True
Monday, December 31, 2007
New SRC blog about ATVs available
The Sustainable Recreation Coalition, a grass roots group of Cook County folks working to protect the North Shore from the depredations of ATV’s, has started a blog called ATV Report - at www.atvreport.blogspot.com
True
True
Monday, December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas to all sentient beings from Animal Advocates
Dear True,
At this season of good will I’d like to remind everybody to remember and thank the good people of our Animal Advocates. They give selflessly of their time and money and even their homes to aid our human companions who would otherwise be lost or killed or abandoned. They do this entirely for love.
The Advocates held a special adoption day, silent auction, bake sale, and photos-with-Santa last weekend. My own Sugar, a rescue dog last year, had a great time meeting a fellow dog, sniffing the adoptees, and posing with Santa.
Please, friends, consider helping the Advocates with a tax-deductible gift that will perhaps save a life and absolutely will provide shots, food, and spay or neuter for the unwanted but loving companion animals in the Arrowhead .
Here’s our photo of me and Sugar with Santa. We wish all animals a very merry Christmas!
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais
Saturday, December 22, 2007
FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics
True is terrified. I won't be going out much any more because I don't want long distance cameras to record my biometric data. The DHS (Department of Homeland Sabotage) doesn't give a flying fxxx what I think and they have the billions to spend. If I shop in town they can create a digital image of me.
This reporter for the Washington Post doesn't see any problem here. What happened to the good old Watergate team? What happened to our rights to privacy under the Constitution?
Nobody but nobody will get my fingerprints, palm prints, eye prints or posture pictures if I can help it. This outrage trumps even spying on all of our phone calls and emails. HOW DARE THEY?
I am planning to ask the Lakota Sioux if they will accept me as a member, since they have seceded from the USA and I presume won't be measuring my eye-prints.
Hello, if you think this is no biggie, look back to the Spanish Inquisition and the Witch Trials at Salem.
I am even more scared by this than by the End Times Nuke Iran Movement. Read the story and mull it over, and weep with me.
True
FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics
This reporter for the Washington Post doesn't see any problem here. What happened to the good old Watergate team? What happened to our rights to privacy under the Constitution?
Nobody but nobody will get my fingerprints, palm prints, eye prints or posture pictures if I can help it. This outrage trumps even spying on all of our phone calls and emails. HOW DARE THEY?
I am planning to ask the Lakota Sioux if they will accept me as a member, since they have seceded from the USA and I presume won't be measuring my eye-prints.
Hello, if you think this is no biggie, look back to the Spanish Inquisition and the Witch Trials at Salem.
I am even more scared by this than by the End Times Nuke Iran Movement. Read the story and mull it over, and weep with me.
True
FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics
Not Light, Certainly Filling
On November 1, Wayne Seidel, a conservation specialist for the Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District, reported to the Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) supervisors that an agreement had been reached with the City of Grand Marais to cease all road-building activity on the city’s west side pending the completion of a wetland delineation plan and a plan for wetland replacement.
For years the city has been “unofficially” and perhaps unwittingly, but certainly illegally, conducting a wetland filling program, mostly gradual in incremental dribs and drabs, but at times in robust truck loads depending on construction jobs the city happened to be engaged in at any given time and what need they had to dispose of unwanted fill.
This city hall approved practice saw workers dumping the offal of city operations – in some cases clean fill, but just as often nothing but junk and debris – at the ends of, or along city and private right of way of some of the city’s East-West roadways.
The city, only after BWSR (the state's Board of Soil and Water Resources) was made aware of the situation, in the guise of its administrator Mike Roth, was brought before the county’s SWCD and reminded that it too must abide by the law. This was the second time this year the city has been found to be operating in complete disregard to state and federal regulations meant to protect wetlands and both violations are significant and both find Mike Roth the responsible official.
How many more times must this happen before disciplinary action is taken? How tolerant should elected officials be when faced with such incompetence? Or, are we dealing with misfeasance? Considering the record of city administration, none of this should be a surprise to the taxpayers. What is surprising is that the city has not been fined, but then again, there are those who feel that BWSR and the SWCD has always tended to overlook violations and when pushed into enforcement action, to go easy on offenders. The facts are that the county makes it a point to understaff and underfund the county's SWCD team, putting an unreasonable burden on the SWCD board and administrative staff, but SWCD enforcement is separate and handled by BWSR, most recently by BWSR employee Wayne Seidel.
Seidel has now resigned his enforcement position, so perhaps BWSR's new staffer will bring to SWCD a new sense of responsibility. We’ll find out as the upcoming investigation of the very major violations allegedly going on along the Lower Poplar River proceeds.
Stay tuned.
True
For years the city has been “unofficially” and perhaps unwittingly, but certainly illegally, conducting a wetland filling program, mostly gradual in incremental dribs and drabs, but at times in robust truck loads depending on construction jobs the city happened to be engaged in at any given time and what need they had to dispose of unwanted fill.
This city hall approved practice saw workers dumping the offal of city operations – in some cases clean fill, but just as often nothing but junk and debris – at the ends of, or along city and private right of way of some of the city’s East-West roadways.
The city, only after BWSR (the state's Board of Soil and Water Resources) was made aware of the situation, in the guise of its administrator Mike Roth, was brought before the county’s SWCD and reminded that it too must abide by the law. This was the second time this year the city has been found to be operating in complete disregard to state and federal regulations meant to protect wetlands and both violations are significant and both find Mike Roth the responsible official.
How many more times must this happen before disciplinary action is taken? How tolerant should elected officials be when faced with such incompetence? Or, are we dealing with misfeasance? Considering the record of city administration, none of this should be a surprise to the taxpayers. What is surprising is that the city has not been fined, but then again, there are those who feel that BWSR and the SWCD has always tended to overlook violations and when pushed into enforcement action, to go easy on offenders. The facts are that the county makes it a point to understaff and underfund the county's SWCD team, putting an unreasonable burden on the SWCD board and administrative staff, but SWCD enforcement is separate and handled by BWSR, most recently by BWSR employee Wayne Seidel.
Seidel has now resigned his enforcement position, so perhaps BWSR's new staffer will bring to SWCD a new sense of responsibility. We’ll find out as the upcoming investigation of the very major violations allegedly going on along the Lower Poplar River proceeds.
Stay tuned.
True
Friday, December 21, 2007
Grand Marais wraps up Comprehensive Plan for the holidays, or does it?
Goodness gracious, what a flap when City Council voted 3 to 2 last week not to allow 2nd floor residential in downtown commercial except for owners and employees.
In a letter to the News Herald today, Todd Miller accused the council of betraying a public trust. Mayor Larsen said after the vote that she was concerned that the 30 foot height limit might be the next to go if 2nd floor residences become common and that there is little enough commercial space and commercial parking as it is.
As we all know, if there is a way for developers to go bigger they will find it. So how does this betray any trust at all? The vote was very much in keeping with the spirit of the Comprehensive Plan, both this one and the previous one but you would have thought the Decider was at work to nuke Iran.
Worse in my view is the slant; well let’s say it, LIES in Miller’s letter. The only True thing he said is that 2nd floor residential was listed as part of the consensus goals created after the first round of public meetings. But, it turned out not to be such a consensus after all, with only 42 percent of survey respondents in favor. In the US of A, even when 99 percent of voters feel a certain way that doesn’t change the decisions made by the Decider who is guided by a Higher Power. As for 42 percent being a consensus, it is not even a simple majority. So much for the “very unpopular” current zoning policy, and the “overwhelming” conclusion of the visioning process.
True says: Get your facts straight if you are going to spout off against your elected officials who have done great things so far to keep Grand Marais vital and sustainable for years to come.
Where was Miller when the previous council was selling the town off to the highest bidders, all outside developers; giving away the harbor to the DNR in the vain hope of making it another Bayfield and getting rid of the campground for parking; trying to derail the conservation easements created to protect the harbor; changing zoning without even a public process in order to open downtown to McCondos … does any of this ring a bell?
Personally, like a large proportion of people in the survey, I don’t care one way or the other about 2nd floor residential downtown but I find Mayor Larsen’s reasoning thoughtful and compelling.
I am sorry that a few loudmouths were able to make everybody change their vote this week for what are all the wrong reasons, including the conflict of interest by Councilor Kennedy who owns a downtown business and had no business voting at all.
There are very good reasons, both pro and con, on this issue. Pro is that a mixed character helps to vitalize a downtown area and THIS was the point of consensus in the comprehensive plan. Con include the need for one to two parking spaces per unit, fire code safety issues, sound proofing and conflicting interests like bar patrons and sleepers. Safety and soundproofing could be addressed in new construction but are problematic with existing structures. The council considered all of these factors but only included parking provisions in the reversal vote Wednesday.
While I’m not saying it is necessarily a bad decision, it was made hastily under pressure by a few special interests.
True
In a letter to the News Herald today, Todd Miller accused the council of betraying a public trust. Mayor Larsen said after the vote that she was concerned that the 30 foot height limit might be the next to go if 2nd floor residences become common and that there is little enough commercial space and commercial parking as it is.
As we all know, if there is a way for developers to go bigger they will find it. So how does this betray any trust at all? The vote was very much in keeping with the spirit of the Comprehensive Plan, both this one and the previous one but you would have thought the Decider was at work to nuke Iran.
Worse in my view is the slant; well let’s say it, LIES in Miller’s letter. The only True thing he said is that 2nd floor residential was listed as part of the consensus goals created after the first round of public meetings. But, it turned out not to be such a consensus after all, with only 42 percent of survey respondents in favor. In the US of A, even when 99 percent of voters feel a certain way that doesn’t change the decisions made by the Decider who is guided by a Higher Power. As for 42 percent being a consensus, it is not even a simple majority. So much for the “very unpopular” current zoning policy, and the “overwhelming” conclusion of the visioning process.
True says: Get your facts straight if you are going to spout off against your elected officials who have done great things so far to keep Grand Marais vital and sustainable for years to come.
Where was Miller when the previous council was selling the town off to the highest bidders, all outside developers; giving away the harbor to the DNR in the vain hope of making it another Bayfield and getting rid of the campground for parking; trying to derail the conservation easements created to protect the harbor; changing zoning without even a public process in order to open downtown to McCondos … does any of this ring a bell?
Personally, like a large proportion of people in the survey, I don’t care one way or the other about 2nd floor residential downtown but I find Mayor Larsen’s reasoning thoughtful and compelling.
I am sorry that a few loudmouths were able to make everybody change their vote this week for what are all the wrong reasons, including the conflict of interest by Councilor Kennedy who owns a downtown business and had no business voting at all.
There are very good reasons, both pro and con, on this issue. Pro is that a mixed character helps to vitalize a downtown area and THIS was the point of consensus in the comprehensive plan. Con include the need for one to two parking spaces per unit, fire code safety issues, sound proofing and conflicting interests like bar patrons and sleepers. Safety and soundproofing could be addressed in new construction but are problematic with existing structures. The council considered all of these factors but only included parking provisions in the reversal vote Wednesday.
While I’m not saying it is necessarily a bad decision, it was made hastily under pressure by a few special interests.
True
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Oberstar to Vote in Favor of 2008 Budget Bill
Today True is posting this entire news release from Oberstar. The news is very disappointing. Dems cave again!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Washington DC – Congressman Jim Oberstar says he will support the fiscal year 2008 omnibus appropriations bill that is coming before Congress today, even though it does not meet the long term needs on the country.
“This bill falls far short of the mark, but this budget package represents an improvement from President Bush’s misguided budget priorities,” said Oberstar. “I’m not happy with the bill, but it includes funding for many important Minnesota projects , including the final $195 million to replace the I-35W bridge, as well as over $90 million in funding for important projects and programs in Minnesota and the 8th District.”
Earlier this year, Congress approved a $500 billion defense spending bill that contains a $40 billion increase over fiscal year 2007 for the Department of Defense; that defense bill did not contain war funding which the Bush Administration designates as emergency funding. President Bush, however, was unwilling to accept an additional $22 billion sought by the new Democratic majority for the remaining 11 spending bills that fund our federal government. As a result, President Bush has succeeded in blocking essential investments in health care, education, and transportation.
“We wanted to take the equivalent of what we spend in Iraq in just two months and invest it in our own country. The President is spending billions in Iraq, but when it’s time to take care of our citizens here, he is not willing to compromise,” said Oberstar.
“The American people expect Congress to be fiscally disciplined, and to make investments that improve their quality of life that will save tax dollars in the long run,” continued Oberstar. “We were able to target funding to projects that are important to local communities; at the same time, we have enacted significant reforms in the earmarking process. The total amount of congressional earmarks is down by 42 percent over 2006, the last year of the Republican-led Congress.”
###
The omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2008 is a combination of eleven appropriations bills that had already passed the House of Representatives. This spending bill also incorporates many of the compromises congressional leaders made with the White House.
Below is a list of funding for programs and projects included in this legislation at the request of Congressman Jim Oberstar:
Agriculture
• Wolf Predation Management in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, $779,000
Commerce-Justice-Science
• Northeast Law Enforcement Administrators Council, Methamphetamine Reduction Project - $747,300. To establish and enhance law enforcement task force efforts to reduce and eliminate the manufacturing, sale and distribution of methamphetamine and other drug related issues in Northeast Minnesota.
• Itasca County for the 9-11 Radio System - $376,000. This funding will allow Itasca County first responders, ambulance services, fire fighters, and law enforcement personnel to communicate with each other by tying into the 800 MHz System.
• Sheriffs Youth Programs of Minnesota Vocational Alternatives for Youth Offenders $47,000. This program expands vocational and life-skills training for at-risk youth.
• Minnesota State Patrol Districts located in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District - $47,000. To equip and train 100 State Patrol officers in Northeast Minnesota with state-of-the-art tasers.
• Minnesota State Patrol Districts in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District - $32,900. To purchase five K-9s to use for drug detection and seizure in Northeast Minnesota. Two K-9s will be assigned to the Virginia district, two to Brainerd and one to the Duluth district. The K-9s would be used on a daily basis for routine drug interdiction patrol duties and would also be available 24/7 to assist all area law enforcement agencies free of charge.
• Minnesota State Patrol Districts in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District - $18,800. To equip 100 state troopers assigned to Northeast Minnesota with digital cameras to be used for gathering evidence and documenting motor vehicle crash scenes.
Energy and Water
• Army Corps of Engineers Section 569 program, $1,873,000. In 1999 Oberstar created this program to fund water and sewer infrastructure projects in communities across Northeast Minnesota.
• Mille Lacs Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant project, $936,000.
• Laurentian Energy Authority Biomass project, $1 million.
• Koochiching County, $400,000 for the Renewable Energy Clean Air project
• Duluth-Superior Harbor, $4,028,000 for operation and maintenance
• Two Harbors Harbor of Refuge site, $340,000 for operation and maintenance.
Financial Services
• Northeast Entrepreneur Fund, Virginia, $282,000. To provide technical assistance to small businesses.
Homeland Security
• Arrowhead Regional Development Commission, $450,000 for FEMA pre-disaster mitigation. This funding will help local residents prevent property damage from fire and other natural disasters.
Interior
• City of Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Public Utilities Commission, $1,000,000 for wastewater treatment facility.
• Koochiching Forest Legacy project, $3,500,000.
• Superior National Forest, $1, 250,000 for land acquisition.
Labor-HHS-Education
• Lutheran Social Services, Duluth, $390,000 for services to runaway, homeless and other at-risk youth and their families.
• Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency, Virginia, $292,000 for the Family-to-Family community based mentoring program to assist low-income families.
• Independent School District 181, Brainerd, $146,000 for its Teacher Support System project.
Military Construction
• Camp Ripley, $12,600,000 for the Combined Arms Collective Training Facility Phase II.
• Duluth 148th Air National Guard, $1,500,000 for a wing storage facility.
Transportation - HUD
• NorthStar Commuter Rail, MN, $55,000,000. The NorthStar Commuter Rail is a 40-mile commuter rail line running from Big Lake to downtown Minneapolis with intermediate stations in Elk River, Anoka, and Coon Rapids. The project includes a five block extension of the Hiawatha LRT line to reach the downtown Minneapolis commuter rail station.
• Cambridge - Isanti Bike/Walk Trail, Cambridge, MN, $700,000. This project will provide a safe non-motorized route for students to school, residents and visitors to travel between the two communities.
• I-35/ MN TH95, North Branch, MN, $1,500,000. This funding will be used to reconstruct the interchange with I-35 and provides TH95 improvements in the City of North Branch.
• TH38 Improvements, Itasca County, MN, $500,000. This funding will provide the strengthening necessary to safely post this section of TH38 for 10 tons.
• Transit Bus Facilities, Duluth, MN, $400,000, to improve transit facilities in Duluth including: downtown hub, transfer facility, passenger facility improvements and operation center improvements, electronic fare improvements, security.
• Mesabi Academy of KidsPeace, Buhl, MN, $150,000. This funding will be used to expand its facility to provide additional therapeutic services.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Washington DC – Congressman Jim Oberstar says he will support the fiscal year 2008 omnibus appropriations bill that is coming before Congress today, even though it does not meet the long term needs on the country.
“This bill falls far short of the mark, but this budget package represents an improvement from President Bush’s misguided budget priorities,” said Oberstar. “I’m not happy with the bill, but it includes funding for many important Minnesota projects , including the final $195 million to replace the I-35W bridge, as well as over $90 million in funding for important projects and programs in Minnesota and the 8th District.”
Earlier this year, Congress approved a $500 billion defense spending bill that contains a $40 billion increase over fiscal year 2007 for the Department of Defense; that defense bill did not contain war funding which the Bush Administration designates as emergency funding. President Bush, however, was unwilling to accept an additional $22 billion sought by the new Democratic majority for the remaining 11 spending bills that fund our federal government. As a result, President Bush has succeeded in blocking essential investments in health care, education, and transportation.
“We wanted to take the equivalent of what we spend in Iraq in just two months and invest it in our own country. The President is spending billions in Iraq, but when it’s time to take care of our citizens here, he is not willing to compromise,” said Oberstar.
“The American people expect Congress to be fiscally disciplined, and to make investments that improve their quality of life that will save tax dollars in the long run,” continued Oberstar. “We were able to target funding to projects that are important to local communities; at the same time, we have enacted significant reforms in the earmarking process. The total amount of congressional earmarks is down by 42 percent over 2006, the last year of the Republican-led Congress.”
###
The omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2008 is a combination of eleven appropriations bills that had already passed the House of Representatives. This spending bill also incorporates many of the compromises congressional leaders made with the White House.
Below is a list of funding for programs and projects included in this legislation at the request of Congressman Jim Oberstar:
Agriculture
• Wolf Predation Management in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, $779,000
Commerce-Justice-Science
• Northeast Law Enforcement Administrators Council, Methamphetamine Reduction Project - $747,300. To establish and enhance law enforcement task force efforts to reduce and eliminate the manufacturing, sale and distribution of methamphetamine and other drug related issues in Northeast Minnesota.
• Itasca County for the 9-11 Radio System - $376,000. This funding will allow Itasca County first responders, ambulance services, fire fighters, and law enforcement personnel to communicate with each other by tying into the 800 MHz System.
• Sheriffs Youth Programs of Minnesota Vocational Alternatives for Youth Offenders $47,000. This program expands vocational and life-skills training for at-risk youth.
• Minnesota State Patrol Districts located in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District - $47,000. To equip and train 100 State Patrol officers in Northeast Minnesota with state-of-the-art tasers.
• Minnesota State Patrol Districts in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District - $32,900. To purchase five K-9s to use for drug detection and seizure in Northeast Minnesota. Two K-9s will be assigned to the Virginia district, two to Brainerd and one to the Duluth district. The K-9s would be used on a daily basis for routine drug interdiction patrol duties and would also be available 24/7 to assist all area law enforcement agencies free of charge.
• Minnesota State Patrol Districts in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District - $18,800. To equip 100 state troopers assigned to Northeast Minnesota with digital cameras to be used for gathering evidence and documenting motor vehicle crash scenes.
Energy and Water
• Army Corps of Engineers Section 569 program, $1,873,000. In 1999 Oberstar created this program to fund water and sewer infrastructure projects in communities across Northeast Minnesota.
