefit us to consider asking someone other than the War President to nominate Mr. Ridge’s replacement. I fear his wont for traditional family values hampers his objectivity, since Karen Hughes, War President advisor, Ari Fleisher, War President press secretary, Christine Todd Whitman, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency, Rosario Marin, Treasury Department, and Peter Fisher, Undersecretary, Treasury Department, all left their positions because they wanted to spend more time with their families.

In March 2003, Janet Rehnquist resigned as inspector general of the Health and Human Services Department after a controversial tenure and while Congress investigated, among other things, her decision to delay an audit of Florida’s pension fund at the request of Governor Jeb Bush’s office. She cited wanting to spend more time with her family as the reason for her resignation also. If nepotism counts as a family issue, Armitage Richards, Deputy Secretary of State, offered as his reason for resigning that he came with the secretary and would leave with him. Victoria Clarke, Pentagon Spokesperson, left for personal reasons, which might qualify as a family related matter, as does Army General Wayne Downing’s resignation from his post as deputy national security advisor to return to the more relaxed life of fine-tuning trout fishing.

Why then, does the War President offer family history and close friendships as selling points for his most recent nominations, Alberto Gonzales, and Carlos M. Gutierrez? I asked myself that question, but then realized that as striking as the family issue seems, it was not the only, or even the most commonly used reason for resignations by his appointees.

Some others left in groups, so I consider the possibility that it is a syndrome much like girls going to the bathroom in packs. J. Cofer Black, the State Department official in charge of counterterrorism, and Robert Blackwell, a former ambassador to India who was overseeing Iraq strategy at the National Security Council both resigned this month, neither citing family commitments as a reason. At the same time, department spokesman Adam Ereli said he would end his 30-year government career in a matter of weeks. Two U.S. diplomats, John H. Brown and John Brady Kiesling resigned from Foreign Service in protest against the War President’s approach to disarming Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Colin Powell, Secretary of State, Anne Veneman, Agriculture Secretary, Rod Paige, Education Secretary, and Spencer Abraham, Energy Secretary all announced resignations within weeks after the last election. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, and White House senior economic advisor Larry Lindsey, submitted their resignations on the same December day in 2002 as administration officials began reshuffling the War President’s financial team. John Ashcroft, Attorney General, decided to look for new horizons at the same time Don Evans, Commerce Secretary, decided it was time to go home. J.D. Crouch II, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, offers a plan to return to academia as the reason for his resignation, effective Friday.

The War President has seen changes in warheads. US Commander of Central Command, General Tommy Franks, U.S. Army, resigned mid-war because he planned to retire from active duty the following summer. Colonel Douglas Macgregor of the US Army retired, criticizing a “sycophantic” army culture that he blames for failures in Iraq and wasteful investments in new technology and saw no possibility of fundamentally positive reform for the current strategic environment or the future. Thomas White, Army Secretary, resigned in April 2003, although it is rumored Donald Rumsfeld fired him.

The CIA suffered many losses, including that of Director George Tenet, who resigned after he testified before the 9/11 Commission. Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy director for operations, and his deputy, Michael J. Sulick, each left after serving twenty-three years. David Kays, former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq left his position, stating the CIA and other agencies failed to recognize that Saddam Hussein all but abandoned efforts to produce large quantities of chemical and biological agents after the 1991 Gulf War, and accused U.S. intelligence agencies of widespread failures in evaluating pre-war Iraqi weapons programs. In June 2004, James Pavitt, a thirty-one-year veteran of the leading U.S. spy agency resigned the day after the agency’s director announced he would leave.

Mike Dombeck, Forest Service chief, resigned March 27, 2001 because he wasn’t happy with the new direction the administration wanted to take the Forest Service in. Eric Schaeffer, director of the EPA Office of Regulatory Enforcement, resigned February 27, 2002 stating he was fighting a White House that seemed determined to weaken the rules he was trying to enforce. John Brady Kiesling, a twenty-year veteran of the Foreign Service, resigned on February 27, 2003 because he had “tried and failed to reconcile his conscience with his ability to represent the current administration.” Karen Kwiatkowski, office of the undersecretary of defense, Near East Bureau, resigned on July 1, 2003, because she believed the environment in which decisions about post war Iraq were made were “ aberrant, pervasive, and contrary to good order and discipline”. Isam al-Khafaji, former member of the Iraqi reconstruction council, resigned because he wanted to leave with a clear conscience and did not want to be a collaborator with occupying forces.

Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board resigned in March 2003, because of a conflict of interest. John Poindexter, Pentegon, resigned following his involvement in an ill-fated plan to launch an online futures market for betting on Middle Eastern developments that was advertised as a vehicle for profiting on assassinations and other terrorist acts. Examples included the possibility of betting on the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or the overthrow of Jordan's monarchy.

Jack Pritchard, the special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, resigned at a critical moment in August 2003. Paul Redmond, America’s top spy catcher, resigned suddenly in the middle of his secret investigation into how Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden allegedly obtained US computer software.

Mark Weinberger, a corporate tax lobbyist who became the War President’s top tax policy advisor resigned in March 2002, after one year on the job, amid heightened scrutiny of his Office of Tax Policy. In October 2003, Dennis McKinney resigned after three years with the EPA because the Regional Administrator did not want the EPA to oppose state positions.

Thomas Scully, Medicare and Medicaid administrator, resigned in December 2003, saying millions would lose out on the promise of better benefits under the new Medicare bill signed by the War President. AIDS Panel Director, Patricia Ware, resigned her position at HHS in February 2003, after a controversy in which someone she had selected for the panel withdrew amid revelations that he had made anti-gay comments.

When Mitch Daniels, Budget Director, resigned on May 6, 2003 to run for Governor of Indiana, he was the last remaining member of the War President’s original economic team remaining.

I’ve probably forgotten a few, fired someone who didn’t really resign, and possibly mixed up reasons for resignations. The swinging door makes me dizzy. I encourage you to follow the links; read in their own words why so many resigned. With a record like this, should we feel comfortable with the War President’s nominations and appointments for those positions vacated since November 2?

Sandy Knauer



11/9/05 update: (sorry I can't keep up. Hopefully, there will have been more before this hits the web- like Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld)

Scooter Libby

Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse


Richard Clarke - National Security Council, terrorism advisor – became disillusioned with Bush’s “terrible job”

Paul O'Neill – Secretary of Treasury - He, like Clarke, recalled Bush's Iraq fixation. "From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," said O'Neill, a permanent member of the National Security Council. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this.'" Fired, December 6, 2002.

Michael Brown

Flynt Leverett – Senior Director for Middle East Affairs

Ben Miller – CIA staffer and Iraq expert with the NSC

Hillary Mann – foreign service officer on detail to the NSC as the Director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs

Larry Lindsey – top economic advisor

Ann Wright – career diplomat in Foreign Service

John Brady Kiesling – career diplomat serving four presidents over twenty years

3/10/06 update
John Brown – veteran of Foreign Service (24+ years) "I cannot in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq. The president has failed to: explain clearly why our brave men and women in uniform should be ready to sacrifice their lives in a war on Iraq at this time; to lay out the full ramifications of this war, including the extent of innocent civilian casualties; to specify the economic costs of the war for the ordinary Americans; to clarify how the war would help rid the world of terror; [and] to take international public opinion against the war into serious consideration." Resigned, March 10, 2003.
Rand Beers – National Security Council, Senior Director for combating terrorism
Karen Kwiatkowski – Lt. Colonel, Air Force I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made… What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of ‘intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense."
Retired, July 2003.

Claude Allen
Larry Lindsey
Anne Wright
Major John Carr and Major Robert Preston – Air Force Prosecutors - quit their posts in 2004 rather than take part in trials under the military commission system President Bush created in 2001 which they considered "rigged against alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.
Captain Carrie Wolf – USAF – asked to leave due to concerns commissions for trying prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were unjust
John Carlin – Archivist
Susan Wood
Frank Davidoff - "I can no longer associate myself with an organization that is capable of making such an important decision so flagrantly on the basis of political influence
Joanne Wilson - commissioner of the Department of Education's Rehabilitation Services Administration Joanne Wilson, who left her job as commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration on March 1, now says she quit in protest of what she said were the administration's largely unnoticed efforts to gut the office's funding and staffing.
"Programs for people with disabilities are being dismantled, and nobody is crying out and saying, 'Look what's happening,' " said Wilson, who, as RSA commissioner, was one of the government's highest-ranking disabled officials.
Tony Oppegard & Jack Spadaro - federal geodesic engineers
Teresa Chambers - U.S. Park Police Chief
Sylvia Lowrance – EPA official - "This Administration has pulled cases and put investigations on ice," Lowrance says. "They sent every signal they can to staff to back off. When you stop enforcing, there are implications to the entire compliance system. If no one believes EPA is going to enforce, overall compliance rates go down. The saddest thing is not these individual instances of nonenforcement, but what has happened to the reputation of the program itself.
"I fear that with lax EPA enforcement, corporate leaders are not going to spend scarce resources to expand compliance programs."
George C. Deutsch – young presidential appointee at NASA - Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there

Wishful Writing

After publishing Another One Bites The Dust, I realized the War president was losing cabinet members and appointees faster than I could write. I took a few days off, thinking the others who needed to go would fall out quickly, and then I could report the final dusty-lipped deserters in one update.