• Mille Lacs Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant project, $936,000.
• Laurentian Energy Authority Biomass project, $1 million.
• Koochiching County, $400,000 for the Renewable Energy Clean Air project
• Duluth-Superior Harbor, $4,028,000 for operation and maintenance
• Two Harbors Harbor of Refuge site, $340,000 for operation and maintenance.
Financial Services
• Northeast Entrepreneur Fund, Virginia, $282,000. To provide technical assistance to small businesses.
Homeland Security
• Arrowhead Regional Development Commission, $450,000 for FEMA pre-disaster mitigation. This funding will help local residents prevent property damage from fire and other natural disasters.
Interior
• City of Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Public Utilities Commission, $1,000,000 for wastewater treatment facility.
• Koochiching Forest Legacy project, $3,500,000.
• Superior National Forest, $1, 250,000 for land acquisition.
Labor-HHS-Education
• Lutheran Social Services, Duluth, $390,000 for services to runaway, homeless and other at-risk youth and their families.
• Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency, Virginia, $292,000 for the Family-to-Family community based mentoring program to assist low-income families.
• Independent School District 181, Brainerd, $146,000 for its Teacher Support System project.
Military Construction
• Camp Ripley, $12,600,000 for the Combined Arms Collective Training Facility Phase II.
• Duluth 148th Air National Guard, $1,500,000 for a wing storage facility.
Transportation - HUD
• NorthStar Commuter Rail, MN, $55,000,000. The NorthStar Commuter Rail is a 40-mile commuter rail line running from Big Lake to downtown Minneapolis with intermediate stations in Elk River, Anoka, and Coon Rapids. The project includes a five block extension of the Hiawatha LRT line to reach the downtown Minneapolis commuter rail station.
• Cambridge - Isanti Bike/Walk Trail, Cambridge, MN, $700,000. This project will provide a safe non-motorized route for students to school, residents and visitors to travel between the two communities.
• I-35/ MN TH95, North Branch, MN, $1,500,000. This funding will be used to reconstruct the interchange with I-35 and provides TH95 improvements in the City of North Branch.
• TH38 Improvements, Itasca County, MN, $500,000. This funding will provide the strengthening necessary to safely post this section of TH38 for 10 tons.
• Transit Bus Facilities, Duluth, MN, $400,000, to improve transit facilities in Duluth including: downtown hub, transfer facility, passenger facility improvements and operation center improvements, electronic fare improvements, security.
• Mesabi Academy of KidsPeace, Buhl, MN, $150,000. This funding will be used to expand its facility to provide additional therapeutic services.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Duluth News Tribune | Drill maker challenges MSHA citation
Surprise, surprise, another mine company challenges safety citation after worker death. Read the story from Eveleth:
Duluth News Tribune | Drill maker challenges MSHA citation
Duluth News Tribune | Drill maker challenges MSHA citation
Friday, December 07, 2007
Duluth News Tribune | New analysis yields information about Iron Range miners with mesothelioma
Read this latest Duluth Tribune story about the link between fatal mesothelioma and miners in northeastern Minnesota:
Duluth News Tribune | New analysis yields information about Iron Range miners with mesothelioma
Duluth News Tribune | New analysis yields information about Iron Range miners with mesothelioma
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Everybody's a Decider (in Cook County)
As one arrogant and stupid man sends our nation on a fast track to disaster because he is The Decider, it's comforting and reassuring to live in Cook County where everybody's a Decider. For one thing, we have a vigilant media that attends public meetings and writes about them or airs them on radio and cable. Lucky us! The national MSM are either Fox Crazy or so dumbed down that they don't dare cover anything important. Not so here.
Ya, a buncha developers tried to buy up and make Grand Marais into Disneyville Mc Condos but the people stepped up to the plate. Now new standards are being written to protect the town from over-development.
And the West End townships are following suit. Most developers out there are locals, though that's not to say all of them want to conform to county and township zoning ordinances. No, you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to watch the bird catch the worm. But that's okay, all the Norwegians and Lutherans do that anyway. (Not so True but he catches up later on WTIP or at the post office grapevine)
Witness the recent request to have 55-foot high buildings on Lutsen Mountain which True has already written about. Lots of Deciders complained and now there at least is going to be a public review process.
As for the ATV Agenda, time and again all the Deciders have sent it back to the table. The latest U of M survey gives us hope that one of these times we'll get it right.
Tofte and Lutsen have engaged in wonderful public processes and created downtown visions and zoning ordinances that are just fabulous: forward looking, sustainable, beautiful. Schroeder has also created a zoning plan which is being challenged by a developer and that outcome remains to be seen.
People have been heard on issues like invasive cutting back of trees and vegetation by Arrowhead Electric, DNR's slash-and-burn at Cascade Park and Hovland, some fathead's idea to clear cut the trees along the Gunflint Trail... you name it, if something can be destroyed or developed somebody will try to do it.
As for those cagey folks at Homeland Security, they are keeping mum about the permanent (enduring?) base they want to construct in Grand Marais. The feds get to do that stuff and even our media can't find out what is going to happen.
So thank goodness their proposed military encampment to protect our border against terrists (as The Shrub calls them) will only be a mere 10 acres that we know of.
Keep watching and talking, Deciders of Cook County. You're the best.
Ya, a buncha developers tried to buy up and make Grand Marais into Disneyville Mc Condos but the people stepped up to the plate. Now new standards are being written to protect the town from over-development.
And the West End townships are following suit. Most developers out there are locals, though that's not to say all of them want to conform to county and township zoning ordinances. No, you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to watch the bird catch the worm. But that's okay, all the Norwegians and Lutherans do that anyway. (Not so True but he catches up later on WTIP or at the post office grapevine)
Witness the recent request to have 55-foot high buildings on Lutsen Mountain which True has already written about. Lots of Deciders complained and now there at least is going to be a public review process.
As for the ATV Agenda, time and again all the Deciders have sent it back to the table. The latest U of M survey gives us hope that one of these times we'll get it right.
Tofte and Lutsen have engaged in wonderful public processes and created downtown visions and zoning ordinances that are just fabulous: forward looking, sustainable, beautiful. Schroeder has also created a zoning plan which is being challenged by a developer and that outcome remains to be seen.
People have been heard on issues like invasive cutting back of trees and vegetation by Arrowhead Electric, DNR's slash-and-burn at Cascade Park and Hovland, some fathead's idea to clear cut the trees along the Gunflint Trail... you name it, if something can be destroyed or developed somebody will try to do it.
As for those cagey folks at Homeland Security, they are keeping mum about the permanent (enduring?) base they want to construct in Grand Marais. The feds get to do that stuff and even our media can't find out what is going to happen.
So thank goodness their proposed military encampment to protect our border against terrists (as The Shrub calls them) will only be a mere 10 acres that we know of.
Keep watching and talking, Deciders of Cook County. You're the best.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
We've got mail
Here's a letter from friends in St. Louis County who LOVE our blog and are working on the same issues we care about here. These sites have now been posted as links on True.
All of us who act locally can help each other. We at True are really happy to hear from Kristin:
Greetings!
Could you add links to a couple of organizations on your blog?
www.northernmnnews.com working to get accountability and transparency in the St. Louis County Commissioners
www.friendscvsf.org working for sustainable development (as opposed to rabid extractive anti environmental development) in the Cloquet Valley State Forest.
I can provide good references for the folks working on the above. : )
I LOVE your blog!
Kristin
All of us who act locally can help each other. We at True are really happy to hear from Kristin:
Greetings!
Could you add links to a couple of organizations on your blog?
www.northernmnnews.com working to get accountability and transparency in the St. Louis County Commissioners
www.friendscvsf.org working for sustainable development (as opposed to rabid extractive anti environmental development) in the Cloquet Valley State Forest.
I can provide good references for the folks working on the above. : )
I LOVE your blog!
Kristin
Friday, November 30, 2007
Social Capital Assessment
Here's a post from Boreal News of interest to all who care about Cook County. The benefits of social capital assessments are multiple and manifold. This theory, already adopted by scholars in many disciplines from evaluation/sociology to architecture and development, advocates for local communities. The idea is to inventory the community assets and then build on or strengthen them instead of the outside developer mentality of slash-and-burn.
Cook County is rich in social capital assets that include communities dedicated to the best interests of citizens and tourists.
Please, friends, if you can spare the time, consider taking part in this most important project that could have incredible impact on the long-term health and well being of our county:
Join us on Thursday, November 29 at 4:30 p.m. at the Cook County
Community Center to plan how this assessment will work in all parts of the
county. There is no charge to us as we are serving as a pilot project
for the U of M Extension. The information will be valuable for decision
makers.Contact the Community Center Extension Program to plan how this assessment will work in all parts of the county. There is no charge to us as we are serving as a pilot project.
We are looking for volunteers from all parts of Cook County to help with a county-wide social capital assessment. We want to set this up so that areas within the counties can determine how well their local
community is doing in terms of cooperating together for mutual benefit. This may differ between Schroeder, Gunflint Trail, or Grand Portage. The time commitment is one training session and getting folks to fill out the assessment in January.
If you are unable to attend the meeting but would be willing to help with the survey assessment in your part of the county, please contact Diane Booth at the Extension office at 387-3015.
Cook County is rich in social capital assets that include communities dedicated to the best interests of citizens and tourists.
Please, friends, if you can spare the time, consider taking part in this most important project that could have incredible impact on the long-term health and well being of our county:
Join us on Thursday, November 29 at 4:30 p.m. at the Cook County
Community Center to plan how this assessment will work in all parts of the
county. There is no charge to us as we are serving as a pilot project
for the U of M Extension. The information will be valuable for decision
makers.Contact the Community Center Extension Program to plan how this assessment will work in all parts of the county. There is no charge to us as we are serving as a pilot project.
We are looking for volunteers from all parts of Cook County to help with a county-wide social capital assessment. We want to set this up so that areas within the counties can determine how well their local
community is doing in terms of cooperating together for mutual benefit. This may differ between Schroeder, Gunflint Trail, or Grand Portage. The time commitment is one training session and getting folks to fill out the assessment in January.
If you are unable to attend the meeting but would be willing to help with the survey assessment in your part of the county, please contact Diane Booth at the Extension office at 387-3015.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
The Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
Notes from a nonviolent radical on the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
Dear readers,
True here. Guess I need to "out" as a radical in my comments on the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. Don't blame all of True; we are a collective like the musical group Anonymous Four. I've included the link to this story about the act passed by the House with virtually no opposition. The wusses don't dare to stand up and be counted. The presidential candidates as well as Speaker Pelosi were conveniently ABSENT.
The spin for this act is something nobody wants to sign on with: citizens who are radicals. I freely admit to being a radical, albeit nonviolent in the tradition of Gandhi. But in a government where the prez says we don't practice torture, when we DO practice torture, we need to ask who is using the violence here. The provisions of this act allow for "research" (read "spying") on anybody who dissents, ANYBODY. Less than one century ago, people were electrocuted and their careers destroyed by McCarthyism. Hearings on "anti-American" activities tarred all dissenters with the same brush. The shameful execution of the Rosenbergs, the black lists of many Hollywood writers and actors, the witch-like persecution of left wingers, probably provided the inspiration for the neocons who control the Bushco in creating this dastardly act.
My question is simple: With all of the existing "Patriot Act" mandates for spying, allowances for torture and "rendition" (meaning "disappearing into countries that torture"), dismantling of constitutional rights, etcetera etcetera etcetera, WHY do they NEED this act? And the only answer I can come up with is: they want to squelch ALL dissent and this act gives them the license.
Read the post:
The Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
Dear readers,
True here. Guess I need to "out" as a radical in my comments on the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. Don't blame all of True; we are a collective like the musical group Anonymous Four. I've included the link to this story about the act passed by the House with virtually no opposition. The wusses don't dare to stand up and be counted. The presidential candidates as well as Speaker Pelosi were conveniently ABSENT.
The spin for this act is something nobody wants to sign on with: citizens who are radicals. I freely admit to being a radical, albeit nonviolent in the tradition of Gandhi. But in a government where the prez says we don't practice torture, when we DO practice torture, we need to ask who is using the violence here. The provisions of this act allow for "research" (read "spying") on anybody who dissents, ANYBODY. Less than one century ago, people were electrocuted and their careers destroyed by McCarthyism. Hearings on "anti-American" activities tarred all dissenters with the same brush. The shameful execution of the Rosenbergs, the black lists of many Hollywood writers and actors, the witch-like persecution of left wingers, probably provided the inspiration for the neocons who control the Bushco in creating this dastardly act.
My question is simple: With all of the existing "Patriot Act" mandates for spying, allowances for torture and "rendition" (meaning "disappearing into countries that torture"), dismantling of constitutional rights, etcetera etcetera etcetera, WHY do they NEED this act? And the only answer I can come up with is: they want to squelch ALL dissent and this act gives them the license.
Read the post:
The Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Reversal of Endangered Species Rulings
Here's a link to an AP story about the lynx and other endangered species rulings. This is a national, not a local, story but we might be tarred with the Bushie Undue Influence Brush for wanting to exempt private landowners from the strict habitat rules since only nine percent of the county is privately owned.
Read on:
Reversal of Endangered Species Rulings
Read on:
Reversal of Endangered Species Rulings
Oh, look out: here comes the lynx habitat thing again
The fish and wildlife service is reopening the lynx critical habitat issue:
This is because of a determination that the original decison on this and six other rulings was based on politics and not science.
Big Brother is watching Us
Big Brother is watching you
Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. Well, actually, it’s a GPS satellite watching every move you make. In the wee hours, however, it truly is a plane flying surveillance through the night, shattering the peaceful silence of our North Shore nights for the last hundred years.
Around town there are lots of new, white unmarked vans but you can recognize them by the “DHS” on their license plates. That means “Department of Homeland Security,” doncha know. Does this make you feel more or less secure?
As for yours truly I don’t really have anything to hide; I put it all in the shop window. I spend my days writing letters and signing petitions in protest against the lawless abuses of the Bush administration: torture, illegal wars of aggression, warrantless surveillance, outright thievery in the name of privatization, dismantling governmental oversight that protects our air, water and food, cutting safety net programs for children, the poor, and the elderly while awarding billions in no-bid contracts to cronies, flouting the Constitution, the list goes on and on.
For me, it’s the principle of the thing: I thought I lived in a country where warrantless spying was illegal and a Man’s House is his Castle. Another president, Richard Nixon, got into big trouble for similar shenanigans but those were different times. Nixon was a pussycat compared to Bush and Cheney. He even dealt with the energy crisis by, gasp, asking Americans to conserve gas and drive more slowly. Too bad he was paranoid, but he didn’t really ever advocate the overthrow of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
So, maybe someday I will be “renditioned” for my opinions but probably not since I am free, white and well over 21. No, it’s the people of color who are targeted by the Border Patrol agents (unless said officers happen to be speeding along the Gunflint Trail and hit a man and a tree in the road). Some people say the agents speed a lot, just because they can. Just reporting the local gossip here.
Our sleepy county is asleep at the wheel here. Where is our righteous indignation, where is our rage? And where are the terrorists sneaking across the Pigeon River?
New True
Monday, November 26, 2007
Gmail - Minnesota's mining boom/Getting ready for a Range boom: / Duluth Metals receives metallurgical study...Anderson, Bethel
Here's the latest email post from Lori Andresen, our Mining Correspondent:
Gmail - Minnesota's mining boom/Getting ready for a Range boom: / Duluth Metals receives metallurgical study...Anderson, Bethel
Gmail - Minnesota's mining boom/Getting ready for a Range boom: / Duluth Metals receives metallurgical study...Anderson, Bethel
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The Poor Tax: Desperately poor in Grand Marais
Dear New True,
I am writing on behalf of the many near-poor who live in Cook County of whom I am one.
We mange to scrape by or we used to. But the recent cost increases for food, gas, heat and electricity not to mention health care have left use reeling.
I just now paid my electric bill to Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission. I hope the check won't bounce. If my payment is late I am charged a fee of eight percent of the bill. Even in Shakespeare's time this would be considered usury.
I normally receive something from Energy Assistance due to my low income. Last year the amount was cut by more than half, due to the huge numbers of applicants and the refusal of the Bush and Pawlenty administrations to provide more relief.
No matter how much I receive, I don't get any credit from Grand Marais PUC to offset the eight percent penalty. This works out to be a Poor Tax. I noticed this year that if I don't manage to pay what the state considers sufficient they will cut off all of my electric service except for heat and refrigerator.
In my case that would mean I could not do my self-employment w0rk which is the only source of paying my bill. My computer, phone and even my water source require electricity.
Most of us poor are too shy to speak out and I am also. I won't sign my name to this mainly because the PUC could make me a target, a horrible warning who dares to challenge their usury.
But I am an elderly person who has not been able to find a living wage job in Cook County in the wake of Repug iniaitives that give the big tax breaks to the filthy rich.... all of my jobs here have been cut, cut, cut to increase corporate profits.
This is just another impact of a Republican onslaught against poor people and for rich people, I know. And yet, the straw that breaks the camel's back for me is the poor tax of eight percent of my electric bill which no way can I pay on time.
Everything costs a lot more now, a result of our remote place at the tip of the Arrowhead and the challenge of getting goods and services here but also and most importantly on account of the vicious policies of the US government that spends billions on war for oil but nothing on renewable energy.
Hannah Jumana Banana
I am writing on behalf of the many near-poor who live in Cook County of whom I am one.
We mange to scrape by or we used to. But the recent cost increases for food, gas, heat and electricity not to mention health care have left use reeling.
I just now paid my electric bill to Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission. I hope the check won't bounce. If my payment is late I am charged a fee of eight percent of the bill. Even in Shakespeare's time this would be considered usury.
I normally receive something from Energy Assistance due to my low income. Last year the amount was cut by more than half, due to the huge numbers of applicants and the refusal of the Bush and Pawlenty administrations to provide more relief.
No matter how much I receive, I don't get any credit from Grand Marais PUC to offset the eight percent penalty. This works out to be a Poor Tax. I noticed this year that if I don't manage to pay what the state considers sufficient they will cut off all of my electric service except for heat and refrigerator.
In my case that would mean I could not do my self-employment w0rk which is the only source of paying my bill. My computer, phone and even my water source require electricity.
Most of us poor are too shy to speak out and I am also. I won't sign my name to this mainly because the PUC could make me a target, a horrible warning who dares to challenge their usury.
But I am an elderly person who has not been able to find a living wage job in Cook County in the wake of Repug iniaitives that give the big tax breaks to the filthy rich.... all of my jobs here have been cut, cut, cut to increase corporate profits.
This is just another impact of a Republican onslaught against poor people and for rich people, I know. And yet, the straw that breaks the camel's back for me is the poor tax of eight percent of my electric bill which no way can I pay on time.
Everything costs a lot more now, a result of our remote place at the tip of the Arrowhead and the challenge of getting goods and services here but also and most importantly on account of the vicious policies of the US government that spends billions on war for oil but nothing on renewable energy.
Hannah Jumana Banana
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Naomi Wolf: The End of America May Happen
Here's a post that I wish all would read, and especially the "young patriots" Naomi Wolf is writing to in her latest book. She despairs that the young are not taught their history in civics classes.
In recent years there has been a synapse gap between the past and the present. The past I grew up honoring: the US Constitution, the rule of law, the checks and balances among the three branches of government, the presumption of innocence, habeas corpus, and even the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness have all been challenged or simply cut off by a renegade administration which considers itself above the law. But worse, this has happened without a peep from the People who cower at their own shadow in the wake of manufactured fears.
The neocons who want an aristocracy of the super-rich, not a democracy, and don't have any scruples about pursuing it joyously seized on 9/11 as a way to destroy our free society.
That would be bad enough, but add to it the engendered debt of trillions for oil-wars to future generations, the reckless damage to the environment by the war machine and corporate profiteers (think about leveling the beautiful Appalachian mountains to get more coal, the dirtiest energy source except spent uranium and that's another story).....
Anyway I don't really want to rant. I would just like for civics classes and plain folks to read and consider the premises in this article:
Naomi Wolf: The End of America May Happen
In recent years there has been a synapse gap between the past and the present. The past I grew up honoring: the US Constitution, the rule of law, the checks and balances among the three branches of government, the presumption of innocence, habeas corpus, and even the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness have all been challenged or simply cut off by a renegade administration which considers itself above the law. But worse, this has happened without a peep from the People who cower at their own shadow in the wake of manufactured fears.
The neocons who want an aristocracy of the super-rich, not a democracy, and don't have any scruples about pursuing it joyously seized on 9/11 as a way to destroy our free society.
That would be bad enough, but add to it the engendered debt of trillions for oil-wars to future generations, the reckless damage to the environment by the war machine and corporate profiteers (think about leveling the beautiful Appalachian mountains to get more coal, the dirtiest energy source except spent uranium and that's another story).....
Anyway I don't really want to rant. I would just like for civics classes and plain folks to read and consider the premises in this article:
Naomi Wolf: The End of America May Happen
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Think globally, shop locally
Happy Thanksgiving! As the holiday season officially opens I love to give thanks for the wonderful privilege of living here in Cook County amid the woods overlooking Superior, Queen of Lakes. Lucky, lucky me.
But. This isn't a fuzzy, feel-good post. The choices I made to come and live here include not having the big bucks. I have traded them for the wealth of beauty that surrounds me and don't regret it even though it means I don't have a lot to spend on gifts.
Nonetheless, the dollars I do spend will be recycled back into our local economy. I was shocked last year to read in a News Herald straw poll that most people don't buy their gifts locally.
Well, ya, doncha know, we don't have all the stuff they sell at Toys R Us, Wal Mart, Target and all the other big box stores. For the excellent reason that we don't WANT these stores here. So why the hell would we want to go down to Duluth and Minneapolis, paying huge sums for gas to get there and at the same time squandering oil resources, adding more greenhouse gas emissions to global warming, supporting companies that don't pay a living wage to their workers and rack up profits by exploiting the international poor for cheap labor, while we are basically just buying more junk we don't need?
On the other hand, look at the benefits of shopping here. You might pay a few extra bucks but you have a huge choice of locally crafted gifts, original artwork, books and calendars by local authors, handcrafted chocolates, candies, candles and syrups, as well as unique opportunities to create your own cards and gifts that you won't find anywhere else. Take a class at North House, the Quilt Shop or the Art Colony or Community Education and learn to bake delicious breads or scones, potting, rosemaling, knitting, basket weaving, fabric arts to name only a few.
No time for that? Well, the awesome rounds of holiday arts and crafts shows will kick off this week at the Community Center on Saturday. There are items for every budget by many local artists and artisans.
If for some amazing reason you can't find anything you like, try Johnson Heritage Post, the Art Colony, North House's gift shop, the Hovland crafts sale, or Betsy Bowen's Art Underground sale and many others. The local papers and WTIP 'Community Calendar have all the information about when and where.
This doesn't even mention our wonderful bookstores, art galleries, Joynes Ben Franklin and even our eclectic hardware stores that offer fabulous stuff at reasonable if not big-box prices. When I was a kid about half a century ago there were lots of Ben Franklins but nowadays there is no other place like Joynes for "all your needs and necessities." Hey, if you can't get it in Cook County you and the people on your shopping list just don't need it.
Not to mention, you are supporting your friends and neighbors who like you have chosen to live here and need to earn a living.
May all of your holidays be filled with joy and local products. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Solstice and all the best for a New Year (Hogmanay) which surely has to be better than this one.
But. This isn't a fuzzy, feel-good post. The choices I made to come and live here include not having the big bucks. I have traded them for the wealth of beauty that surrounds me and don't regret it even though it means I don't have a lot to spend on gifts.
Nonetheless, the dollars I do spend will be recycled back into our local economy. I was shocked last year to read in a News Herald straw poll that most people don't buy their gifts locally.
Well, ya, doncha know, we don't have all the stuff they sell at Toys R Us, Wal Mart, Target and all the other big box stores. For the excellent reason that we don't WANT these stores here. So why the hell would we want to go down to Duluth and Minneapolis, paying huge sums for gas to get there and at the same time squandering oil resources, adding more greenhouse gas emissions to global warming, supporting companies that don't pay a living wage to their workers and rack up profits by exploiting the international poor for cheap labor, while we are basically just buying more junk we don't need?
On the other hand, look at the benefits of shopping here. You might pay a few extra bucks but you have a huge choice of locally crafted gifts, original artwork, books and calendars by local authors, handcrafted chocolates, candies, candles and syrups, as well as unique opportunities to create your own cards and gifts that you won't find anywhere else. Take a class at North House, the Quilt Shop or the Art Colony or Community Education and learn to bake delicious breads or scones, potting, rosemaling, knitting, basket weaving, fabric arts to name only a few.
No time for that? Well, the awesome rounds of holiday arts and crafts shows will kick off this week at the Community Center on Saturday. There are items for every budget by many local artists and artisans.
If for some amazing reason you can't find anything you like, try Johnson Heritage Post, the Art Colony, North House's gift shop, the Hovland crafts sale, or Betsy Bowen's Art Underground sale and many others. The local papers and WTIP 'Community Calendar have all the information about when and where.
This doesn't even mention our wonderful bookstores, art galleries, Joynes Ben Franklin and even our eclectic hardware stores that offer fabulous stuff at reasonable if not big-box prices. When I was a kid about half a century ago there were lots of Ben Franklins but nowadays there is no other place like Joynes for "all your needs and necessities." Hey, if you can't get it in Cook County you and the people on your shopping list just don't need it.
Not to mention, you are supporting your friends and neighbors who like you have chosen to live here and need to earn a living.
May all of your holidays be filled with joy and local products. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Solstice and all the best for a New Year (Hogmanay) which surely has to be better than this one.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Truth hurts
Truth hurts.
The rational rest of us are always entertained by the road rage rants in the local ATV rag on what currently bugs the Cook County ATV Club. But, I for one was hoping for something honest and new this week, like the price of gas making it so much more expensive to rampage. Or, rising outrage around the country about the number of children killed and injured in ATV accidents. Or, the fact that ATVs are getting banned in many parts of the country because of the damage they do to the landscape. Or, closer to home, about the difficulty of, on the one hand, proclaiming total abidance with the law by ATV owners everywhere (and especially here in Cook County), and on the other having to bear the ignominy of working with a club leader charged along with others for shooting from a moving vehicle. It has to be tough to declare just how law abiding the club leadership is, and how you are going to follow the rules and how you are going to police yourselves and know that no one believes a word you say. It is always the case that it’s not your enemies who eventually do you in, it is your friends. Well, the club did tell us the ranks of ATV enthusiasts include a lot of birders. But, let's get back on track.
No, none of those. What was the weekly rail directed at? ... The truth! At least the truth as reported in the recently distributed survey of Cook County residents regarding their attitudes toward ATV travel in the county. Thank you Sustainable Recreation Coalition!
The rag's reaction to the report on the survey was the usual knee jerk, but rather than ride along on the calumnious scribbles of the ATV club's literary wingette, get a copy of the report and have a look at the facts behind it - decide for yourself. The report was clearly based on a professionally conducted blind survey of the opinions of a random sample of Cook County residents. From what I read, the survey was conducted in a totally scientific manner and by a well respected researcher who the ATV industry itself has used, and it was done under the auspices of the University of Minnesota. The bottom line is that it is totally credible.
And, the report itself was, as they say, a fair and balanced presentation of the data contained in the survey. What the report showed is that, contrary to what the ATV club would have us all believe, a significant portion of Cook County residents do not want ATVs running rampant on county roads, etc. The ATV club has often been heard to profess that the majority of county residents favor them in their quest for wide open riding. The survey clearly demonstrates that is absolutely false. Most folks want reasonable restrictions on ATVs and, unlike the ATV club, no one wants the county turned in to an ATV destination. There is a litany of very rational and reasonable opinion on related concerns quantified in the survey and presented in the report, and it is clear that the facts are four square against the mis-information that the ATV club has been spreading. The bottom line is that the ATV club does not have the support they profess. The kind thing to say is that they are delusional.
What seems to particularly jamb the club's carburetors is that the Sustainable Recreation Coalition, the group that paid for the survey, had the temerity to report on it and to do so in a clear, fair and factual manner rather than obscure or distort the facts. Wow. Those four wheeling purveyors of fact and stalwarts of truth just don't get it that the world is not like them and that most of the county does not especially appreciate ATVs.
Not all the results of the survey benefit those who oppose the ATV club's position, but I am sure we all knew that the county is not of one mind on this issue. What we do now know, however, is that the majority of us have not fully inhaled the ATV club's exhaust. For over a year they have been spewing their noxious fantasies about overwhelming support for their pipe dreams of ATVs gone wild. Well, it just ain't so. The clear message from county residents is you can mess up your own yard, but we don't want you to ruin the neighborhood in the process. Hopefully the county commissioners come to the same conclusion. The ATV task force has not served the county well, and this whole issue should never have been given the consideration it has received. The board should not waste any more time on it.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Lutsen Mountain: the new Aspen?
There's a good reason for the 35 foot height limit for all building in Cook County. We are one of the few areas left in this nation with forests, wetlands, lakes and shoreland, thanks mainly to the fact that only nine percent of the county is privately owned. This keeps out the mega-developers, as does our zoning ordinances.
Look at many places that were once special destinations and now are just overdeveloped McMansions: South Florida, much of Colorado's ski resorts, Door County, Wisconsin--to name only a few.
By requesting a 55 foot building on Lutsen Mountain, Lutsen Mountain Corporation is opening Pandora's box. Once it happens there is no turning back and others will be scrambling to get on the bandwagon: witness the rental condo development fiasco in Grand Marais that finally ended after voters changed the City Council and the housing bubble deflated.
The argument in favor, as I read it, is mainly that higher means a smaller footprint. Surely this is specious. Every time I drive up Highway 61 I can't help but notice the Bavarian Castle owned by The Arnold, governor of over-developed California, perched on overhanging ledgerock for all to see and be awed.
People who come here, our bread-and-butter folks, love that we have kept our wild spaces and limited the size and scope of our developments.
Worst of all, without the questions asked by Lutsen supervisor Diane Parker, this travesty would have passed the town council with scarcely any public process. That's in sharp contrast to the excellent work done by the Lutsen Planning Committee and the U of M Center for Changing Landscapes on the town center and highway/bike trail configurations. Why the discrepancy?
The county's response is lukewarm with Bob Fenwick fussing about how height limits are determined and nobody really wanting to say No to such a big landowner and employer.
Development works best when it follows the guidelines set by open and inclusive public processes. Designs need to first of all preserve and protect our fragile ecosystem, which grows largely on fractured bedrock and is thereby vulnerable to stormwater erosion, non-source point pollution, and most of all over-development.
New True
Look at many places that were once special destinations and now are just overdeveloped McMansions: South Florida, much of Colorado's ski resorts, Door County, Wisconsin--to name only a few.
By requesting a 55 foot building on Lutsen Mountain, Lutsen Mountain Corporation is opening Pandora's box. Once it happens there is no turning back and others will be scrambling to get on the bandwagon: witness the rental condo development fiasco in Grand Marais that finally ended after voters changed the City Council and the housing bubble deflated.
The argument in favor, as I read it, is mainly that higher means a smaller footprint. Surely this is specious. Every time I drive up Highway 61 I can't help but notice the Bavarian Castle owned by The Arnold, governor of over-developed California, perched on overhanging ledgerock for all to see and be awed.
People who come here, our bread-and-butter folks, love that we have kept our wild spaces and limited the size and scope of our developments.
Worst of all, without the questions asked by Lutsen supervisor Diane Parker, this travesty would have passed the town council with scarcely any public process. That's in sharp contrast to the excellent work done by the Lutsen Planning Committee and the U of M Center for Changing Landscapes on the town center and highway/bike trail configurations. Why the discrepancy?
The county's response is lukewarm with Bob Fenwick fussing about how height limits are determined and nobody really wanting to say No to such a big landowner and employer.
Development works best when it follows the guidelines set by open and inclusive public processes. Designs need to first of all preserve and protect our fragile ecosystem, which grows largely on fractured bedrock and is thereby vulnerable to stormwater erosion, non-source point pollution, and most of all over-development.
New True
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The silent sports majority speaks
The results are in for Cook County: most of us don't want to be an ATV destination. We love the peace and silence of the woods and we want to protect, not destroy, the fragile infrastructure that sustains our flora and fauna. This includes our ditches, which serve an important purpose in stormwater runoff and are damaged by big ATV tires.
Here are the numbers, crunched by the U of M Tourism Center with a 56 percent response rate (amazingly high) of Cook County residents:
* 78 percent oppose ATVs on paved roadways.
* 57 percent oppose ATVs on shoulders of paved roadways.
* 65 percent oppose ATV riding in ditches in residential areas.
* 53 percent favor closing most public lands to ATV use.
* 49 percent would confine ATV riders to their own property to minimize damage to public lands.
AND....
* 60 percent do not want Cook County promoted as an ATV destination.
A super-majority of residents (71 percent) don't own ATVs and nearly two-thirds don't own snowmobiles.
The U of M report recommends environmental assessments, a "Safe, Quiet and Wild Cook County" tourism task force, proposals for ATV use on private lands and other steps to minimize ATV impact on us silent sports majority.
Request an e-mail copy of the survey from sustainable-recreation-coalition@hughes.net.
New True
Here are the numbers, crunched by the U of M Tourism Center with a 56 percent response rate (amazingly high) of Cook County residents:
* 78 percent oppose ATVs on paved roadways.
* 57 percent oppose ATVs on shoulders of paved roadways.
* 65 percent oppose ATV riding in ditches in residential areas.
* 53 percent favor closing most public lands to ATV use.
* 49 percent would confine ATV riders to their own property to minimize damage to public lands.
AND....
* 60 percent do not want Cook County promoted as an ATV destination.
A super-majority of residents (71 percent) don't own ATVs and nearly two-thirds don't own snowmobiles.
The U of M report recommends environmental assessments, a "Safe, Quiet and Wild Cook County" tourism task force, proposals for ATV use on private lands and other steps to minimize ATV impact on us silent sports majority.
Request an e-mail copy of the survey from sustainable-recreation-coalition@hughes.net.
New True
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Who is he and what was he smoking?
The tragic death of Ken Petersen, whose only crime was being a good Samaritan and cutting up a downed tree on the Gunflint Trail, raises a lot of scary questions about the good old boy network in Cook County.
Ken was killed by a Border Patrol agent who claims he didn't see either the man or the tree blocking the road. What was he smoking?
More to the point, why is his name not released? In any other road accident there is no secrecy. But the Homeland Honchos have their perks, I guess.
Routinely, the state patrol issues tickets whenever there is a road accident, no matter whether anyone is hurt or any property is damaged. When a ticket is issued, the driver gets listed on the Court Report. County Judge Kenneth Sandvik declares that this is totally okay. So, why does a Border Patrol agent get special treatment? Who is this guy?
It's all part of the special privileges granted to "Homeland Security" as I see it. They get to do all sorts of bad stuff because... well, just because they can.
Ken Petersen was an exceptional person, brilliant and good and kind. Yes, accidents do happen, BUT. I know I would never hit a person and/or a tree in the road; if my vision got that bad I would quit driving.
People, ask questions.
New True
Ken was killed by a Border Patrol agent who claims he didn't see either the man or the tree blocking the road. What was he smoking?
More to the point, why is his name not released? In any other road accident there is no secrecy. But the Homeland Honchos have their perks, I guess.
Routinely, the state patrol issues tickets whenever there is a road accident, no matter whether anyone is hurt or any property is damaged. When a ticket is issued, the driver gets listed on the Court Report. County Judge Kenneth Sandvik declares that this is totally okay. So, why does a Border Patrol agent get special treatment? Who is this guy?
It's all part of the special privileges granted to "Homeland Security" as I see it. They get to do all sorts of bad stuff because... well, just because they can.
Ken Petersen was an exceptional person, brilliant and good and kind. Yes, accidents do happen, BUT. I know I would never hit a person and/or a tree in the road; if my vision got that bad I would quit driving.
People, ask questions.
New True
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Duluth News Tribune | Water bill becomes law with Senate override: Millions aimed at Northland projects
Our precious water: please read the excellent linked article by Duluth Tribune writer John Myers about how critically the water bill vetoed by The Unitary Executive but approved by Congress after all will impact our environment and our safe and clean waters:
Duluth News Tribune | Water bill becomes law with Senate override: Millions aimed at Northland projects
Duluth News Tribune | Water bill becomes law with Senate override: Millions aimed at Northland projects
Monday, November 05, 2007
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar: Congress Will Override Bush Veto
The latest Bush veto affects harbor improvements in Grand Marais as well as many, many significant water infrastructure projects. Thanks to our Rep. Jim and other members of Congress for a first--a veto override--and one that makes our lakes and waterways much safer for the future, for our children. Here's the press release:
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar: Congress Will Override Bush Veto
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar: Congress Will Override Bush Veto
Friday, November 02, 2007
White Trash
Dear New True,
Recently I have been letting my foolish young puppy run free in the seasonally-empty hockey rink, where she is safe from wolves, bears and other predators.
Every day when I arrive I find more "white trash." I call it white because the people who dump it are 99 percent white. Yucky cigarette butts by the dozen; where did smokers get the idea they could throw their ugly filter butts that don't break down like organic waste? Not to mention pencils, legos, broken glass, plastic bottles and tin cans, gum and candy and cake wrappers.... Most of this trash could be recycled and none of it is biodegradable. What culprits does that sound like to you?
My guess is, kids partying at night. Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods?
I've seen lots of other evidence that kids see the whole county as their personal trash can. On my private road, for instance, I find beer and pop cans, food wrappers and broken bottles. I even found the remains of a campfire during the fire ban this summer. Or just look at the road ditches. One day I saw a kid snowmobiling down Broadway who tossed a liter-sized plastic pop bottle on the sidewalk.
What is the deal here? Were these brats brought up in a barn? Where are their parents, or did they learn these bad habits from same?
Cook County sells beauty to tourists. Anybody who destroys that beauty deserves to be called to account. Community service is what I suggest, because the parents won't be able to do that for them. I would assign them the job of cleaning up all the white trash after school so at least they wouldn't have time to throw out more.
As for me, I pick up after myself and my dog but not the white trash folks. That just "enables" their bad behavior.
Yours truly,
Pooper Scooper
Recently I have been letting my foolish young puppy run free in the seasonally-empty hockey rink, where she is safe from wolves, bears and other predators.
Every day when I arrive I find more "white trash." I call it white because the people who dump it are 99 percent white. Yucky cigarette butts by the dozen; where did smokers get the idea they could throw their ugly filter butts that don't break down like organic waste? Not to mention pencils, legos, broken glass, plastic bottles and tin cans, gum and candy and cake wrappers.... Most of this trash could be recycled and none of it is biodegradable. What culprits does that sound like to you?
My guess is, kids partying at night. Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods?
I've seen lots of other evidence that kids see the whole county as their personal trash can. On my private road, for instance, I find beer and pop cans, food wrappers and broken bottles. I even found the remains of a campfire during the fire ban this summer. Or just look at the road ditches. One day I saw a kid snowmobiling down Broadway who tossed a liter-sized plastic pop bottle on the sidewalk.
What is the deal here? Were these brats brought up in a barn? Where are their parents, or did they learn these bad habits from same?
Cook County sells beauty to tourists. Anybody who destroys that beauty deserves to be called to account. Community service is what I suggest, because the parents won't be able to do that for them. I would assign them the job of cleaning up all the white trash after school so at least they wouldn't have time to throw out more.
As for me, I pick up after myself and my dog but not the white trash folks. That just "enables" their bad behavior.
Yours truly,
Pooper Scooper
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar Bill Addresses Structurally Deficient Bridges
Jim Oberstar is looking out for our safety and our decaying infrastructure even if no other politician gives a, er, hooey.
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar Bill Addresses Structurally Deficient Bridges
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar Bill Addresses Structurally Deficient Bridges
Monday, October 29, 2007
Great Lakes Key Front in Water Wars - CommonDreams.org
What do you think about piping our Lake Superior water down to New Mexico? Check out this story at the link below and marvel at its fact-challenged premise that we have more water than we need. Granted we had a recent deluge but before that, lake levels were at an unprecedented low, so much so that some ships could not dock in the Grand Portage Harbor as they had done for many years.