It was inevitable there would be a few more, since the worst of the bunch remained. Right?

Wrong.

A week later, Elaine Chao and Donald Rumsfeld still hang on like static cling and a rayon dress. Planted firmly with her billing as the least successful person to ever fill the Labor Secretary shoes, she did not develop the ever popular sudden urge to run home to hubby Mitch McConnell, or any other family business.

Nor did Donald Rumsfeld suddenly remember he had a family that needed or wanted him. To the contrary, he kicked up quite a dust storm this week without biting anything more than the hands that feed his warmongering. He added new humiliation and failure to his already awe-inspiring record and declared his decision to honor the War president’s request to stay on and grace us with even more of the same.

Mr. Rumsfeld made another trip to Kuwait--close enough to the fire to almost get singed--and assured the troops they wouldn’t be any safer with the equipment they had asked for in May. He promised them the military was doing all it could to provide that equipment anyway. “It’s essentially a matter of physics,” he said. “It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army’s desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.” (Does this let John Kerry off the hook for not voting for that extra spending now?)

So what if ArmorWorks of Tempe had been telling the Pentagon for months that they were capable of doubling their production? Donald Rumsfeld could easily avoid that heat by forcing a reporter from Tennessee into the fall guy position. The reporter had discussed a soldier’s question with him before he asked it of Mr. Rumsfeld. It didn’t matter that the soldier, as well as many others who cheered after hearing it, wanted the answer. Or that other soldiers had asked the same question in May? The troops and the American people aren’t smart enough to put these pieces together. Are they?

I’m sure the War president has his reasons for not wanting to shake the static cling. Just as some mothers enjoy having toddlers hang on their legs, he might find comfort in clingers as well. However, I’m concerned that Mr. Rumsfeld’s face print remains in the dust that settles around the Tennessee reporter. And I am disturbed to hear explanations like this is an example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

Is it too much to wish for a repeat of last week? By the time I finish typing this update, might there be another resignation? Or two?

Who Are You?

There are some of us with no way out. We’ve paid the dues, walked the miles, swung the hammers, carried the loads, jumped through the hoops, and still wound up buried beneath the rubble.

We aren’t lazy. We aren’t trying to get something for nothing. We are trying to get rid of what we have – multiple sclerosis, arteriosclerosis, cancer, AIDs. We’ve fallen and we can’t get up. You find humor in that.

We hurt. And you spit on us as you kick us aside or step over us.

Your prayers haven’t cured us or made us disappear. Your God hasn’t put the goodness in your hearts to help us, to stop blaming us, or to realize you are not better than us because you were born in a healthy body.

Your words and inactions destroy what our diseases haven’t already taken. It’s not enough for you that our bodies have failed us. You aren’t satisfied until we’ve lost our homes and spirits as well.

We’ve done nothing to you. We’ve done nothing to deserve our fate. We don’t want to live and we can’t die. You’ve destroyed our lives and jailed our Dr. Kevorkian, because, after all, you believe you own our souls and the rights to our decisions.

You decide we should live without medical care and pain medications. You don’t care if we have dental care, because you don’t think we deserve food or homes to eat it in.

We’re in your hell. Who does that make you?

While You Were Sleeping

Imagine the pubic outcry if groceries were to come pre-grouped. Anyone wanting to purchase bread, milk, meat, or vegetables would also have to buy a bunch of over-ripened bananas, five pounds of dark brown beef, a package of tripe or hog brains, a dozen dented cans without labels, and a jar of toddler turkey and dumplings. I can’t see American shoppers accepting this without a huge fight.

Nor can I picture the special-order fast food crowd agreeing to pay for a prune turnover with each burger and fries or liver and onions on each pizza order. I can hear the screams if the cashier at the movie rental counter automatically adds a porn flick and a copy of the McConnell family’s home video of static cling removal tips with each check out.