How dare these people demand our precious and fragile water that sustains our precious and fragile woodlands and wetlands?
New True
Great Lakes Key Front in Water Wars - CommonDreams.org: "While the West burns and the Southeast bakes, there is little to suggest a large-scale, climatological catastrophe"
How dare these people demand our precious and fragile water that sustains our precious and fragile woodlands and wetlands?
New True
Great Lakes Key Front in Water Wars - CommonDreams.org: "While the West burns and the Southeast bakes, there is little to suggest a large-scale, climatological catastrophe"
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Special Session
So, as of last night, we are to be blessed with a one day special session for the benefit of the state's flood victims and the I-35W bridge disaster and all it implies in terms of daily travel dangers continues to be ignored.You have to admire Governor Pawlenty. He always knows where his voters live and carefully weighs the need to pander to the no-tax lobby regardless of how many of his fellow citizens are killed in a bridge collapse or how dire the need for transportation improvements in the state. At least it is only one day.
Must be a lot of conservative voters who got their feet wet in the floods. Too many for either the no-tax folks or Pawlenty to ignore. Even though the common good and common sense demand action on transportation, the no-tax dogmatists just can't bring themselves to do what is best for the state and fix the roads and bridges.
The following poem from today's Minneapolis Star Tribune says it far Truer than even the New True can.
August 2, 2007: American News
By: Bill Holm
More black news from Minnesota.
A bridge over the Mississippi falls down: nine dead, twenty missing, details unclear...
All this arrives in half-understood Icelandic over state radio while I am driving to Akureyri.
I imagine cars hurtling over the interstate bridge down into the now-tepid waters of the river.
The sky above a humid hundred, cries and shrieks muffled in the saturated air.
Bridges are not supposed to fall down in invincible "can-do" America.
The Brooklyn Bridge does not fall down.
The iron gates of the locks in the Panama Canal have opened and closed every day since 1913.
The generators hum below the Hoover Dam to feed the electrical jolt that cools, lights and irrigates the west.
The motor in the old Buick purrs after 250,000 miles.
We build to last! We are the world's engineers!
Suddenly we lose all our steadily stupider wars; the currency evaporates, we're afraid of every moving shadow.
The Fed-Ex clerk in Minneapolis has never heard of Iceland.
That in Europe? We don't deliver there. Where's Retchivelt?
The code book lies on the table in front of him: number 286.
But he either can't or won't read it.
So goes business -- as Charles Wilson said: the business of America.
Three quarters of us believe in a personal god who saves and punishes.
Three quarters of us can't find Canada, France, or the Pacific on a map.
We believe in one true god, but not in geography.
Every day Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan appear in the ReykjavÃk newspapers: what are they up to now?
Tomorrow I suppose it will be pictures of cars dropping off a collapsed bridge;
Down into the Father of Waters that divides us, east from west,
The waters that begin in Scandinavian, safe, efficient Minnesota and now will carry bodies downstream in the current through 27 locks and dams that may or may not open and close and open again as they are directed so that the ghosts can make their way toward whatever is left of New Orleans.
Oh United States! Walt Whitman thought you might wake up -- though he was not sure -- and he wept for you.
Your sleep is deeper now than ever before and none of your "information systems" are worth a damn to wake you or to hold up the girders of whatever bridge might carry you through even one more century of history.
Must be a lot of conservative voters who got their feet wet in the floods. Too many for either the no-tax folks or Pawlenty to ignore. Even though the common good and common sense demand action on transportation, the no-tax dogmatists just can't bring themselves to do what is best for the state and fix the roads and bridges.
The following poem from today's Minneapolis Star Tribune says it far Truer than even the New True can.
August 2, 2007: American News
By: Bill Holm
More black news from Minnesota.
A bridge over the Mississippi falls down: nine dead, twenty missing, details unclear...
All this arrives in half-understood Icelandic over state radio while I am driving to Akureyri.
I imagine cars hurtling over the interstate bridge down into the now-tepid waters of the river.
The sky above a humid hundred, cries and shrieks muffled in the saturated air.
Bridges are not supposed to fall down in invincible "can-do" America.
The Brooklyn Bridge does not fall down.
The iron gates of the locks in the Panama Canal have opened and closed every day since 1913.
The generators hum below the Hoover Dam to feed the electrical jolt that cools, lights and irrigates the west.
The motor in the old Buick purrs after 250,000 miles.
We build to last! We are the world's engineers!
Suddenly we lose all our steadily stupider wars; the currency evaporates, we're afraid of every moving shadow.
The Fed-Ex clerk in Minneapolis has never heard of Iceland.
That in Europe? We don't deliver there. Where's Retchivelt?
The code book lies on the table in front of him: number 286.
But he either can't or won't read it.
So goes business -- as Charles Wilson said: the business of America.
Three quarters of us believe in a personal god who saves and punishes.
Three quarters of us can't find Canada, France, or the Pacific on a map.
We believe in one true god, but not in geography.
Every day Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan appear in the ReykjavÃk newspapers: what are they up to now?
Tomorrow I suppose it will be pictures of cars dropping off a collapsed bridge;
Down into the Father of Waters that divides us, east from west,
The waters that begin in Scandinavian, safe, efficient Minnesota and now will carry bodies downstream in the current through 27 locks and dams that may or may not open and close and open again as they are directed so that the ghosts can make their way toward whatever is left of New Orleans.
Oh United States! Walt Whitman thought you might wake up -- though he was not sure -- and he wept for you.
Your sleep is deeper now than ever before and none of your "information systems" are worth a damn to wake you or to hold up the girders of whatever bridge might carry you through even one more century of history.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Senator Craig - So What!
The bizarre story of soon to be ex Senator Craig serves not only as a perfect example of the stupidity that seems to infect so many of those we elect to serve us in Washington, but also gives a clear indication of the character of the leadership of the GOP party. Craig is gay or he isn't; it’s his business, not ours. He is however a victim of his own arrogance in letting himself be entrapped by the police, and an equal victim of the GOP Senate leadership's own anti-gay bias and willingness to turn on one of their own. Clearly, as one commentator noted, sympathy is not a GOP family value. But, the rest of us are culpable too, for tolerating a society that so marginalizes those of us who are different in any way that they are driven to such a desperate state.
So, where is the victim? Other than Craig, who is hardly a sympathetic character, I can't find one. Craig and the rest of Washington are rife with hypocrisy and mendacity. Where is the news in that? Craig is just one in long line of politicians, lately mostly Republicans, but with a good share of Democrats, who feel that they are exempt from any obligation to tell truth. Truth telling is to be left to others.
Virtually every single politician who has found himself caught with a hand in the cookie jar, up a skirt, or under an adjoining stall, has lied about it or tried to bury it and has come to see that lead to an unraveling of a career, a life, or a legacy. Rule number one for all who go to Washington - listen to mom; if you did it, 'fess up, it will go much easier. Instead, the first response is always to duck from any personal responsibility.
To be fair, the penchant for prevarication is not just a Republican strong suit. It is a hand that both sides of the aisle play. However, it seems to be the rule in the present Republican Party and the exception on the Democratic side. The problem for the Republicans is that the theme of the present administration is embrace the lie, both the big and the little, and it starts at the top with King George and First Lord of the Realm, Dick Cheney.
The Craig fiasco is as much a result of the king's policy of trickle down mendacity, tempered with callous disregard for common sense, as of Craig’s own character flaws. Integrity is not the currency of George's kingdom, so Craig is no surprise.
Craig twists in the wind and the beleaguered GOP rushes praise themselves for jettisoning him, but most of us have taken a "who cares" attitude. While rightfully concerned about the apparent entrapment, and baffled by Craig's inexplicable response, we are not at all surprised by the GOP leadership's rush for the exits, but that's certainly not new. No, the real news is that as a society we, except for the GOP senators, seem to care very little about this whole event other than we may enjoy the entertainment inherent in a public exposure of GOP hypocrisy.
New True
So, where is the victim? Other than Craig, who is hardly a sympathetic character, I can't find one. Craig and the rest of Washington are rife with hypocrisy and mendacity. Where is the news in that? Craig is just one in long line of politicians, lately mostly Republicans, but with a good share of Democrats, who feel that they are exempt from any obligation to tell truth. Truth telling is to be left to others.
Virtually every single politician who has found himself caught with a hand in the cookie jar, up a skirt, or under an adjoining stall, has lied about it or tried to bury it and has come to see that lead to an unraveling of a career, a life, or a legacy. Rule number one for all who go to Washington - listen to mom; if you did it, 'fess up, it will go much easier. Instead, the first response is always to duck from any personal responsibility.
To be fair, the penchant for prevarication is not just a Republican strong suit. It is a hand that both sides of the aisle play. However, it seems to be the rule in the present Republican Party and the exception on the Democratic side. The problem for the Republicans is that the theme of the present administration is embrace the lie, both the big and the little, and it starts at the top with King George and First Lord of the Realm, Dick Cheney.
The Craig fiasco is as much a result of the king's policy of trickle down mendacity, tempered with callous disregard for common sense, as of Craig’s own character flaws. Integrity is not the currency of George's kingdom, so Craig is no surprise.
Craig twists in the wind and the beleaguered GOP rushes praise themselves for jettisoning him, but most of us have taken a "who cares" attitude. While rightfully concerned about the apparent entrapment, and baffled by Craig's inexplicable response, we are not at all surprised by the GOP leadership's rush for the exits, but that's certainly not new. No, the real news is that as a society we, except for the GOP senators, seem to care very little about this whole event other than we may enjoy the entertainment inherent in a public exposure of GOP hypocrisy.
New True
Monday, August 27, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Lawmaker says fuel tax could fund bridge fixes - Yahoo! News
Rep. Oberstar, the chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, asks for a temporary national gas and oil tax that would provide billions for bridges. Let's face it, folks, if you want safe roads and bridges you have to pay for them. Read the MSM story:
Lawmaker says fuel tax could fund bridge fixes - Yahoo! News
Lawmaker says fuel tax could fund bridge fixes - Yahoo! News
Wiretap Bill Roils Liberal Base
More bloggers assail doofus Dems. True says, there is always an alternative. Instead of caving, the party elected to save the Constitution and stop the war could JUST SAY NO. But, no. They are so lily-livered they can't stand on their own feet (sorry about the mixed metaphor). So far they have voted to continue funding the war and to make illegal spying legal.
Read this:
Wiretap Bill Roils Liberal Base
Read this:
Wiretap Bill Roils Liberal Base
Monday, August 06, 2007
Scrubbing the air
True hates ugly, smelly, polluting and global-warming coal plants. Minnesota Power's Tac Harbor project was reviewed in this Strib story. Two points of interest:
One, "air shed." This means the area covered by polluting toxic emissions from Tac Harbor and it covers all of Cook County including our national and state forests. The glowing PowerPoint presentations by MP don't really say much about this damage. They are basically trying to keep their filthy coal plant going far into the future by posing as cutting edge clean.
Two, "scrubbing" to reduce mercury and other toxic emissions has ZERO effect on global warming. Read the story below.
True
Scrubbing the air
One, "air shed." This means the area covered by polluting toxic emissions from Tac Harbor and it covers all of Cook County including our national and state forests. The glowing PowerPoint presentations by MP don't really say much about this damage. They are basically trying to keep their filthy coal plant going far into the future by posing as cutting edge clean.
Two, "scrubbing" to reduce mercury and other toxic emissions has ZERO effect on global warming. Read the story below.
True
Scrubbing the air
The Soft Underbelly of the Democratic Party - CommonDreams.org
Since the vote by Congress to support warrantless spying on all Americans, the blogosphere has been buzzing. Hmm, Minnesota "Nice" folks don't like Minnesota Mad Belding; they prefer to sit back and ignore the evil around them while making nasty cracks at the people who speak out.
Even the stuffy New York Times is with Belding on this one, though not using the "H" word. Oh my goodness, how NOT nice.
The frustration is not being listened to by any of the three branches of government which are supposed to check and balance each other. The Rage is that the Congress has given retroactive approval to the crimes of Bushco.
True
Read this Common Dreams post; others will follow:
The Soft Underbelly of the Democratic Party - CommonDreams.org
Even the stuffy New York Times is with Belding on this one, though not using the "H" word. Oh my goodness, how NOT nice.
The frustration is not being listened to by any of the three branches of government which are supposed to check and balance each other. The Rage is that the Congress has given retroactive approval to the crimes of Bushco.
True
Read this Common Dreams post; others will follow:
The Soft Underbelly of the Democratic Party - CommonDreams.org
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Minnesota Mad: Disgust and rage
Dear True,
No, not love and happiness, not today. I have nothing but disgust and rage for the politicians of this country, ALL of them (well, almost).
As for Mr. No New Taxes Pawlenty, he bears a great share of the responsibility for the lives lost and maimed in the Minneapolis bridge collapse, not to mention the fear and terror of the rest of us who must entrust our lives to structurally unsound bridges, having vetoed a major transportation bill in 2005 that would have addressed the state's aging road infrastructure.
As for the evil cowboy Mr. Photo Op Bush, he bears an even greater burden of this guilt, having squandered the resources paid by taxpayers in the assumption that they will be spent to keep bridges and levees and roads and waterways and sewers and .... well, everything we depend on for life and health, safe. No, better to spend a couple trillion dollars killing off people in Iraq and destroying THEIR infrastructure completely, so his Texas cronies continue to reap megaprofits from oil and get no-bid private contracts to run the war. Who gives a flying fuck that the people of Baghdad don't have any water? That Iraqis working with Americans have separate (presumably not equal) bathrooms and meals? That millions are homeless thanks to the devastation wrought by the US, that people are starving, that there is no electricity for most of the day in devastating heat? Who cares? They are only Iraqis, as one US soldier said.
As for the Congress, shame. They bear the responsibility to reign in a rogue administration, protect the Constitution, and make laws that promote the general welfare. But what do they do? They sling impeachment off the table when the constitutional crimes of this administration challenge our three-tiered government to the very core, and then they proceed to knuckle under to every illegal and outrageous demand made by Bushco. The latest: a secret FISA panel decided Bush's wiretapping was illegal and so what does Congress do? They pass a law to make it legal. I for one am sick of knowing I have no private communications unless I meet someone somewhere where there are no phones, computers, or mail and even then who knows what those satellites are picking up?
It's a sad, sad world but the worst is that it doesn't have to be that way. The American people want good government, good schools, good health care, good communities, good infrastructure, a clean and safe environment, retirement security ... and they are paying enough to get it. Even without new taxes, which in Minnesota is totally stupid because we will pay one way or another.
Us poor people pay so much in fees and sales taxes that we trump even the biggest billionaire who actually does pay tax (if any) in terms of percentage of income. However, almost any of us would gladly pay more to save the lives of loved ones and protect the world for future generations. As for Bushco, he lavishly rewards the richest of the rich, not only with absurd tax cuts but also with his shadow government which pays them billions in contracts that are scrutinized by none. Many of these contracts usurp the lawful function of government, such as intelligence gathering and military forces, and unlawful ones as well, such as murder, torture, rape and spying.These bad politicians, and that includes nearly all of them, know that people don't like what they do. They receive thousands and millions of emails, phone calls and petitions daily from people who feel they must speak out. Bush apologist Sen. Coleman responds with a knee-jerk blip but never a word on any issue. All elected officials in this mega-media, mega-business and mega-shadow government age depend on the millions these people pay them. Who will stand up to the coal industry, the nuclear industry, big oil, when they are major campaign contributors? All the major candidates are beholden to the big multinational corporations and media, without whom they could never be elected. (Except maybe John Edwards who is getting a rilli-rilli-bad media rap....)
Finally, the American people have allowed these travesties to happen. Democracy means that the grass roots don't get mowed down, even if all their heroes are assassinated: John and Bobby Kennedy, MLK, John Lennon, and YES, our beloved Paul Wellstone.... I don't have a nanosecond of doubt that they were removed by the Rich Repug Reich.
Hate and rage.
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais
No, not love and happiness, not today. I have nothing but disgust and rage for the politicians of this country, ALL of them (well, almost).
As for Mr. No New Taxes Pawlenty, he bears a great share of the responsibility for the lives lost and maimed in the Minneapolis bridge collapse, not to mention the fear and terror of the rest of us who must entrust our lives to structurally unsound bridges, having vetoed a major transportation bill in 2005 that would have addressed the state's aging road infrastructure.
As for the evil cowboy Mr. Photo Op Bush, he bears an even greater burden of this guilt, having squandered the resources paid by taxpayers in the assumption that they will be spent to keep bridges and levees and roads and waterways and sewers and .... well, everything we depend on for life and health, safe. No, better to spend a couple trillion dollars killing off people in Iraq and destroying THEIR infrastructure completely, so his Texas cronies continue to reap megaprofits from oil and get no-bid private contracts to run the war. Who gives a flying fuck that the people of Baghdad don't have any water? That Iraqis working with Americans have separate (presumably not equal) bathrooms and meals? That millions are homeless thanks to the devastation wrought by the US, that people are starving, that there is no electricity for most of the day in devastating heat? Who cares? They are only Iraqis, as one US soldier said.
As for the Congress, shame. They bear the responsibility to reign in a rogue administration, protect the Constitution, and make laws that promote the general welfare. But what do they do? They sling impeachment off the table when the constitutional crimes of this administration challenge our three-tiered government to the very core, and then they proceed to knuckle under to every illegal and outrageous demand made by Bushco. The latest: a secret FISA panel decided Bush's wiretapping was illegal and so what does Congress do? They pass a law to make it legal. I for one am sick of knowing I have no private communications unless I meet someone somewhere where there are no phones, computers, or mail and even then who knows what those satellites are picking up?
It's a sad, sad world but the worst is that it doesn't have to be that way. The American people want good government, good schools, good health care, good communities, good infrastructure, a clean and safe environment, retirement security ... and they are paying enough to get it. Even without new taxes, which in Minnesota is totally stupid because we will pay one way or another.
Us poor people pay so much in fees and sales taxes that we trump even the biggest billionaire who actually does pay tax (if any) in terms of percentage of income. However, almost any of us would gladly pay more to save the lives of loved ones and protect the world for future generations. As for Bushco, he lavishly rewards the richest of the rich, not only with absurd tax cuts but also with his shadow government which pays them billions in contracts that are scrutinized by none. Many of these contracts usurp the lawful function of government, such as intelligence gathering and military forces, and unlawful ones as well, such as murder, torture, rape and spying.These bad politicians, and that includes nearly all of them, know that people don't like what they do. They receive thousands and millions of emails, phone calls and petitions daily from people who feel they must speak out. Bush apologist Sen. Coleman responds with a knee-jerk blip but never a word on any issue. All elected officials in this mega-media, mega-business and mega-shadow government age depend on the millions these people pay them. Who will stand up to the coal industry, the nuclear industry, big oil, when they are major campaign contributors? All the major candidates are beholden to the big multinational corporations and media, without whom they could never be elected. (Except maybe John Edwards who is getting a rilli-rilli-bad media rap....)
Finally, the American people have allowed these travesties to happen. Democracy means that the grass roots don't get mowed down, even if all their heroes are assassinated: John and Bobby Kennedy, MLK, John Lennon, and YES, our beloved Paul Wellstone.... I don't have a nanosecond of doubt that they were removed by the Rich Repug Reich.
Hate and rage.
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis Kills at Least 6 - New York Times
Cook County friends: we all know people in the Cities. Here's the best info True has been able to find so far:
Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis Kills at Least 6 - New York Times
Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis Kills at Least 6 - New York Times
Friday, July 27, 2007
I'll be back
True here.
Cook County is looking good. Development is under control. Ya, there are issues but for now the peace of summer, the joy of Fish Pic, the Library Friends sale, the upcoming County Fair, and many another celebrations take center stage.
So, I'll be back. When there's something to debate or to do.
Cheers!
Cook County is looking good. Development is under control. Ya, there are issues but for now the peace of summer, the joy of Fish Pic, the Library Friends sale, the upcoming County Fair, and many another celebrations take center stage.
So, I'll be back. When there's something to debate or to do.
Cheers!