No, American consumers only accept pre-packaged crap from the cable company and the Republican Party. Minutes ago, in a straight party-line vote (Republicans for and Democrats against) a Defense Spending, Hurricane Relief, and Flu Preparedness Bill that included tripe, porn, and static cling comparable garbage having nothing to do with defense and everything to do with forcing unpopular crap on the American people passed while most American’s were sleeping.

Once again, the bully party has taken advantage of their political muscle, and their loyal, muscles-for-brains-we’re-too-busy-sleeping-to-care supporters. Through carefully crafted sound bites and erroneous language, they misrepresented the bill as a boost for the poor people they’ve suckered into fighting their war while losing benefits, played down the parts where they cut funds for first defenders here at home, clean water, education, food stamps, Medicaid, and all social programs across the board, and outright lied about the tripe they included (all language concerning Anwar drilling has been removed – ooops except those forty-one pages added back in during the middle of the night).

I don’t hear any screaming yet, and doubt I will in an hour or so when the permanently sleeping open their eyes and shuffle through another day, pretending they actually know what they’re doing. They won’t scream until I try to tell them that while they were sleeping, their good friends stuck grandpa’s blood pressure medicine and their morning coffee in the bottom of the grocery cart under the tripe and hog brains. Then, on script, they’ll cry for me to stop whining.

Was It Really About Morals?

The War President is flitting around the country trying to sell a pack of lies about social security this time. Does he not have any work to do? If any of you happen to catch him, maybe you can ask a few very important questions, since this plan is so vague that no one else seems to know the answers.

I know this is a trick question, and probably unfair since it is sure to confuse his face into a painful grimace, but I think we deserve to at least ask for the answer. How does adding personal accounts to Social Security solve the perceived problems in the system? I realize it might keep congress’ paws out of it (does the word lockbox cause flashbacks for anyone other than me?) but think it might be easier to teach the government and to “just say no” instead of setting up new departments and hiring thousands of people to oversee this personal account project. Anyway, if you could ask him that question, and to explain the actual numbers so we can see how this is going to work, it would be nice.

You might also ask him if he realizes the average disability check is around eight hundred dollars a month, which isn’t enough to cover the average rent and pharmacy bill for the average disabled person. I’m sure he doesn’t know that, or he would surely work to increase benefits, not decrease them. And while you’re on the topic of disability, will you ask how this personal account will play into the picture in his future plan? If someone becomes disabled before their personal account reaches that magical level of eternal self-sufficiency, what happens then? And will the disabled person be expected to drain their personal account before receiving any benefits? Will their benefits be based on previous work record, and adjusted according to personal savings? Will those who saved the most be penalized in this case?

Oh, here’s an easy one. Ask this one first since it only requires a two-word response. Since this new plan can’t possibly change the fact that he has used the surplus for other things, and soon the program will be paying more than it collects, which will he do – raise taxes or cut benefits?

How is the plan personal or private when the government is going to tell people what they have to do with it? For example, low-income seniors would be required to purchase an annuity that guaranteed poverty-level monthly benefits until death. Will we hire psychics to predict dates of death? And workers will “automatically be invested” in a fund that becomes more conservative as they approach retirement. Hmm… seems like freedom, choice, personal, private are all changing definitions these days.

What if an emergency came along, like an expensive life-saving surgery for someone who was out of work and had no insurance (can’t help but think of this when we have so many in this situation right now)? Wouldn’t it just plain suck if that person had to die while they had money in a personal retirement account that couldn’t be touched? Or wouldn’t it suck even more if they were allowed to use the money and then had to die in the streets later because they had nothing to fall back on?

What if the stock market crashes? What if our creditors call in their markers?

If he answers all of these questions, you might ask the big one. Wouldn’t it be easier and fairer to just take back that tax cut, since that amount alone would solve the problem?

What Time Is It?

Now is not the time for any politician to tell me now is not the time to criticize or try to place blame for the devastating 8-29 hurricane attack on home soil. I’ve got news for them; America divided in January 2000, so nothing I say today can cause what has already happened.

Timing is everything. The willingly-ignorant have crawled out from under their rocks to view the devastation, and I plan to take advantage of this opportune time to throw a few facts their way. If I don’t catch them now, they will be in hibernation again when the truth finally comes out – like they were after the 2000 (s)election, the World Trade Center attack, the 2004 (s)election, Washington’s most recent gift to the oil companies, and Bush’s admission last week that the Iraq war really is all about oil. This is the perfect time to expose the truth, and the fact that so many are asking me to keep my mouth shut proves that. The Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel AGAIN, resulting in more deaths.