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Power Without Limits - New York Times
Recent executive orders by the Bushco seem to be preparing the way to declare the United States Constitution and laws in abeyance while the Decider takes over. Don't believe it? Well, even the MSM (NY Times) has weighed in on this terrifying power grab.... Check it out:
Power Without Limits - New York Times:
Power Without Limits - New York Times:
Friday, July 20, 2007
70 reps, three from Minn., tell Bush no more dollars for war
Here's the text of a letter sent yesterday to The Shrub by 70 liberal members of Congress, including our own Jim Oberstar. A note of thanks might be in order.
True
Dear Mr. President:
True
Dear Mr. President:
We are writing to inform you that we will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of all our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.
More than 3,600 of our brave soldiers have died in Iraq. More than 26,000 have been seriously wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured in the hostilities and more than 4 million have been displaced from their homes. Furthermore, this conflict has degenerated into a sectarian civil war and U.S. taxpayers have paid more than $500 billion, despite assurances that you and your key advisors gave our nation at the time you ordered the invasion in March, 2003 that this military intervention would cost far less and be paid from Iraqi oil revenues.
We agree with a clear and growing majority of the American people who are opposed to continued, open-ended U.S. military operations in Iraq, and believe it is unwise and unacceptable for you to continue to unilaterally impose these staggering costs and the soaring debt on Americans currently and for generations to come.
Sincerely,
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA); Rep. Barbara Lee (CA); Rep. Maxine Waters (CA); Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA); Rep. Rush Holt (NJ); Rep. Maurice Hinchey (NY); Rep. Diane Watson (CA); Rep. Ed Pastor (AZ); Rep. Barney Frank (MA); Rep. Danny Davis (IL); Rep. John Conyers (MI); Rep. John Hall (NY); Rep. Bob Filner (CA); Rep. Nydia Velazquez (NY); Rep. Bobby Rush (IL); Rep. Charles Rangel (NY); Rep. Ed Towns (NY); Rep. Paul Hodes (NH); Rep. William Lacy Clay (MO); Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR); Rep. Albert Wynn (MD); Rep. Bill Delahunt (MA); Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC); Rep. G. K. Butterfield (NC); Rep. Hilda Solis (CA); Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY); Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY); Rep. Michael Honda (CA); Rep. Steve Cohen (TN); Rep. Phil Hare (IL); Rep. Grace Flores Napolitano (CA); Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL); Rep. James McGovern (MA); Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH); Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL); Rep. Julia Carson (IN); Rep. Linda Sanchez (CA); Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ); Rep. John Olver (MA); Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX); Rep. Jim McDermott (WA); Rep. Ed Markey (MA); Rep. Chaka Fattah (PA); Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (NJ); Rep. Rubin Hinojosa (TX); Rep. Pete Stark (CA); Rep. Bobby Scott (VA); Rep. Jim Moran (VA); Rep. Betty McCollum (MN); Rep. Jim Oberstar (MN); Rep. Diana DeGette (CO); Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA); Rep. Artur Davis (AL); Rep. Hank Johnson (GA); Rep. Donald Payne (NJ); Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO); Rep. John Lewis (GA); Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY); Rep. Neil Abercrombie (HI); Rep. Gwen Moore (WI); Rep. Keith Ellison (MN); Rep. Tammy Baldwin (WI); Rep. Donna Christensen (USVI); Rep. David Scott (GA); Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL); Lois Capps (CA); Steve Rothman (NJ); Elijah Cummings (MD); and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Earthquake That Screamed “NO NUKES!!!” - CommonDreams.org
If there are any folks in Boreal Land who still think nuclear energy is clean and safe, check out this post from Common Dreams today:
The Earthquake That Screamed “NO NUKES!!!” - CommonDreams.org
The Earthquake That Screamed “NO NUKES!!!” - CommonDreams.org
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Mandela and ‘The Elders’ Aim to Save the World - CommonDreams.org
Enter the Elders, those wise and strong and truthful enough to perhaps save the planet:
Mandela and ‘The Elders’ Aim to Save the World - CommonDreams.org
Mandela and ‘The Elders’ Aim to Save the World - CommonDreams.org
The Politics of Fear - New York Times
It's deja vu all over again. Fake intelligence. Fool me once? Why would anybody believe anything the Bushcos say, especially when the pressure is turned up to bring the troops home from Iraq. The bin Laden- Iraq al Quaeda link has been thoroughly discredited despite the Cowboy Deciders repeated insistence that it is there. Now, they've caught the Missing Link? I don't think so.
The New York Times, hardly a bastion of progressive thought, even noticed the stagey coincidence:
The Politics of Fear - New York Times
The New York Times, hardly a bastion of progressive thought, even noticed the stagey coincidence:
The Politics of Fear - New York Times
Japan nuke plant leak worse than thought - Yahoo! News
Here's a late-breaking story that proves my point. "Worse than thought," Ha! Worse than admitted is more to the point.
Japan nuke plant leak worse than thought - Yahoo! News
Japan nuke plant leak worse than thought - Yahoo! News
Ice Nine
The so-called "clean" nuclear energy is a fraud perpetrated by the powerful energy industry and their well-paid Bushco apologists. The truth has been, would you believe, concealed from the public consistently over many years.
Nuclear power is the closest we have yet come to Ice Nine, that destroyer of life posited by dear Kurt Vonnegut: adding a molecule to ice enabled it to bond to every molecule of water, and guess what? Ice Nine took over everything.
True will be hammering the horrors and dangers of nuclear power home early and often from now on.
Beginning with this news story today:
Nuclear Power No Panacea, Critics Say - CommonDreams.org
Nuclear power is the closest we have yet come to Ice Nine, that destroyer of life posited by dear Kurt Vonnegut: adding a molecule to ice enabled it to bond to every molecule of water, and guess what? Ice Nine took over everything.
True will be hammering the horrors and dangers of nuclear power home early and often from now on.
Beginning with this news story today:
Nuclear Power No Panacea, Critics Say - CommonDreams.org
Peace, peace and only peace
Shanti. That is Hindu for peace. The Shanti prayer calls for peace to all the beings and angels, all the herbs and shrubs, and for that peace to come to me. Shanti, shanti, shanti.
Here in Cook County we are very blessed with people who lavish love on our community, our lake, our woods and their precious bounty of beauty and abundance. "Locals" and newcomers alike have worked to preserve and cherish our assets: Grand Marais harbor, inland lakes and forests, the Boundary Waters and the Gunflint Trail. Tourism is our livelihood but it also is our passion: we want to spend our working hours sharing the treasures of the boreal forest and the waters with our guests.
In the past year we have collectively acted to protect and preserve our wetlands, our towns, our forests and our harbor. We have voted down every instance in which big development might overtake us: a super-sized marina, a monster Homeland project to criminalize our borders, gunfire on the lake, deep-pockets condo developers intent on transforming Grand Marais into Disney Gate World, and many another attack by big developers from the Twin Cities and the nation all looking for the big bucks.
Cook County, home of the best and the brightest although not the richest (except for the McMansion owners who post Keep Out signs and terrorize their neighbors), is for me. We give and give and give for the people and the place that we love.
But, what are we doing about the terrible evil that the Bush administration has loosed on the world? What are we doing to bring our soldier children home from a civil war where they are forced to kill innocent civilians and traumatized at far higher levels than earlier wars because of the moral muck in which they must participate?
There will be no peace or justice or health care or prosperity until this hideous and illegal war of aggression is brought to an end. Even so we will pay for its costs for generations to come. Even so we will have to rebuild Iraq, to dismantle the huge shadow network of mercenary soldiers that brings billions in profits to Halliburton, Blackwater and other no-bid contractors. We will have to withdraw our permanent bases and let the Iraqi people have their own oil revenue rather than "sharing" it with us. We will have to demand that the Congress take back the Constitution and restore our respect as a humane society in the rest of the world. We will have to turn our swords to plowshares.
Still, good people everywhere can rise to the occasion, just as the good people of Cook County take care of each other, so will others follow when we have made peace.
Here in Cook County we are very blessed with people who lavish love on our community, our lake, our woods and their precious bounty of beauty and abundance. "Locals" and newcomers alike have worked to preserve and cherish our assets: Grand Marais harbor, inland lakes and forests, the Boundary Waters and the Gunflint Trail. Tourism is our livelihood but it also is our passion: we want to spend our working hours sharing the treasures of the boreal forest and the waters with our guests.
In the past year we have collectively acted to protect and preserve our wetlands, our towns, our forests and our harbor. We have voted down every instance in which big development might overtake us: a super-sized marina, a monster Homeland project to criminalize our borders, gunfire on the lake, deep-pockets condo developers intent on transforming Grand Marais into Disney Gate World, and many another attack by big developers from the Twin Cities and the nation all looking for the big bucks.
Cook County, home of the best and the brightest although not the richest (except for the McMansion owners who post Keep Out signs and terrorize their neighbors), is for me. We give and give and give for the people and the place that we love.
But, what are we doing about the terrible evil that the Bush administration has loosed on the world? What are we doing to bring our soldier children home from a civil war where they are forced to kill innocent civilians and traumatized at far higher levels than earlier wars because of the moral muck in which they must participate?
There will be no peace or justice or health care or prosperity until this hideous and illegal war of aggression is brought to an end. Even so we will pay for its costs for generations to come. Even so we will have to rebuild Iraq, to dismantle the huge shadow network of mercenary soldiers that brings billions in profits to Halliburton, Blackwater and other no-bid contractors. We will have to withdraw our permanent bases and let the Iraqi people have their own oil revenue rather than "sharing" it with us. We will have to demand that the Congress take back the Constitution and restore our respect as a humane society in the rest of the world. We will have to turn our swords to plowshares.
Still, good people everywhere can rise to the occasion, just as the good people of Cook County take care of each other, so will others follow when we have made peace.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Let there be gardens
"Let a hundred flowers blossom,
Let a hundred schools of thoughts contend."
-Mao Tse Tung
How remarkable. The city Park and Recreation Board doesn't want gardens in Rec Park, despite pleas from our loyal summer residents that it would make the park more home-like and beautiful.
What's the big deal? Flowers are wonderful and even vegetables have a lot of charm to many folks. Are you the same guys that dug up the wetlands and filled them with garbage not so long ago?
In another life, in Minneapolis, True once got a citation from the city for "weeds" on account of a perennial border. Now residents of that city get "Blooming boulevard" awards for planting native prairie flowers, once known as weeds.
Hey, folks. Lighten up and let the flowers bloom and grow forever, like the edelweiss in The Sound of Music. Look at Harbor Park, planted by many many of us. People love it.
True
Let a hundred schools of thoughts contend."
-Mao Tse Tung
How remarkable. The city Park and Recreation Board doesn't want gardens in Rec Park, despite pleas from our loyal summer residents that it would make the park more home-like and beautiful.
What's the big deal? Flowers are wonderful and even vegetables have a lot of charm to many folks. Are you the same guys that dug up the wetlands and filled them with garbage not so long ago?
In another life, in Minneapolis, True once got a citation from the city for "weeds" on account of a perennial border. Now residents of that city get "Blooming boulevard" awards for planting native prairie flowers, once known as weeds.
Hey, folks. Lighten up and let the flowers bloom and grow forever, like the edelweiss in The Sound of Music. Look at Harbor Park, planted by many many of us. People love it.
True
Thursday, July 12, 2007
You are what you eat
Dear True,
EAT DEATH.
No, this is not a curse, or even a taunt from a vegetarian, although I am one. This is about eating nuked food. Yesterday I lunched with some special friends at the delightful Pie Place. While enjoying one another's company and the always fresh, always delicious food served up with friendliness in a gracious-home ambience, the subject of cooking summer meals came up.
I was bragging about how I could dish up a nutritious and delicious whole-grain bun Boca Burger with cheese and a side of corn on the cob in less than a minute in the microwave. High protein, high fiber, healthy food, yes? No, said my friends.
To backtrack a little, back in the early 1970's one of my yoga teachers who was also a homeopathic doc told us students that one day it would be understood by science how terribly damaging microwaves are. I believed him and for more than 25 years refused to have one of the darn things in my house. I changed my mind when my dad came to live with me because I could just nuke one of those frozen meals and he loved them. Still, I didn't cook with the dang contraption myself. It's only been in the last two or three years that I have lapsed. First, because I could so easily heat up tea and coffee without having it boil over. Then, just when I was in a big hurry, I might make a burrito with the touch of a button. Then, lo and behold, I discovered that tender vegetables can be achieved quickly and without boiling or stir-fry or steaming. And before I knew it I was a nukie junkie.
So, back to yesterday. My friends told me that recent studies have uncovered the horrible truth: microwaved food under Kirlian photography looks like a nuclear wasteland. Dead, in a horrible black shriveled shroud.
I believe them and I guess I really knew all the time that what looked so fresh and sweet really could not be, having had its molecules jiggled mercilessly with some kind of cosmic radiation. Shades of the desolate poisoned lands in Marion Zimmer Bradley's fantasy world, Darkover, left over from the Ages of Chaos where wars were fought with terrible weapons of mass destruction.
So. It's summer and yes, it is sometimes hot, even here on the North Shore. But it doesn't take a lot longer to cook your food on a grill, or stovetop, or even to roast your unshucked corn on the cob in the oven. Drag out the old crock pot for soups and sauces, or just simmer on the lowest flame on your back burner. Eat life-giving vegetables, fruits and plant proteins in all their summer bounty. Bon appetit!
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais
EAT DEATH.
No, this is not a curse, or even a taunt from a vegetarian, although I am one. This is about eating nuked food. Yesterday I lunched with some special friends at the delightful Pie Place. While enjoying one another's company and the always fresh, always delicious food served up with friendliness in a gracious-home ambience, the subject of cooking summer meals came up.
I was bragging about how I could dish up a nutritious and delicious whole-grain bun Boca Burger with cheese and a side of corn on the cob in less than a minute in the microwave. High protein, high fiber, healthy food, yes? No, said my friends.
To backtrack a little, back in the early 1970's one of my yoga teachers who was also a homeopathic doc told us students that one day it would be understood by science how terribly damaging microwaves are. I believed him and for more than 25 years refused to have one of the darn things in my house. I changed my mind when my dad came to live with me because I could just nuke one of those frozen meals and he loved them. Still, I didn't cook with the dang contraption myself. It's only been in the last two or three years that I have lapsed. First, because I could so easily heat up tea and coffee without having it boil over. Then, just when I was in a big hurry, I might make a burrito with the touch of a button. Then, lo and behold, I discovered that tender vegetables can be achieved quickly and without boiling or stir-fry or steaming. And before I knew it I was a nukie junkie.
So, back to yesterday. My friends told me that recent studies have uncovered the horrible truth: microwaved food under Kirlian photography looks like a nuclear wasteland. Dead, in a horrible black shriveled shroud.
I believe them and I guess I really knew all the time that what looked so fresh and sweet really could not be, having had its molecules jiggled mercilessly with some kind of cosmic radiation. Shades of the desolate poisoned lands in Marion Zimmer Bradley's fantasy world, Darkover, left over from the Ages of Chaos where wars were fought with terrible weapons of mass destruction.
So. It's summer and yes, it is sometimes hot, even here on the North Shore. But it doesn't take a lot longer to cook your food on a grill, or stovetop, or even to roast your unshucked corn on the cob in the oven. Drag out the old crock pot for soups and sauces, or just simmer on the lowest flame on your back burner. Eat life-giving vegetables, fruits and plant proteins in all their summer bounty. Bon appetit!
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar: Reports Show Bush Leadership Failing in Iraq
Oberstar votes for Iraq redeployment today. Read on:
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar: Reports Show Bush Leadership Failing in Iraq
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Oberstar: Reports Show Bush Leadership Failing in Iraq
Peace Pilgrims
Dear friends,
Take a few moments to read this day brightener--what a fresh, clean taste it leaves. I won't be abandoning my menagerie to walk the world for peace, though I do wish I could be walking with Cindy Sheehan towards Washington now.
But Peace Pilgrim puts me in mind of a world where all of us, wherever and whenever we walk, can think peace and speak peace person by person until every heart is touched. "All we are saying, is give peace a chance."
True
Peace Pilgrims - CommonDreams.org
Take a few moments to read this day brightener--what a fresh, clean taste it leaves. I won't be abandoning my menagerie to walk the world for peace, though I do wish I could be walking with Cindy Sheehan towards Washington now.
But Peace Pilgrim puts me in mind of a world where all of us, wherever and whenever we walk, can think peace and speak peace person by person until every heart is touched. "All we are saying, is give peace a chance."
True
Peace Pilgrims - CommonDreams.org
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Laura: A Yellow Rose in Texas
She’s the flower of White Southern Womanhood, our First Lady Laura Bush. A stand-by-your-man lady, even though she has gajillions more brain cells than her doofus cowboy dry drunk hubby who has delusions of bringing on Armageddon, and just might pull it off before he gets nabbed for his evil deeds and his reign of death and disaster. Still, she simpers along beside him, smiling and waving for every photo op.
She has barely uttered a peep about his disastrous policies for women or health so far in his six-year reign, except for a token wish that he might select a woman for the Supremes and some lip service to the downtrodden women of the Islamic world. WHICH had the net effect of furthering the Bozo’s Evil Caliphate proclamation.
But now, in search of a legacy, she comes on board for women’s heart health. She blindsides (apparently) the powerful American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) which has steadily lobbied for health care reform (meaning, against Bushco and cronies). She wangles a front-page story in the latest Bulletin, touting the amazing information that women need equal treatment with men for heart disease. Using that old Southern Charm she explains how she can’t really get about in public so she works out with her personal trainer and the White House exercise machines. God bless her, poor thing.
The AARP Bulletin compares Laura's crusade(?)with the projects taken on by former First Ladies, for example the Highway Beautification project of dear Lady Bird Johnson, God rest her soul. The thing is, all these other ladies decided early on what they would do and stuck to it.
And what about hubby’s supersizing support for the drug industry at the expense of seniors (aka Medicare Plan D)? Or his depriving millions of poor or low-income women and children from health access by cutting government subsidies AND caving to the big-insurance lobbies? What about that? No comment, if you please. Laura will think about it tomorrow. While she helps to put together the new presidential library, what there is of it after the classified secrets have been deleted.
She has barely uttered a peep about his disastrous policies for women or health so far in his six-year reign, except for a token wish that he might select a woman for the Supremes and some lip service to the downtrodden women of the Islamic world. WHICH had the net effect of furthering the Bozo’s Evil Caliphate proclamation.
But now, in search of a legacy, she comes on board for women’s heart health. She blindsides (apparently) the powerful American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) which has steadily lobbied for health care reform (meaning, against Bushco and cronies). She wangles a front-page story in the latest Bulletin, touting the amazing information that women need equal treatment with men for heart disease. Using that old Southern Charm she explains how she can’t really get about in public so she works out with her personal trainer and the White House exercise machines. God bless her, poor thing.
The AARP Bulletin compares Laura's crusade(?)with the projects taken on by former First Ladies, for example the Highway Beautification project of dear Lady Bird Johnson, God rest her soul. The thing is, all these other ladies decided early on what they would do and stuck to it.
And what about hubby’s supersizing support for the drug industry at the expense of seniors (aka Medicare Plan D)? Or his depriving millions of poor or low-income women and children from health access by cutting government subsidies AND caving to the big-insurance lobbies? What about that? No comment, if you please. Laura will think about it tomorrow. While she helps to put together the new presidential library, what there is of it after the classified secrets have been deleted.
Learn to speak your peace!
Subject: Speak Your Peace: The Civility Project
The Cook County Community Fund and the Lutsen-Tofte Tourism
Association invites the public to attend a presentation on "Speak Your Peace: The Civility Project", a project of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundations Millennium Group.
This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served!
Date: Wednesday, July 25
Time: 9:15 to 10:15 am
Place: Lutsen Resort Conference Room
Presenter: Leigh Mathison, Cook County Community Fund board member and local attorney
The focus of the Speak Your Peace Civility Project is to provide civil and respectful opportunities for people to present their views and discuss community issues and, thus, increase civic participation.
For more information on this project, visit www.dsaspeakyourpeace.org.
For more information on the Lutsen presentation, contact Sally Nankivell,
Lutsen-Tofte Tourism Association Executive Director, at 218-663-7688.
The Cook County Community Fund and the Lutsen-Tofte Tourism
Association invites the public to attend a presentation on "Speak Your Peace: The Civility Project", a project of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundations Millennium Group.
This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served!
Date: Wednesday, July 25
Time: 9:15 to 10:15 am
Place: Lutsen Resort Conference Room
Presenter: Leigh Mathison, Cook County Community Fund board member and local attorney
The focus of the Speak Your Peace Civility Project is to provide civil and respectful opportunities for people to present their views and discuss community issues and, thus, increase civic participation.
For more information on this project, visit www.dsaspeakyourpeace.org.
For more information on the Lutsen presentation, contact Sally Nankivell,
Lutsen-Tofte Tourism Association Executive Director, at 218-663-7688.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Reasons Not to GlowOn Not Jumping Out of The Frying Pan Into The Eternal Fires - CommonDreams.org
True is nearly as old as Woody Guthrie. Surely old enough to remember Chernobyl and angry NIMBY debates about nuclear waste disposal.
Shock and awe, to learn that some Sixties apostates ala Newt G and Gang are now trumpeting nuclear power as the "clean" energy solution. Not, not, not. Nuclear power is even more dirty than coal mining, even more invasive than carbon emissions, even more evil than the Iraq war for oil.
There is NO safe nuclear power, whether to nuke Iran with or to create radioactive peacetime waste that won't self-destruct for a zillion years. I would have thought that we might have learned by now the dreadful lessons of Hiroshima, But. Maybe not, since the Japs were the enemy. Does it make a difference that in the 1950's American civilians were the innocent subjects of military experiments in nuclear and chemical weapons in schools and neighborhoods? That some of these citizens, including one dear friend of True, have died or nearly died from the toxic results of these cruel games akin to pulling the wings off of butterflies?
Reasons Not to GlowOn Not Jumping Out of The Frying Pan Into The Eternal Fires - CommonDreams.org
Shock and awe, to learn that some Sixties apostates ala Newt G and Gang are now trumpeting nuclear power as the "clean" energy solution. Not, not, not. Nuclear power is even more dirty than coal mining, even more invasive than carbon emissions, even more evil than the Iraq war for oil.
There is NO safe nuclear power, whether to nuke Iran with or to create radioactive peacetime waste that won't self-destruct for a zillion years. I would have thought that we might have learned by now the dreadful lessons of Hiroshima, But. Maybe not, since the Japs were the enemy. Does it make a difference that in the 1950's American civilians were the innocent subjects of military experiments in nuclear and chemical weapons in schools and neighborhoods? That some of these citizens, including one dear friend of True, have died or nearly died from the toxic results of these cruel games akin to pulling the wings off of butterflies?
Reasons Not to GlowOn Not Jumping Out of The Frying Pan Into The Eternal Fires - CommonDreams.org
A man's house is his Castle
As all readers must know, True puts everything in the shop window. So, many ignorant doofuses ask, why worry if he's being spied upon at home? THAT is, if he has nothing to hide.
Whether I choose to hide anything or not isn't the point. The point is what living in the land of the free is all about. Has anybody under the age of 60 actually studied the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
For example, take a look at the Fourth Amendment:
Friend, do you care? Do you ever dream that you are naked in public, or using a public toilet without a door, or dragged away screaming by the Homeland Honcho Patrol? Do you mind that the metaphorical equivalent of your dream is what the neocons and their flunkie Dumb Dubya have established in America? Yes, HAVE established. That's what it is....Think about it.
I know many people who don't express their opinions on the phone or Internet out of fear. I am not one of them: let the spooks arrest me and drag me off to extraordinary rendition so long as somebody takes care of Katie, Sophie, Leo, Lulu and Sugar in my absence. Nobody will make me shut up.
BUT, what "bugs" me (pun intended) is:
Here, my dear readers, is a story you surely want to read:
Experts: FBI Would Skirt the Law With Phone Records Program
Whether I choose to hide anything or not isn't the point. The point is what living in the land of the free is all about. Has anybody under the age of 60 actually studied the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
For example, take a look at the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Caroline Kennedy wrote a book about it, called The Right to Privacy. People have fought and died for it. True, being actually educated in American history, knows all this. What do you know? For example, do you know that every phone conversation you have, every email you write, and every Internet search you do is recorded in cyberspace? Or, that the government demands that Internet and phone providers save this information for you regardless of any little hitch like a warrant for cause?Friend, do you care? Do you ever dream that you are naked in public, or using a public toilet without a door, or dragged away screaming by the Homeland Honcho Patrol? Do you mind that the metaphorical equivalent of your dream is what the neocons and their flunkie Dumb Dubya have established in America? Yes, HAVE established. That's what it is....Think about it.
I know many people who don't express their opinions on the phone or Internet out of fear. I am not one of them: let the spooks arrest me and drag me off to extraordinary rendition so long as somebody takes care of Katie, Sophie, Leo, Lulu and Sugar in my absence. Nobody will make me shut up.
BUT, what "bugs" me (pun intended) is:
- That my house is not any longer my Castle. It is subject to satellite surveillance of my every move, of disappearing me as an enemy combatant even though my little companions depend on me to protect them.
- Also, that the self-righteous, indecently rich, ultra right wing neocon hypocrites and their fat cat lobbyists and their lawless multinational corporations have in only seven years destroyed all that the Bills of Rights protects, all that the Constitution provides for against unchecked power grabs and even all that the legislative and judicial branches can decree (via Signing Statements and Executive Privilege).
- That you (we?) the people don't really give a flying f--k.
Here, my dear readers, is a story you surely want to read:
Experts: FBI Would Skirt the Law With Phone Records Program
Friday, July 06, 2007
It's good because it's good
Recently my nephew Eric turned eight years old and for the occasion I gave him some removable tattoos and $30 in cash. By email he sent his thanks. He was saving the money towards a Wii, whatever that is, which he was sure he would be getting soon. "It's good because it's good," he wrote about my gift.
A couple of days ago, a reader accused me of being "Syndical" in response to my post, "America the Beautiful." I interpreted this to mean a combination of sinful and cynical. The post was about my longing for an idealized America and my frustation and grief at how the Bush administration has systematically destroyed all the best. I'm a Woody Guthrie kind of guy, a "This Land is Your Land" sing-a-longer. I'm a peacenik, a tree-hugger, a Buddhist and a vegetarian. But not a cynic or a sinner, I hope. My heroes are Cindy Sheehan and the Dalai Lama, who are just so good because they are good.
Anonymous and my nephew got me to thinking. There's a lot of stuff in Grand Marais and Cook County that is good because it's good.
For one, our transparent and responsive City Council. It's such a relief to know that they represent the voters, that they resist demands for inappropriate development, that if they have a conflict of interest they don't vote. I don't have to agree with every single action or vote to rest easy, because their interest is the public interest. Thanks, City Council!
Two, we are so blessed to have Harbor Friends. Always vigilant, these watchdogs caught the nasty infill of two harbor wetlands sites. The city is even now removing the landfill and restoring the wetlands. Thanks! I don't think it is too Syndical to ask who threw assorted junk in the first place. This has not been mentioned in any press reports. I am just curious.
Hey! Snowmobiles without mufflers skipping all over the harbor on the 4th of July? Well, as my mom used to say, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla. Sometimes a little live-and-let-live goes a long way.
Three, I am so delighted by the joint city-county decision to hire a housing coordinator. The Housing Study (previously reported on True) is a most excellent document and the joint decision to implement its findings deserves high praise. Everything we care about, we who live here, depends on the availability of housing for the young families, the working poor, the year-round residents, the senior citizens and retirees who give and have given so much to our history, culture, arts and well-being.
Four, WTIP continues to surpass itself in its outstanding coverage of local news. I dips me hat. Volunteer-driven, it still manages to achieve world-class coverage. BBC news every morning? You don't even get that on MPR. Hint: It's their fund drive. Please join up.
We are so lucky to live here. But having these fabulous resources: City Council, joint city-county affordable housing advocates, Harbor Friends and amazing radio coverage isn't just about luck. It's about people who care enough to make a difference.
True
A couple of days ago, a reader accused me of being "Syndical" in response to my post, "America the Beautiful." I interpreted this to mean a combination of sinful and cynical. The post was about my longing for an idealized America and my frustation and grief at how the Bush administration has systematically destroyed all the best. I'm a Woody Guthrie kind of guy, a "This Land is Your Land" sing-a-longer. I'm a peacenik, a tree-hugger, a Buddhist and a vegetarian. But not a cynic or a sinner, I hope. My heroes are Cindy Sheehan and the Dalai Lama, who are just so good because they are good.
Anonymous and my nephew got me to thinking. There's a lot of stuff in Grand Marais and Cook County that is good because it's good.
For one, our transparent and responsive City Council. It's such a relief to know that they represent the voters, that they resist demands for inappropriate development, that if they have a conflict of interest they don't vote. I don't have to agree with every single action or vote to rest easy, because their interest is the public interest. Thanks, City Council!
Two, we are so blessed to have Harbor Friends. Always vigilant, these watchdogs caught the nasty infill of two harbor wetlands sites. The city is even now removing the landfill and restoring the wetlands. Thanks! I don't think it is too Syndical to ask who threw assorted junk in the first place. This has not been mentioned in any press reports. I am just curious.
Hey! Snowmobiles without mufflers skipping all over the harbor on the 4th of July? Well, as my mom used to say, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla. Sometimes a little live-and-let-live goes a long way.
Three, I am so delighted by the joint city-county decision to hire a housing coordinator. The Housing Study (previously reported on True) is a most excellent document and the joint decision to implement its findings deserves high praise. Everything we care about, we who live here, depends on the availability of housing for the young families, the working poor, the year-round residents, the senior citizens and retirees who give and have given so much to our history, culture, arts and well-being.
Four, WTIP continues to surpass itself in its outstanding coverage of local news. I dips me hat. Volunteer-driven, it still manages to achieve world-class coverage. BBC news every morning? You don't even get that on MPR. Hint: It's their fund drive. Please join up.
We are so lucky to live here. But having these fabulous resources: City Council, joint city-county affordable housing advocates, Harbor Friends and amazing radio coverage isn't just about luck. It's about people who care enough to make a difference.
True
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Poll: Majorities say income gap too wide - Yahoo! News
Despite union-busting, minimum-wage opposition, worrisome declines in employee health care coverage, outsourcing staff jobs to avoid paying fair wages or benefits, and sending those outsourced jobs to impoverished third-world companies, corporate execs continue to see lavish salary and golden parachute increases. Is it appropriate for a CEO to earn 1,000 times what the average worker makes? Hmph. A CEO taking a dump gets paid what his lackies receive for a week or month's income. Do you think that is fair?
Poll: Majorities say income gap too wide - Yahoo! News
Poll: Majorities say income gap too wide - Yahoo! News
‘No More War’ Float Ruffles Iron Range - CommonDreams.org
Close to home: Veterans for Peace on the Iron Range found their float "No More War" banned in Virginia. Other nearby towns expressed similar concerns. Read the story here:
‘No More War’ Float Ruffles Iron Range - CommonDreams.org
‘No More War’ Float Ruffles Iron Range - CommonDreams.org
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Through Others’ Eyes - New York Times
"Oh what a giftie gie us
To see ourselves as others see us."
Robert Burns
Through Others’ Eyes - New York Times
To see ourselves as others see us."
Robert Burns
Through Others’ Eyes - New York Times
America the Beautiful
"When you look at firecrackers up in the sky
Remember that first Fourth of July."
This maudlin couplet is the only part of a poem written by me, age 12, that I can remember. It's the first time I was published, in an upstate New York weekly, the Monroe County Gazette (not counting the "Brentwood News," hand-written and delivered to my neighbors in the Cincinnati suburb of Brentwood Village when I was all of nine or ten).
I mention the verse because as a child I loved the 4th of July, the pageantry of the firemen and Masons on parade in Highland Mills, New York, the rousing patriotic speech by my grandfather the mayor, and the fabulous midway games never seen in Cincinnati 'burbs. Simple times, good times, happy times.
BUT. Skipping ahead 51 years, moving halfway across America to Cook County, Minnesota, and much changed from that polyanna child, I am not a patriot anymore--whatever that much-abused word means now after being mangled and disgraced by the criminals who have plunged the USA into a war of aggression for oil, made us hated all over the world, tortured citizens as well as the so-called "enemy combatants" not recognized by any court, listened to our phone calls, read our emails, caged us out of voting, desroyed our environment and the fundamental protections for just-plain-folks in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.... the list goes on. And on and on and on. These guys have to be called to account. They don't have the right to trash our nation on behalf of the ultra-rich. They don't get to do that.
No, I'm not a patriot, nor even a Christian now. I don't pledge allegiance to any flag, or any other thing in this world, and especially not to "one nation, under God." I am a citizen only of Mother Earth, a follower only of the Dalai Lama, who teaches: "My religion is kindness."
I spend hours every day doing the small things I can to bring more peace and harmony to the planet. I work steadily but civilly against war, torture, spying, caging, media conglomeration, abuses of workers and women and children, global warming, cruelty to animals, rainforest destruction and most every other little thing including corporate profiteering that "my" country stands for under BushCo in the opinion of the rest of the world. Everybody hates us. Happy 4th of July, citizens of the land of the free!
Yet again, BUT... There IS something here that I love: America the Beautiful, the land (spacious skies and fruited plains) and the dream: gleaming alabaster cities populated by kindly and noble folks, a shining brotherhood of goodness stretching from sea to sea. A "Patriot's Dream," if you will, dreamed in better times but not forgotten, at least not by me. Yes, THIS America I love and cherish.
True
Remember that first Fourth of July."
This maudlin couplet is the only part of a poem written by me, age 12, that I can remember. It's the first time I was published, in an upstate New York weekly, the Monroe County Gazette (not counting the "Brentwood News," hand-written and delivered to my neighbors in the Cincinnati suburb of Brentwood Village when I was all of nine or ten).
I mention the verse because as a child I loved the 4th of July, the pageantry of the firemen and Masons on parade in Highland Mills, New York, the rousing patriotic speech by my grandfather the mayor, and the fabulous midway games never seen in Cincinnati 'burbs. Simple times, good times, happy times.
BUT. Skipping ahead 51 years, moving halfway across America to Cook County, Minnesota, and much changed from that polyanna child, I am not a patriot anymore--whatever that much-abused word means now after being mangled and disgraced by the criminals who have plunged the USA into a war of aggression for oil, made us hated all over the world, tortured citizens as well as the so-called "enemy combatants" not recognized by any court, listened to our phone calls, read our emails, caged us out of voting, desroyed our environment and the fundamental protections for just-plain-folks in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.... the list goes on. And on and on and on. These guys have to be called to account. They don't have the right to trash our nation on behalf of the ultra-rich. They don't get to do that.
No, I'm not a patriot, nor even a Christian now. I don't pledge allegiance to any flag, or any other thing in this world, and especially not to "one nation, under God." I am a citizen only of Mother Earth, a follower only of the Dalai Lama, who teaches: "My religion is kindness."
I spend hours every day doing the small things I can to bring more peace and harmony to the planet. I work steadily but civilly against war, torture, spying, caging, media conglomeration, abuses of workers and women and children, global warming, cruelty to animals, rainforest destruction and most every other little thing including corporate profiteering that "my" country stands for under BushCo in the opinion of the rest of the world. Everybody hates us. Happy 4th of July, citizens of the land of the free!
Yet again, BUT... There IS something here that I love: America the Beautiful, the land (spacious skies and fruited plains) and the dream: gleaming alabaster cities populated by kindly and noble folks, a shining brotherhood of goodness stretching from sea to sea. A "Patriot's Dream," if you will, dreamed in better times but not forgotten, at least not by me. Yes, THIS America I love and cherish.
True
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Bill Quigley | Injustice in Jena as Nooses Hang From the "White Tree"
Freedom for all? Born on the Fourth of July? Hmmm, not if you are black and living in Mississippi. Children are being threatened with lynching, and condemned to life in jail when they try to win in a fair fight that was unprovoked according to many witnesses.
Must the underclass simply lie down and serve as slaves, more than two centuries after slaves were liberated? Oyez, okay, according to the Buschco hubris supported by the unconsionable rich who count coup with every peon destroyed.
Wake up people, wake up and stand up for your brothers and sisters in chains. Like Jesus did.
Bill Quigley | Injustice in Jena as Nooses Hang From the "White Tree"
Must the underclass simply lie down and serve as slaves, more than two centuries after slaves were liberated? Oyez, okay, according to the Buschco hubris supported by the unconsionable rich who count coup with every peon destroyed.
Wake up people, wake up and stand up for your brothers and sisters in chains. Like Jesus did.
Bill Quigley | Injustice in Jena as Nooses Hang From the "White Tree"
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Opinion: Oberstar Asks for State Cooperation on Mining Related Cancer
Read this excellent op-ed piece by Rep. Oberstar about protecting taconite workers against cancer:
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Opinion: Oberstar Asks for State Cooperation on Mining Related Cancer
Congressman James L Oberstar -- Opinion: Oberstar Asks for State Cooperation on Mining Related Cancer
Monday, July 02, 2007
Vicki offers hope, knowledge, ideas and a Qigong group for breast cancer survivors
Dear True,
Avoiding breast cancer may seem like being at the mercy of shell game hucksters. Sadly, it is Just life. The more we find out about this disease, the more baffling it can seem. But really, lots of new meds and advances are lowering the death rates after breast cancer diagnoses and raising the odds for survival.
In my case, for example, I received and am still receiving Herceptin infusions because I was "lucky" enough to have the HER2 receptive cancer cells in my breast tumor. The downside, those types do grow fast. The upside, Herceptin doubles the odds of survival. Herceptin has even been shown to be effective against non-HER2 receptive cancers. My oncologist calls it one of the handfuls of "miracles" he has seen in his decades of practice. And if that didn't make my day, there now is another drug that will zap the HER2 receptor cells should Herceptin not do a 100% job.
That is my story. For every type of breast cancer, there is another.
All differ slightly, but all have similarities. For one, there are things anyone can do to improve their chances - things that cost nothing but time. Last month I took a two-day workshop in the Chinese activity called Qigong (pronounced Chee Gong) at the Cancer Center at the Duluth Clinic. This activity may do as much as Herceptin in keeping cancer at bay. It is easy and makes me feel calm and yet energetic. Check it out by Googling Qigong cancer clinics.
I have the DVD and would like to form a weekly group in the county if anyone is interested. (free of course!)
As for True's frustration over MRIs not being routinely done to screen for breast cancer, I just don't have an opinion as to whether or not they should be done, even if free. For it is a fact that this disease can and will occur even if you throw every diagnostic device and method known to man and dog at it. Vigilance - meaning breast exams monthly and baseline mammograms, plus insistence on an ultrasound should one suspect a doctor's assessment of a lump - is the best defense against breast cancer. Still, you might get it.
If you do, stick with the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins web sites, do what your doc tells you, be yourself (and that does NOT mean being little miss sunshine) and be amazed at how quickly you will heal and be done with the treatments. I was and am.
And I even got naturally curly hair out of the deal!
Love to all transcender-survivors
Vicki Biggs-Anderson
Grand Marais
Avoiding breast cancer may seem like being at the mercy of shell game hucksters. Sadly, it is Just life. The more we find out about this disease, the more baffling it can seem. But really, lots of new meds and advances are lowering the death rates after breast cancer diagnoses and raising the odds for survival.
In my case, for example, I received and am still receiving Herceptin infusions because I was "lucky" enough to have the HER2 receptive cancer cells in my breast tumor. The downside, those types do grow fast. The upside, Herceptin doubles the odds of survival. Herceptin has even been shown to be effective against non-HER2 receptive cancers. My oncologist calls it one of the handfuls of "miracles" he has seen in his decades of practice. And if that didn't make my day, there now is another drug that will zap the HER2 receptor cells should Herceptin not do a 100% job.
That is my story. For every type of breast cancer, there is another.
All differ slightly, but all have similarities. For one, there are things anyone can do to improve their chances - things that cost nothing but time. Last month I took a two-day workshop in the Chinese activity called Qigong (pronounced Chee Gong) at the Cancer Center at the Duluth Clinic. This activity may do as much as Herceptin in keeping cancer at bay. It is easy and makes me feel calm and yet energetic. Check it out by Googling Qigong cancer clinics.