Okay, maybe that isn’t an honest assessment. I am not sure they were asleep. This might be exactly what they wanted to happen. I’ll take back my assumption and rephrase. The Bush Administration screwed us again, for reasons I don’t understand.

This is a political statement. When I speak about politicians and political decisions, it is about politics. My complaints are not partisan; I blame Democrats as much as the Republicans. There might not be enough Democrats on Capital Hill to stop this insanity, but they still have a responsibility to protect this country and this world. If their voices aren’t heard through their votes, they need to make their voices heard in other ways. They should be screaming in the streets, posing in front of television cameras, flooding newspaper offices, taking out ads in their home states, crawling under rocks until every American has heard the truth whether they want to or not.

Politicians on both sides should have shut this country down rather than allow what happened this week. If not now, when is the time to demand answers and accountability? When would be a better time to tell the sleepers what they missed while under their rocks?

• That this administration repealed the policies that would have protected the wetlands that served as a buffer?
• That this administration cut $71 million from the New Orleans Corps of Engineers’ budget (a 44% reduction) and shelved a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane?
• That Newt Gingrich led a campaign to gut the office that produced such plans as “Floods” A National Policy Concern” and “A framework for Flood Hazards Management” and the Republican right has continued in the same frame of mind?
• That this administration chooses ideology over science, and their ideology promotes death and destruction?
• That thirty-five percent of Louisiana’s National Guard and dozens of hits high-water vehicles and generators are in Iraq? That the money delegated to the levees of New Orleans was diverted in this administration’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq?
• That this hurricane was predicted, and this administration chose to wait until after it hit to send any help?
• That Bush partied a few days before responding?
• That other countries offered help before ours did?
• That Halliburton has already been given the clean-up contract, even though they’ve cheated us on the Iraq situation?
• That the “Armies of Compassion” Bush promises are so buried in their bunkers they’ll never find their way out?

There is no better time to bring up these issues, or to point fingers where they belong. There will never be a better time to pull everyone we know out from under their rocks and scream until they listen.


* Kudos to Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts for reminding us that Bush held hands with his Saudi friend recently, and today he should be holding OPECs feet to the fire instead of waiting two more weeks to ‘ask’ for relief in the gas situation. After a month of vacation, it would seem he could forgo the holiday weekend to get that done now, wouldn’t it?

War On Truth

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. Say the word and my soul shall be healed.

The brilliance of this Bush administration’s war on truth was in commandeering an unsuspecting army that had already surrendered critical thinking skills in return for the promise of paradise. A lifetime of reciting self-deprecating mantras like the one above, and blind faith in a deity who would expect it in return for the favors his father sent him to bestow, prepared the Christian soldiers for an unapproachable administration, sent by a higher power that considers itself above question.

The war on truth is creative, carried out behind the scenes, between the lines, under the covers, and up their sleeves. A few subliminal messages, offered in the form of innocuous religious phrases, served as weapons to kill intellects and souls, leaving empty shells to skew the body count. The shells, accustomed to chanting thoughtlessly, now repeat the administration’s mantras like automatons.

Embracing God fearing as an admirable trait, Christian soldiers welcomed the opportunity to stockpile admiration, and readily assumed foreigner fearing, non-believer fearing, liberal fearing, and tax fearing. Proud of their Christian soldiers status, they sacrificed logic and accepted anything the administration presented as Christian values, without demanding harmony with their traditional values.

In meshing religion and politics, this administration [Bush] uses the bible to remind their followers that they already embrace one documented set of contradictions that can be interpreted to support whichever side of the issue benefits them at the time, and it would somehow be sacrilegious not to accept the same level of contradiction from their earthly leaders. They call on their followers to pray, when action would be more appropriate, knowing that puts them in the vulnerable position of waiting for what they trust as an infallible decision from a higher power. Questioning higher power, worldly or heavenly, is a weakness.

By combining religion and politics, this administration has successfully silenced millions of unsuspecting victims. Now, these people march in fear of losing paradise if they question their spiritual or mortal leaders. Stripped of free will and the ability to process new information, they aren’t capable of seeing what is happening to them, so we must protect them. We must become true soldiers in the war on truth, arm ourselves with facts, and combat the insidious messages they unknowingly spread. We must ask questions of and for them, and fight to refill their shells with what this administration took from them.

This administration [Bush] has capitalized on innocence and ignorance.

War On Sex

Face it - the right wing has waged an all out war on sex. Nothing else matters. They’re obsessed, and so insanely jealous of anyone who is sexy, has sex, enjoys or talks about sex without shame or fear, that they make fools of themselves trying to eradicate sex. I wish they would come out and admit their war on sex because it might relieve them of the misery they’re spilling into the universe (which may account for some of the toxins in our air, but I’ll save that for another time).

Cleverly, they choose candidates, advisors, and spokespeople who appear to be asexual; people who are so sexually repulsive no one would entertain the possibility of their being involved in a sex scandal because it would require imagining them in that role and the thought is too much for a normal human to bear.

Imagine what your stomach would do if you had to picture Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Scott McClellan, Karl Rove, or any Bush in an intimate situation. There went my breakfast. Anyone wanting to lose a few pounds might take it even further, and picture combinations of the group, say Dick with Karl, Scott with George, Rush with Jenna. The extremely brave can visualize an orgy with a swing-your-partner- do-si-do where they all switch partners. Quick, pass the barf bag.

The Bushites have reached the point they openly admit they enjoy flip-flopping and duplicity. The want to reduce Rove’s crime from treason to perjury, and accuse the Democrats of playing politics. Sweet of them, now that they’ve soaked every political advantage they could out of the situation and think there’s nothing left to gain. And they will overlook the many lies Rove and Bush have crammed down their throats about the Plume outing, because it’s the sex, stupid, and face it; there was no sex involved.

Perjury only matters to them when a sexy man is involved. Lies don’t count unless you can actually dream about sex with the liar and not wake up screaming, and outing is only a sin or a crime if it involves sexual orientation. They’re more afraid of someone else having semen in the throat than they are of the lies they’re choking on, and prefer the hourly figurative screwing they receive from their asexual leaders over a literal toss in the sack with their asexual partners.

That’s fine for them, but do they really have to begrudge the rest of us a healthy relationship or a wet dream with sexy partners and leaders? Spoil sports. Many of us would need anti-depressants or, heaven forbid, illegal drugs if not for our imaginative relationships with Bill, Al, Obama, and Hillary. Leave our healthier options alone.

There’s good news for our asexual warmongering friends. We sex freaks are fully capable of doing more than one thing at a time. Don’t be fooled by the fact that Georgie boy can’t ride a bike while he plans a bombing, or eat a pretzel and watch TV without an accident. Think back to the Clinton days. Some people can engage in sex, give a speech, and keep peace all at the same time. Remember the Gore airline security proposal? Proof that sexy and intelligent can exist in the same body.

This war on sex is unnecessary, but I have faith sexy Americans can fight back if the asexuals continue to wage it. We can multi-task - fight the war on sex while we impeach, save social security, balance the budget, and fight for decent Supreme Court nominees.

There, But For The Grace of God...

I am an ungraced enigma. People waive their preferences for sons and daughters to pray God will not curse them with something like me.

To my face, they promise to pray their God will cure me of being me. Behind my back, they say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

In fairness, I understand the ancient grammar probably feels eloquent rolling off the tongue. I realize the overwhelming temptation for many to mimic without thought, hoping to cash in on the pious reward of transmitting any quote that uses God’s name. I recognize the importance our society places on popularity and the inability to resist jumping on crowded bandwagons.

It isn’t possible, however, for me to understand where a person finds the arrogance to assume God considers a healthy body or a full wallet a virtue, or graced. I might be their test. How will healthy and wealthy people treat me? Will they toss platitudes and prayers my way and tighten their fists around the social programs I need to keep me alive? Do they believe their god made a mistake with me and will be offended if they intervene? Will they close their eyes and pretend I don’t exist?

I was born knowing my purpose. I came into this life happy, understanding, willing to help everyone without assuming their defects are curses from a god. I love everyone, in sickness and health, good times and bad, rich or poor, and don’t have to marry or give birth to them to feel that way. I want to share what I have until a person demonstrates a desire to hurt me, and then, I hold that person responsible, not their god.

I am not unique. Millions of enigmas sit on stifled resources because the self-proclaimed graced don’t want to barter health care and living expenses for the love generosity, wisdom, and experience of the ungraced.