I have the DVD and would like to form a weekly group in the county if anyone is interested. (free of course!)
As for True's frustration over MRIs not being routinely done to screen for breast cancer, I just don't have an opinion as to whether or not they should be done, even if free. For it is a fact that this disease can and will occur even if you throw every diagnostic device and method known to man and dog at it. Vigilance - meaning breast exams monthly and baseline mammograms, plus insistence on an ultrasound should one suspect a doctor's assessment of a lump - is the best defense against breast cancer. Still, you might get it.
If you do, stick with the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins web sites, do what your doc tells you, be yourself (and that does NOT mean being little miss sunshine) and be amazed at how quickly you will heal and be done with the treatments. I was and am.
And I even got naturally curly hair out of the deal!
Love to all transcender-survivors
Vicki Biggs-Anderson
Grand Marais
Sunday, July 01, 2007
We Want Our Humanity Represented! Impeachment for Torture, Now! - CommonDreams.org - Sent Using Google Toolbar
True Blue wants the USA to survive the depradations of the Bush & Cheney coup (takeover) that feeds the new empire ruled by corporate CEOs.
Please, friends, gird up your loins,summon your courage,and look the BushCo evil in the face. Just say no. Stand firm for human rights, peace and justice. Many and many of us are watching from the wings.
True
Published on Sunday, July 1, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
We Want Our Humanity Represented! Impeachment for Torture, Now!
by Hank Edson
There is no shortage of reasons why we should impeach President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. Their crimes are so extensive and so egregious that it is hard to find time to grasp just how deliberate their pursuit has been over the past several years. Today’s topic, torture and how impeachment for torture is necessary to the representation of humanity in our democracy, does not even cover the subset of impeachable offenses: war crimes. By my count, this subset contains six separate impeachable war crimes committed by Bush and Cheney: (1) the supreme war crime of commencing a war of aggression, (2) torture, (3) extraordinary rendition, (4) termination of habeas corpus, (5) inhumane weaponry (such as daisy cutters, depleted uranium shells, and phosphorus bombs), and (6) the usurpation of Iraqi self-determination in economic and political affairs protected under the Geneva Conventions. If every America could take just fifteen minutes to read nine or ten pages telling the story of Bush and Cheney’s willful commitment to torture, it would go far to reorient the mindset in our country that has so passively accepted conduct by our leadership that is absolutely offensive to our values, aspirations, and responsibilities as a democratic people. With hope for such a transformation in our public discourse, I offer this summary of one of the most disgraceful episodes of a disgraceful presidency.
White House Cowboys and Dungeon Masters
In 1996, Congress passed the War Crimes Act, which made it a criminal act to violate the ban against torture and cruel of degrading treatment found in the Geneva Conventions. The United States ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1955. As a result of congressional ratification, the conventions already carried the force of law in the United States without the need for the 1996 War Crimes Act to make the government’s use of torture illegal.[1] Notwithstanding this doubly clear statement of law, five days after 9/11 Vice President Dick Cheney was already mentally adding dungeons to the defense assessment the Neo-Conservative think tank, Project for a New American Century, had prepared for him for use in installing the U.S. industrial-arms complex throughout the Middle East.
On September 16, 2001, Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press,
We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side…a lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies…it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.” [2]
Juvenile George Bush took up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
“I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[3]
What penance will America have to pay for placing such a man in its highest office?
Building the Legal Shield
As former CIA analyst Ray McGovern writes, “‘Dark-side’ operations, using ‘any means at our disposal’ - like, say, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ - by law require a ‘finding’ signed by the president.” [4] To protect himself in the event this “finding” was improper, Bush called upon his counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who provided a January 25, 2002 memo to the president authored by Cheney’s counsel, David Addington. The memo described as “quaint” and “obsolete” a number of provisions of the Geneva Conventions relating to prisoners of war. The memo also concluded that there was a “reasonable basis in law” that Bush could avoid any future criminal prosecution for violating the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. [5]
Secretary of State Powell, however, disagreed with the advice and inserted the following warning in Gonzales’ January 25, 2002 memo:
“A determination that the GPW [Geneva Convention of Prisoners of War] does not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine US military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.”
The next day, Powell wrote his own memo, adding that abandoning the Geneva Conventions would “undermine public support among critical allies [and] reverse over a century of US policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops.” [6]
Powell’s objections, however, were fruitless. On February 7, 2002, Bush signed the memorandum ordering our armed forces in the subtlest of language “to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.” The qualification, “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity,” meant: “when you get an order to torture, do it.” As with so many of the outrages in the Bush administration, the author of the torture memo, Addington, was later promoted for his good work to take over as Cheney’s Chief of Staff when Lewis Libby was indicted. Addington’s legal work was later condemned by 130 of the nation’s most respected jurists, including twelve federal judges and eight former American Bar Association presidents for failing in his “high obligation to defend the Constitution.”[7]
The Administrative Base for Torture
Once the legal shield had been put in place to permit the White House to order torture, the next step was to give the order, but to do it in such a way that the order would be impossible to trace. After the Iraq invasion, it was the man who General Tommy Franks called “the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth,” Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, who was called upon to do the dirty work. His office was given the responsibility of planning the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.
True to the familiar pattern of White House methodology, Journalist Jim Lobe describes this decision as “effectively exclude[ing] input from Iraqi experts from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and even from the Iraqi-American community, who had participated in a mammoth project that anticipated most of the problems occupation authorities have since encountered.”[8]
Working in Feith’s office at this time was Stephen Cambone, who was instrumental in transferring Major General Geoffrey Miller from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to Abu Ghraib prison. Lobe reports that Miller “brought high-pressure interrogation tactics barred by the Geneva Conventions with him from Guantanamo” and that Newsweek, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times all reported that “top officials in the Pentagon, acting on the advice of civilian lawyers, authorized a reinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions to permit tougher methods of interrogation of prisoners of war.”[9] It was no doubt this new administration of a “torture policy” that led Secretary of State Colin Powell to call Feith’s operation the “Gestapo Office.”[10]
Despite Powell’s continued opposition, the new interrogation techniques were approved in April 2003. According to Lobe, senior Pentagon officials simultaneously approved excluding JAG officers, who normally are present to ensure the Geneva Conventions are followed. During this time, Scott Horton, a former senior JAG officer then serving as chairman of the committee on International Human Rights of the New York City Bar Association was contacted by JAG officers disturbed about the new policy. Lobe writes that “[a]ccording to Horton, the JAG officers identified the main forces behind loosening the rules as Feith and the Pentagon’s general counsel, William Haynes, another political appointee.”[11]
The “Enhanced” Techniques of a “few Bad Apples”
On the ground in Iraq, as many as fifty thousand men and women were being jammed into Abu Ghraib at a time. The cells were twelve-by-twelve and, according to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, were “little more than human holding pits.”[12] After the Iraq invasion, Rumsfeld ordered that a secret Pentagon interrogation unit dedicated to collecting intelligence about al-Qaeda be assigned responsibility for interrogating prisoners in Iraq. Hersh wrote, “According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, [the program] ‘encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.’” Hersh further reported in that anonymous military and intelligence sources indicated that Rumsfeld approved the use of interrogation tactics implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Specifically, special “biscuit teams,” as the soldier call them, staffed with psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians knowledgeable about Arab cultures would create conditions specifically designed to inflict maximum psychological pain within the cultural parameters of their prisoner’s psychology. Thus, American soldiers were instructed to make use of deeply seated religious taboos, their prisoner’s cultural anxiety caused by aggressive dogs, and culturally specific forms of humiliation to torture prisoners of war under their charge. Soldiers threatened naked prisoners with attack dogs. They used injections, suppositories, and other “techniques” to make the prisoners chained to the floor of their cells lose control of their bowels. Some prisoners they wiped with fake menstrual blood. Female interrogators questioned men forced to stand naked before them.
A former specialist in a military intelligence battalion, Tony Lagouranis has spoken openly about interrogations techniques he used in Abu Ghraib, Al Asad Airfield, and other locations in Iraq through out 2004, which he admitted were torture. The techniques he used included the use of dogs, waterboarding and prolonged stress positions. At Al Asad Airfield, he witnessed prisoners being shackled and hung from an upright bed frame welded to the wall. Lagouranis says these techniques “take a healthy guy and you turn him into a cripple, at least for a period of time.” Lagouranis, who reported the detainee abuses, only participated in techniques that “were technically legal.” Lagouranis told one reporter, “I started realizing that most of the prisoners were innocent. We were torturing people for not reason. I started getting really angry and really remorseful and by the time I got back I completely broke down.”[13]
Joseph Polermo writes:
“They bombarded them with loud music for days at a time and kept them under fluorescent lights. Other practices included: ‘Harsh heat or cold, withholding food; hooding for days at a time; naked isolation in cold, dark cells for more than thirty days; and “stress positions” designed to subject detainees to rising levels of pain.”[14]
General Antonio M. Taguba’s report on the Abu Ghraib scandal found repeated instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” including:
“Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall of his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”[15]
We all saw the pictures: the pyramids of naked bodies, the forced masturbation in front of female guards, the hooded figure with fake electrodes hooked to his finger tips, the smiling young girl with the snarling dog at leash’s end.
The lawyer of one of the enlisted men court marshaled because of the scandal complained of the absence of accountability up the command chain:
“Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?” [16]
All told, seven soldiers were convicted for participating in the torture; one was sentenced to ten years in prison. Whatever the culpability of these grunt soldiers was, these soldiers were committed legally and culturally to a chain of command that did not take lightly unscripted departures from routine duties, explicit orders, and the military’s code of honor. The claim that the torture was but the act of “a few bad apples,” not only defies the overwhelming evidence that such conduct was endorsed, encouraged, and engineered with White House knowledge, but is also a completely unrealistic portrayal of the psychology of enlisted servicemen and women.
It turns out that the photos we all saw were staged by “contract interrogators” working for Titan Corporation, hired under the Rumsfeld Doctrine of privatized war. The photos were to be used as psychological intimidation tools in future interrogations.[17] The use of civilian contractors served to put another layer of insulation between the high command and the troops being blamed, as the civilian contractors are not accountable under the same chain of command as the M.P.’s who were court marshaled were.
The Dungeon Master and the Scapegoat
The highest-ranking military officer reprimanded because of the torture scandal was Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the first female to ever command soldiers in a war zone-a fact that ought to be suspicious in and of itself.
Karpinski, who had never run a prison system, was given command of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, as Seymour Hersh points out, “like her, had not training in handling prisoners.”[18] She would eventually be demoted to Colonel because of the torture revelations.
When Doug Feith and Stephen Cambone got Two Star Major General Geoffrey Miller transferred from Guananamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, Miller told Karpinski that he was going to “Gitmo-ize” the operation and use the M.P.s to assist the interrogators to enhance interrogations. The M.P.’s, however, were under Karpinski’s command, whereas interrogators were answerable to the commander of the Military Intelligence Brigade.
Karpinski says, “I explained to him that the M.P.s were not trained in any kind of interrogation operations, and he told me that he wanted me to give him Abu Ghraib, because that’s the location he selected.”[19] Essentially, Miller was going to misuse untrained M.P.s under someone else’s command to insulate himself from the legal consequences of torturing prisoners.
Miller focused his interrogation operation in Cell Blocks 1A of Abu Ghraib, which he put under the charge of Colonel Pappas. Meanwhile, General Sanchez, who was responsible for the entire Iraqi command ordered General Karpinski to Camp Victory near the Iranian border. Karpinski said, “He wanted me away from the situation. He wanted me away from the possibility of finding out about what was going on in interrogations. So he incrementally moved me farther away, took Abu Ghraib away from me, then moved me out of Baghdad completely.” When the scandal broke, however, it would be Karpinski who was targeted by the higher command to take the blame.[20]
Karpinski told journalist Amy Goodman about the first news she got of torture being conducted at her own prison:
About the situation at Abu Ghraib, I was first informed by an email that I received on classified-what they call “classified traffic.” I opened it up late one night on the 12th of January 2004. And it was from the commander of the Criminal Investigation Division. He sent me an email and said, “Ma’am, I just want to make you aware, I’m going into brief the C.G.,” meaning General Sanchez, “on the progress of the investigation at Abu Ghraib. This involves the allegations of abuse and the photographs.” That was the first I heard of it.
I did not receive that email or phone call or a message from General Sanchez himself, who would ultimately attempt to hold me fully responsible for this, but from the C.I.D. Commander. And I was alarmed at just that short email. I was not in Baghdad at the time. I was at another location very close to the Iranian border, so we made arrangements to leave at the crack of dawn to drive down to Abu Ghraib to see what we could find out about this ongoing investigation and went through the battalion over to Cell Block 1A. The people who would normally be working on any shift were not working. The sergeant that I spoke to said that their records had been seized by the investigators, and they started a new log to account for prisoners, make sure that their meals were on time, those kin of things, and he pointed out a memo that was posted on a column just outside of their small administrative office. And the memorandum was signed by the Secretary of Defense…by Donald Rumsfeld. And said-it discussed interrogation techniques that were authorized. It was one page. It talked about stress positions, noise and light discipline, the use of music, disrupting sleep patterns, those kind of techniques. But there was a handwritten note out to the side. And this was a copy. It was a photocopy of the original, I would imagine. But it was unusual that an interrogation memorandum would be posted inside of a detention cell block, because interrogations were not conducted in the cell block.[21]
The handwritten note, in the same script as Rumsfeld’s signature, said: “Make sure this happens.” Essentially, Rumsfeld gave an order to Karpinski’s untrained M.P.s to apply “enhanced techniques” that were, at best, only to be applied by the trained “Intelligence Brigade” under a separate command. The order, however, was never passed through General Karpinski.
Rumsfeld, Feith, Cambone, and Miller had “Gitmo-ized” Abu-Ghraib and when they got caught, they blamed the first and only female war zone commander, who they had kept completely out of the loop. Karpinski confirmed that the M.P.s understood the memorandum to come from Rumsfeld, himself. Karpinski further explained that Rumsfeld had also ordered some prisoners to be held without a prisoner number or notation in the prisoner database-omissions which violate the Geneva Conventions. Karpinski says that on several occasions prisoners fell into this category of “ghost detainees.” According to the ACLU, there is documentary evidence that at least 21 detainees were murdered while in detention as a result of “enhanced” interrogation techniques, but of course, we cannot know how many undocumented prisoners may have been murdered as well.[22]
Although Karpinski took responsibility for violating the Geneva Conventions in allowing ghost prisoners to be kept undocumented in the prison database, she says she also protested to the prison legal advisor, Colonel Warren, when one such prisoner, prisoner “Triple X,” was ordered by Rumsfeld to be held in secrecy: “It’s a violation. You have to put people on the database. And how much longer are we going to be held responsible for him? You take control of him. If you want to violate a Geneva Convention, that’s up to you, but I don’t want to keep him in one of our camps this way.”
Karpinski asserts that responsibility for the torturing that occurred at Abu Ghraib ought “to start at the very top, and the original memorandum directing interrogation…” which Bush signed and that the M.P.s who were court marshaled were “unfairly and unjustly held accountable for all of this, as if they designed these techniques, as if Linddie England deployed with a dog collar and a dog leash.”[23]
The Department of Defense Investigates Itself; Bush Does Nothing
When the torture scandal broke in the Press, Rumsfeld appointed a four-person commission to investigate. All four members of the commission were members of the Defense Policy Board, the private advisory board that played an unprecedented role in influencing the decision to go to war and that assisted in the manipulation of evidence presented to the public and the United Nations about the dangers presented by Saddam Hussein. Two of the members of the investigative commission were also past Secretaries of Defense-part of the military-arms complex old-boy network unlikely to place blame on a fellow Secretary of Defense.
Predictably, the commission exonerated the three senior most senior officers responsible for prisoner interrogation, Rumsfeld, Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and Major General George Fay. Instead, the commission concluded that ‘freelancing’ guards on the night watch were responsible for the torture, not any effort orchestrated from higher up to collect more information from prisoners.[24] Human Rights Watch criticized the commission’s report for failing to look into the connection between the torture and Rumsfeld’s approval of interrogation techniques that intentionally used pain, humiliation and abuse of prisoners.”[25] Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman argues, “President Bush failed to ensure a full investigation and to see that the responsible parties, including higher-ups were held accountable. These failures are impeachable offenses.”[26]
Torture’s Lobbyist
Meanwhile, Congress decided that since President Bush did not seem to understand the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, it was necessary in 2005 to pass a new law, once more clearly outlawing torture. When the senate passed the McCain amendment banning torture by a definitive majority of 91 to 9, Cheney proved himself a national embarrassment by lobbying Senator McCain, hard to exempt the C.I.A. Of course, McCain is a man who had personally endured torture as a prisoner of war in the same Vietnam War, which as a young man Cheney promoted, but avoided serving in by obtaining numerous deferments.
Torture’s Anti-Democratic Authoritarian Puppet
When both houses passed the McCain amendment without Cheney’s exemption, President Bush added one of his over 1,000 signing statements to it, declaring that the act of signing the bill into law did not mean that he was legally bound to follow the new law. In this case, Bush used his signing statement to reserve the right to use torture if he thought it was necessary for national security.[27] Thus, after three iterations of an absolute prohibition against torture passed by the legislative branch and signed by the President-once in the ratification of the Geneva Conventions in 1955, again in the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, and a third time in the 2005 McCain anti-torture amendment-George W. Bush still persisted in his determination to use torture in defiance of the law.
Accountability in the White House
In the final assessment, we have Donald Rumsfeld signing memos authorizing violations of the Geneva Conventions and running out of the Pentagon a deliberate effort to expand interrogation techniques to include illegally cruel and degrading treatment specifically developed by the so-called “biscuit teams.” Under Rumsfeld, we have Doug Feith’s “Gestapo office,” in which Stephen Cambone orchestrates the transfer of Major General Miller to Abu Ghraib to get M.P.s outside Miller’s chain of command to assist in the use torture techniques in Iraq previously developed at the infamous Guantanemo Bay detention facility.
We have the pathologically authoritarian Vice President Dick Cheney declaring on national television just five days after the national trauma of the September 11th attacks, “We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side… without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies… any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”[28] Then after revelations of torture, murder, and perversion cause worldwide revulsion toward the United States and after congress passes a completely unnecessary third law to again outlaw torture, still Cheney continues to lobby obsessively the law’s author for an exception that would allow torture by the CIA to continue.
And finally, we have an incredibly juvenile and himself, psychologically manipulated puppet, president George W. Bush who takes up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[29] Then after the congress has passed the third and completely unnecessary prohibition against torture, Bush goes on to add to the law a signing statement declaring his intention to disregard the law whenever he sees fit.
We Want Our Humanity Represented!
After all these facts are reported in the press, still we have Nancy Pelosi saying, “Impeachment is off the table,” and “the American people want congress to get to work,” not to engage in “partisan struggles.” I beg to differ. The American people want a process for accountability when the President of the United States abuses the power and reputation the American people gave him to torture human beings in violation of three separate legal acts, not to mention the principle set forth in the 8th Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. The American people want their humanity represented and their humanity lies in the application of the democratic process that prevents elected leaders from abusing their power. Passing a law in congress has done nothing to stop Bush’s abuse of power. Getting “to work” is not what we, the people, elected a Democratic congress to do in 2006. We can get by without anti-flag burning amendments and new labels for DVDs. What we cannot do without is an impeachment of a president who willfully defies congress for the purpose of torturing human beings.
As the Dean of Yale Law School, Harold Koh says:
“If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution.”[30]
The balance of power in our democracy, however, is not defined by the law in and of itself, but by exercise of the law by those with a legal claim. Thus, under the Constitutional framework that supports our democracy, the limits of the commander-in-chief’s power are ultimately defined by the exercise of the right of impeachment. By failing to exercise the people’s legal claim against the vice president and president, Congress is letting the vice-president and president seize a despot’s hold over our humanity. This is not a moment in history for simply getting to work; it is the moment for dropping everything and making a stand for who we really are.