How a person exhibits faith measures character. I am confident that my god graced me with what I was supposed to share with the world. I feel doubly graced with the knowledge that having more than someone else gives me more responsibility, not condemning or gloating rights.

Here, by the grace of your god, am I, asking you to think.

Tepid Judgment

In recent weeks, several people questioned my forgiveness of others. Without discussion, they delivered flat, critical verdicts on my positions, slighting my values, emotions, judgments, and relationships. I thought they were wrong to question my kindness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean I condone wrongs, want to resume relationships, or waive legal or ethical responsibilities.

After tripping through confusion and pushing aside the superior attitude I had adopted in response to disapproval, I settled down to question my motives. I forgive to relieve my anger and resentment. I dump negative emotions so I can reclaim the energy given to others.

I forgive for me. Maybe my criticizers had valid points. If I abandon rational outrage with the same impulsive nature that lets me procrastinate laundry and dishes, do I end up with a hamper or sink of disgusting relationships?

That seemed logical until I remembered the people I can’t forgive. They prove I don’t forgive with reckless abandon, so what makes me different? And, does being different make me careless or wrong? How and when do I drop resentments others hold, and why don’t I extend forgiveness to everyone?

I forgave the man who nearly choked me to death, but not the man who kicked my daughter. I hold no hard feelings toward the friend who forgot me when I got sick and no positive feelings for the one who insulted every welfare recipient in this country. I wish the best for the woman who devoted years of her life to complicating mine, the co-worker who claimed my work as his own, and the kid who took money from my purse, but I hope the attorney who stole money from my daughter buys himself a case of bleeding ulcers with that money.

I forgive Ted Kennedy’s forty-year-old scandal, Bill Clinton’s personal indiscretions, and Al Gore’s hidden personality. I refuse to excuse George Bush’s dishonesty, Dick Cheney’s corruption, Tom Delay’s fraud, Scott McClellan’s dodging, or Christianity’s duplicity.

Instead of writing myself off as hopelessly fickle, I searched for explanations. Some of the people I forgave never uttered a sorry, an oops, or a my bad. They did not pull me into mediation, send flowers, offer excuses, or try to prove anything to me. Some don’t know I exist or how they hurt me, and don’t need my forgiveness. The difference with them is that either they didn’t know what they were doing, what they did was a one-time infraction, or they later made impressive changes in their lives, demonstrating an appropriate sorrow for their actions – much better than an uttered sorry. Those I haven’t forgiven have dedicated their lives to hurting others and don’t deserve forgiveness.

In conclusion, I believe my forgiveness is rational. Those who criticized me without question made tepid judgments of me for not doing the same.

Patriotism Without Compassion

A comment I heard on The View this week continues to haunt me. Writing might resolve my unrest, or open the topic for discussion that will help me explore it deeper.

Regarding Cindy Sheehan, The View regular, Elizabeth Hasselback (maiden name: Filarski, a former sneaker designer and contestant on CBS' "Survivor: The Australian Outback.") said, (paraphrased) I’m sure if I had a child or someone over there, I would do anything, but I don’t have anyone there. To provide a backdrop, and without going into detail, Elizabeth is not a fan of Cindy’s, and she frequently voices patriotism and support for the troops.

I don’t believe Elizabeth’s statement is unique, and that’s why I went from numb to haunted. I use her as an example because she offers her public opinions daily so it seems fair to let her statement work as the catalyst for a much bigger point, involving a number of people.

I can’t fathom a level of patriotism that allows detachment from the men and women who are fighting our wars. I choose those words in an attempt to be fair to Elizabeth; they aren’t men and women to me. They are kids. The dozen or so I’ve spoken with recently are younger than my daughter. And it breaks my heart to say our war, even though I have to take responsibility for what my country does in my name. While Elizabeth supported our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I opposed going in and haven’t changed my mind for a second since.

Admittedly not fair, in my heart, that makes it her war and my kids. Her insensitivity to anyone who doesn’t ‘belong to her’ precludes, or negates her professions of patriotism and support. We The People are the country. Anyone who can’t love the people, especially those giving their lives and children, has no claim to patriotism in my opinion.

Is it possible to be patriotic without compassion?

Wake Up, Democratic Party

January 24, 2006

While working the 2000 election campaign, I lost patience with the large number of people who claimed there was no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Al Gore was a brilliant, successful, respectable, honest, prepared, articulate man, married to a strong, caring woman. George Bush, his tongue-tied, dishonest, uninformed, chemical abusing, pompous bully opponent who had never succeeded at any of the few things he had done in his life was married to a Stepford wife. How could anyone not see the difference?

In 2001, Paul Patton (then Governor of Kentucky) delivered a speech that confirmed my belief in the Democratic Party philosophy. His explanation of why he was a Democrat renewed my pride in the party. It also made me realize how my interpretation of the party philosophy, and my focus on particular candidates instead of the parties during the 2000 campaign, had influenced my narrowed view and confusion. Governor Patton’s words healed the wounds from the stolen election enough to break my immobilizing grief and launch my battle to spread the word and activate my fellow Democrats.

Unfortunately, the Democrats seem to have cast their philosophy and Governor Patton aside about the same time. Today, I have a hard time seeing a respectable difference in the two parties. The Republicans might be leading in the race to corrupt our constitution and culture, but the Democrats share equal responsibility through their willingness to roll over and let it happen.

I’m grateful to Al Gore for his call-to-arms speech. I appreciate Senators Byrd, Kennedy, Feingold, Leahy, Representatives Murtha, Kucinich, and Pelosi, and others who have bravely stood up against the Republican take-over of most everything I hold dear. I’m disgusted with the media for not giving the Gore speech the attention it deserves, disappointed in the overwhelming number of Democrats who won’t support those who bravely try to lead, and sickened by those who apologize for their actions. I want to think some are just confused, believing nice is a requirement or virtue, when in truth nice and diplomacy are totally separate practices. Being nice at the wrong time, or with those who will exploit it is not a virtue; it is a cowardly concession. Sadly, I believe many have played the twisted Republican game so long they can’t remember the original rules.

I feel betrayed by my Party. On the whole, they give me Republican candidates disguised as Democrats, from the top down to the LD chairs and precinct captains. I don’t have a voice. Northup, McConnell, and Bunning embarrass or anger me every time they speak for me. They discard my opinions by responding with form letters that reflect no consideration for my intelligence or my opinions. Many Democrats in Washington forget how their opinions and votes affect all of us. They reject letters from anyone outside their states. The Executive branch bans me from their speaking engagements and won’t allow me to protest in their range of vision. I can’t afford to hear most Democratic politicians speak, much less offer my questions or opinions. My vote doesn’t count, and my Party concedes elections while voters remain in line to grovel for their right to cast a vote that probably won’t count anyway.

The political focus is on money, sex, a religion I want no part of, and keeping up with the Republicans in their game, with few representing what I consider the Democratic promise to protect individual choices or rights. In my opinion, the Democrats sold their souls along with the Republicans, ignoring those with the least money or power.

I want candidates who honestly respect what the Democratic Party stands for, and who are passionate enough to stand for what they believe. I want candidates who will not try to sermonize or buy their way into the popular clique. I’m tired of voting for Democrats who do not represent me, and will soon stop supporting a Party that has forgotten the things that truly are important to the people. The Democrats I know care about jobs, healthcare, and education. We don’t care about the sex lives or religious beliefs of others, and we know the only country threatening and mutilating our freedom is this one. And we don’t want the blood of the world on our hands.

Enough is enough. Give ‘we the people’ the catalyst we need to win this war on our country.

Looking For Candidates Willing to Discuss Issues

I am not looking for a spouse, parent, teacher, or preacher. I don’t think being any or all of these things qualifies a person to represent my political interests, nor do I believe any of those titles tells me one thing I need to know about a candidate. Yet, I’ve answered the phone four times in the last few days to a recorded, “Hello, I’m Candidate Snowjob, a proud husband and father who regularly attends church,” or “Hi, I’m Candidate Snowjob from the other side, wife, mother, previous school teacher, with church experience.”

George Bush is a spouse and parent, who regularly attends church. He is also a liar, a cheat, a lazy employee who is away from the job more than on the job (for that, I guess I should be thankful), and he has never succeeded at anything in his life by my standards. Anne Northup is a wife, mother, previous school teacher, who regularly attends church and she apparently has no mind of her own. The intelligence level demonstrated in her form letters and speeches almost make me glad she’s a politician instead of sharing her knowledge with students.

If this is the best we have to choose from, I don’t want to vote. Isn’t anyone out there willing to tell me what he or she believes or will do if elected? If so, I’ll gladly listen to all you have to say, and respect you for your honesty. I’ll probably vote for you, even if I don’t agree completely with everything you believe, because I will at least trust and respect you. And that’s a lot more than the current candidates have earned from me.