Hank Edson is an author, attorney, and activist located in the San Francisco Bay Area. His blog, “MP3 - My Politics and Progressive Perspective” can be found at: http://hankedson.squarespace.com
[1] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[2] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[3] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[4] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[5] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[6] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[7] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[8] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[9] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[10] Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, (New York, Simon & Schuster 2004), p. 292.
[11] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[12] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[13] Tara McKelvey, “We Were Torturing People For No Reason,” The International Herald Tribune, March 29, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/29/166.
[14] Joseph Palermo, “Bush’s Shame: From “Buscuit” Teams to PTSD,” CommonDreams.org, March 20, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-28.htm.
[15] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[16] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[17] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[18] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa-fact?printable=true.
[19] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[20] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[21] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[22] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[23] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[24] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[25] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[26] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[27] Phil Worden, “Has Bush Committed Impeachable Acts?,” The Bangor Daily News, April 30, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/875/print/
[28] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[29] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[30] “About John Yoo’s Torture Memo,” The National Lawyer’s Guild, Boalt Hall Chapter, http://nlg.boalt.org/Yoo.html.
Please, friends, gird up your loins,summon your courage,and look the BushCo evil in the face. Just say no. Stand firm for human rights, peace and justice. Many and many of us are watching from the wings.
True
Published on Sunday, July 1, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
We Want Our Humanity Represented! Impeachment for Torture, Now!
by Hank Edson
There is no shortage of reasons why we should impeach President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. Their crimes are so extensive and so egregious that it is hard to find time to grasp just how deliberate their pursuit has been over the past several years. Today’s topic, torture and how impeachment for torture is necessary to the representation of humanity in our democracy, does not even cover the subset of impeachable offenses: war crimes. By my count, this subset contains six separate impeachable war crimes committed by Bush and Cheney: (1) the supreme war crime of commencing a war of aggression, (2) torture, (3) extraordinary rendition, (4) termination of habeas corpus, (5) inhumane weaponry (such as daisy cutters, depleted uranium shells, and phosphorus bombs), and (6) the usurpation of Iraqi self-determination in economic and political affairs protected under the Geneva Conventions. If every America could take just fifteen minutes to read nine or ten pages telling the story of Bush and Cheney’s willful commitment to torture, it would go far to reorient the mindset in our country that has so passively accepted conduct by our leadership that is absolutely offensive to our values, aspirations, and responsibilities as a democratic people. With hope for such a transformation in our public discourse, I offer this summary of one of the most disgraceful episodes of a disgraceful presidency.
White House Cowboys and Dungeon Masters
In 1996, Congress passed the War Crimes Act, which made it a criminal act to violate the ban against torture and cruel of degrading treatment found in the Geneva Conventions. The United States ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1955. As a result of congressional ratification, the conventions already carried the force of law in the United States without the need for the 1996 War Crimes Act to make the government’s use of torture illegal.[1] Notwithstanding this doubly clear statement of law, five days after 9/11 Vice President Dick Cheney was already mentally adding dungeons to the defense assessment the Neo-Conservative think tank, Project for a New American Century, had prepared for him for use in installing the U.S. industrial-arms complex throughout the Middle East.
On September 16, 2001, Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press,
We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side…a lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies…it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.” [2]
Juvenile George Bush took up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
“I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[3]
What penance will America have to pay for placing such a man in its highest office?
Building the Legal Shield
As former CIA analyst Ray McGovern writes, “‘Dark-side’ operations, using ‘any means at our disposal’ - like, say, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ - by law require a ‘finding’ signed by the president.” [4] To protect himself in the event this “finding” was improper, Bush called upon his counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who provided a January 25, 2002 memo to the president authored by Cheney’s counsel, David Addington. The memo described as “quaint” and “obsolete” a number of provisions of the Geneva Conventions relating to prisoners of war. The memo also concluded that there was a “reasonable basis in law” that Bush could avoid any future criminal prosecution for violating the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. [5]
Secretary of State Powell, however, disagreed with the advice and inserted the following warning in Gonzales’ January 25, 2002 memo:
“A determination that the GPW [Geneva Convention of Prisoners of War] does not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine US military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.”
The next day, Powell wrote his own memo, adding that abandoning the Geneva Conventions would “undermine public support among critical allies [and] reverse over a century of US policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops.” [6]
Powell’s objections, however, were fruitless. On February 7, 2002, Bush signed the memorandum ordering our armed forces in the subtlest of language “to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.” The qualification, “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity,” meant: “when you get an order to torture, do it.” As with so many of the outrages in the Bush administration, the author of the torture memo, Addington, was later promoted for his good work to take over as Cheney’s Chief of Staff when Lewis Libby was indicted. Addington’s legal work was later condemned by 130 of the nation’s most respected jurists, including twelve federal judges and eight former American Bar Association presidents for failing in his “high obligation to defend the Constitution.”[7]
The Administrative Base for Torture
Once the legal shield had been put in place to permit the White House to order torture, the next step was to give the order, but to do it in such a way that the order would be impossible to trace. After the Iraq invasion, it was the man who General Tommy Franks called “the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth,” Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, who was called upon to do the dirty work. His office was given the responsibility of planning the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.
True to the familiar pattern of White House methodology, Journalist Jim Lobe describes this decision as “effectively exclude[ing] input from Iraqi experts from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and even from the Iraqi-American community, who had participated in a mammoth project that anticipated most of the problems occupation authorities have since encountered.”[8]
Working in Feith’s office at this time was Stephen Cambone, who was instrumental in transferring Major General Geoffrey Miller from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to Abu Ghraib prison. Lobe reports that Miller “brought high-pressure interrogation tactics barred by the Geneva Conventions with him from Guantanamo” and that Newsweek, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times all reported that “top officials in the Pentagon, acting on the advice of civilian lawyers, authorized a reinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions to permit tougher methods of interrogation of prisoners of war.”[9] It was no doubt this new administration of a “torture policy” that led Secretary of State Colin Powell to call Feith’s operation the “Gestapo Office.”[10]
Despite Powell’s continued opposition, the new interrogation techniques were approved in April 2003. According to Lobe, senior Pentagon officials simultaneously approved excluding JAG officers, who normally are present to ensure the Geneva Conventions are followed. During this time, Scott Horton, a former senior JAG officer then serving as chairman of the committee on International Human Rights of the New York City Bar Association was contacted by JAG officers disturbed about the new policy. Lobe writes that “[a]ccording to Horton, the JAG officers identified the main forces behind loosening the rules as Feith and the Pentagon’s general counsel, William Haynes, another political appointee.”[11]
The “Enhanced” Techniques of a “few Bad Apples”
On the ground in Iraq, as many as fifty thousand men and women were being jammed into Abu Ghraib at a time. The cells were twelve-by-twelve and, according to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, were “little more than human holding pits.”[12] After the Iraq invasion, Rumsfeld ordered that a secret Pentagon interrogation unit dedicated to collecting intelligence about al-Qaeda be assigned responsibility for interrogating prisoners in Iraq. Hersh wrote, “According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, [the program] ‘encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.’” Hersh further reported in that anonymous military and intelligence sources indicated that Rumsfeld approved the use of interrogation tactics implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Specifically, special “biscuit teams,” as the soldier call them, staffed with psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians knowledgeable about Arab cultures would create conditions specifically designed to inflict maximum psychological pain within the cultural parameters of their prisoner’s psychology. Thus, American soldiers were instructed to make use of deeply seated religious taboos, their prisoner’s cultural anxiety caused by aggressive dogs, and culturally specific forms of humiliation to torture prisoners of war under their charge. Soldiers threatened naked prisoners with attack dogs. They used injections, suppositories, and other “techniques” to make the prisoners chained to the floor of their cells lose control of their bowels. Some prisoners they wiped with fake menstrual blood. Female interrogators questioned men forced to stand naked before them.
A former specialist in a military intelligence battalion, Tony Lagouranis has spoken openly about interrogations techniques he used in Abu Ghraib, Al Asad Airfield, and other locations in Iraq through out 2004, which he admitted were torture. The techniques he used included the use of dogs, waterboarding and prolonged stress positions. At Al Asad Airfield, he witnessed prisoners being shackled and hung from an upright bed frame welded to the wall. Lagouranis says these techniques “take a healthy guy and you turn him into a cripple, at least for a period of time.” Lagouranis, who reported the detainee abuses, only participated in techniques that “were technically legal.” Lagouranis told one reporter, “I started realizing that most of the prisoners were innocent. We were torturing people for not reason. I started getting really angry and really remorseful and by the time I got back I completely broke down.”[13]
Joseph Polermo writes:
“They bombarded them with loud music for days at a time and kept them under fluorescent lights. Other practices included: ‘Harsh heat or cold, withholding food; hooding for days at a time; naked isolation in cold, dark cells for more than thirty days; and “stress positions” designed to subject detainees to rising levels of pain.”[14]
General Antonio M. Taguba’s report on the Abu Ghraib scandal found repeated instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” including:
“Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall of his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”[15]
We all saw the pictures: the pyramids of naked bodies, the forced masturbation in front of female guards, the hooded figure with fake electrodes hooked to his finger tips, the smiling young girl with the snarling dog at leash’s end.
The lawyer of one of the enlisted men court marshaled because of the scandal complained of the absence of accountability up the command chain:
“Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?” [16]
All told, seven soldiers were convicted for participating in the torture; one was sentenced to ten years in prison. Whatever the culpability of these grunt soldiers was, these soldiers were committed legally and culturally to a chain of command that did not take lightly unscripted departures from routine duties, explicit orders, and the military’s code of honor. The claim that the torture was but the act of “a few bad apples,” not only defies the overwhelming evidence that such conduct was endorsed, encouraged, and engineered with White House knowledge, but is also a completely unrealistic portrayal of the psychology of enlisted servicemen and women.
It turns out that the photos we all saw were staged by “contract interrogators” working for Titan Corporation, hired under the Rumsfeld Doctrine of privatized war. The photos were to be used as psychological intimidation tools in future interrogations.[17] The use of civilian contractors served to put another layer of insulation between the high command and the troops being blamed, as the civilian contractors are not accountable under the same chain of command as the M.P.’s who were court marshaled were.
The Dungeon Master and the Scapegoat
The highest-ranking military officer reprimanded because of the torture scandal was Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the first female to ever command soldiers in a war zone-a fact that ought to be suspicious in and of itself.
Karpinski, who had never run a prison system, was given command of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, as Seymour Hersh points out, “like her, had not training in handling prisoners.”[18] She would eventually be demoted to Colonel because of the torture revelations.
When Doug Feith and Stephen Cambone got Two Star Major General Geoffrey Miller transferred from Guananamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, Miller told Karpinski that he was going to “Gitmo-ize” the operation and use the M.P.s to assist the interrogators to enhance interrogations. The M.P.’s, however, were under Karpinski’s command, whereas interrogators were answerable to the commander of the Military Intelligence Brigade.
Karpinski says, “I explained to him that the M.P.s were not trained in any kind of interrogation operations, and he told me that he wanted me to give him Abu Ghraib, because that’s the location he selected.”[19] Essentially, Miller was going to misuse untrained M.P.s under someone else’s command to insulate himself from the legal consequences of torturing prisoners.
Miller focused his interrogation operation in Cell Blocks 1A of Abu Ghraib, which he put under the charge of Colonel Pappas. Meanwhile, General Sanchez, who was responsible for the entire Iraqi command ordered General Karpinski to Camp Victory near the Iranian border. Karpinski said, “He wanted me away from the situation. He wanted me away from the possibility of finding out about what was going on in interrogations. So he incrementally moved me farther away, took Abu Ghraib away from me, then moved me out of Baghdad completely.” When the scandal broke, however, it would be Karpinski who was targeted by the higher command to take the blame.[20]
Karpinski told journalist Amy Goodman about the first news she got of torture being conducted at her own prison:
About the situation at Abu Ghraib, I was first informed by an email that I received on classified-what they call “classified traffic.” I opened it up late one night on the 12th of January 2004. And it was from the commander of the Criminal Investigation Division. He sent me an email and said, “Ma’am, I just want to make you aware, I’m going into brief the C.G.,” meaning General Sanchez, “on the progress of the investigation at Abu Ghraib. This involves the allegations of abuse and the photographs.” That was the first I heard of it.
I did not receive that email or phone call or a message from General Sanchez himself, who would ultimately attempt to hold me fully responsible for this, but from the C.I.D. Commander. And I was alarmed at just that short email. I was not in Baghdad at the time. I was at another location very close to the Iranian border, so we made arrangements to leave at the crack of dawn to drive down to Abu Ghraib to see what we could find out about this ongoing investigation and went through the battalion over to Cell Block 1A. The people who would normally be working on any shift were not working. The sergeant that I spoke to said that their records had been seized by the investigators, and they started a new log to account for prisoners, make sure that their meals were on time, those kin of things, and he pointed out a memo that was posted on a column just outside of their small administrative office. And the memorandum was signed by the Secretary of Defense…by Donald Rumsfeld. And said-it discussed interrogation techniques that were authorized. It was one page. It talked about stress positions, noise and light discipline, the use of music, disrupting sleep patterns, those kind of techniques. But there was a handwritten note out to the side. And this was a copy. It was a photocopy of the original, I would imagine. But it was unusual that an interrogation memorandum would be posted inside of a detention cell block, because interrogations were not conducted in the cell block.[21]
The handwritten note, in the same script as Rumsfeld’s signature, said: “Make sure this happens.” Essentially, Rumsfeld gave an order to Karpinski’s untrained M.P.s to apply “enhanced techniques” that were, at best, only to be applied by the trained “Intelligence Brigade” under a separate command. The order, however, was never passed through General Karpinski.
Rumsfeld, Feith, Cambone, and Miller had “Gitmo-ized” Abu-Ghraib and when they got caught, they blamed the first and only female war zone commander, who they had kept completely out of the loop. Karpinski confirmed that the M.P.s understood the memorandum to come from Rumsfeld, himself. Karpinski further explained that Rumsfeld had also ordered some prisoners to be held without a prisoner number or notation in the prisoner database-omissions which violate the Geneva Conventions. Karpinski says that on several occasions prisoners fell into this category of “ghost detainees.” According to the ACLU, there is documentary evidence that at least 21 detainees were murdered while in detention as a result of “enhanced” interrogation techniques, but of course, we cannot know how many undocumented prisoners may have been murdered as well.[22]
Although Karpinski took responsibility for violating the Geneva Conventions in allowing ghost prisoners to be kept undocumented in the prison database, she says she also protested to the prison legal advisor, Colonel Warren, when one such prisoner, prisoner “Triple X,” was ordered by Rumsfeld to be held in secrecy: “It’s a violation. You have to put people on the database. And how much longer are we going to be held responsible for him? You take control of him. If you want to violate a Geneva Convention, that’s up to you, but I don’t want to keep him in one of our camps this way.”
Karpinski asserts that responsibility for the torturing that occurred at Abu Ghraib ought “to start at the very top, and the original memorandum directing interrogation…” which Bush signed and that the M.P.s who were court marshaled were “unfairly and unjustly held accountable for all of this, as if they designed these techniques, as if Linddie England deployed with a dog collar and a dog leash.”[23]
The Department of Defense Investigates Itself; Bush Does Nothing
When the torture scandal broke in the Press, Rumsfeld appointed a four-person commission to investigate. All four members of the commission were members of the Defense Policy Board, the private advisory board that played an unprecedented role in influencing the decision to go to war and that assisted in the manipulation of evidence presented to the public and the United Nations about the dangers presented by Saddam Hussein. Two of the members of the investigative commission were also past Secretaries of Defense-part of the military-arms complex old-boy network unlikely to place blame on a fellow Secretary of Defense.
Predictably, the commission exonerated the three senior most senior officers responsible for prisoner interrogation, Rumsfeld, Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and Major General George Fay. Instead, the commission concluded that ‘freelancing’ guards on the night watch were responsible for the torture, not any effort orchestrated from higher up to collect more information from prisoners.[24] Human Rights Watch criticized the commission’s report for failing to look into the connection between the torture and Rumsfeld’s approval of interrogation techniques that intentionally used pain, humiliation and abuse of prisoners.”[25] Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman argues, “President Bush failed to ensure a full investigation and to see that the responsible parties, including higher-ups were held accountable. These failures are impeachable offenses.”[26]
Torture’s Lobbyist
Meanwhile, Congress decided that since President Bush did not seem to understand the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, it was necessary in 2005 to pass a new law, once more clearly outlawing torture. When the senate passed the McCain amendment banning torture by a definitive majority of 91 to 9, Cheney proved himself a national embarrassment by lobbying Senator McCain, hard to exempt the C.I.A. Of course, McCain is a man who had personally endured torture as a prisoner of war in the same Vietnam War, which as a young man Cheney promoted, but avoided serving in by obtaining numerous deferments.
Torture’s Anti-Democratic Authoritarian Puppet
When both houses passed the McCain amendment without Cheney’s exemption, President Bush added one of his over 1,000 signing statements to it, declaring that the act of signing the bill into law did not mean that he was legally bound to follow the new law. In this case, Bush used his signing statement to reserve the right to use torture if he thought it was necessary for national security.[27] Thus, after three iterations of an absolute prohibition against torture passed by the legislative branch and signed by the President-once in the ratification of the Geneva Conventions in 1955, again in the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, and a third time in the 2005 McCain anti-torture amendment-George W. Bush still persisted in his determination to use torture in defiance of the law.
Accountability in the White House
In the final assessment, we have Donald Rumsfeld signing memos authorizing violations of the Geneva Conventions and running out of the Pentagon a deliberate effort to expand interrogation techniques to include illegally cruel and degrading treatment specifically developed by the so-called “biscuit teams.” Under Rumsfeld, we have Doug Feith’s “Gestapo office,” in which Stephen Cambone orchestrates the transfer of Major General Miller to Abu Ghraib to get M.P.s outside Miller’s chain of command to assist in the use torture techniques in Iraq previously developed at the infamous Guantanemo Bay detention facility.
We have the pathologically authoritarian Vice President Dick Cheney declaring on national television just five days after the national trauma of the September 11th attacks, “We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side… without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies… any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”[28] Then after revelations of torture, murder, and perversion cause worldwide revulsion toward the United States and after congress passes a completely unnecessary third law to again outlaw torture, still Cheney continues to lobby obsessively the law’s author for an exception that would allow torture by the CIA to continue.
And finally, we have an incredibly juvenile and himself, psychologically manipulated puppet, president George W. Bush who takes up his Vice President’s demented, but dead serious advice with gusto, telling his then-counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke and his then-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”[29] Then after the congress has passed the third and completely unnecessary prohibition against torture, Bush goes on to add to the law a signing statement declaring his intention to disregard the law whenever he sees fit.
We Want Our Humanity Represented!
After all these facts are reported in the press, still we have Nancy Pelosi saying, “Impeachment is off the table,” and “the American people want congress to get to work,” not to engage in “partisan struggles.” I beg to differ. The American people want a process for accountability when the President of the United States abuses the power and reputation the American people gave him to torture human beings in violation of three separate legal acts, not to mention the principle set forth in the 8th Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. The American people want their humanity represented and their humanity lies in the application of the democratic process that prevents elected leaders from abusing their power. Passing a law in congress has done nothing to stop Bush’s abuse of power. Getting “to work” is not what we, the people, elected a Democratic congress to do in 2006. We can get by without anti-flag burning amendments and new labels for DVDs. What we cannot do without is an impeachment of a president who willfully defies congress for the purpose of torturing human beings.
As the Dean of Yale Law School, Harold Koh says:
“If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution.”[30]
The balance of power in our democracy, however, is not defined by the law in and of itself, but by exercise of the law by those with a legal claim. Thus, under the Constitutional framework that supports our democracy, the limits of the commander-in-chief’s power are ultimately defined by the exercise of the right of impeachment. By failing to exercise the people’s legal claim against the vice president and president, Congress is letting the vice-president and president seize a despot’s hold over our humanity. This is not a moment in history for simply getting to work; it is the moment for dropping everything and making a stand for who we really are.
Hank Edson is an author, attorney, and activist located in the San Francisco Bay Area. His blog, “MP3 - My Politics and Progressive Perspective” can be found at: http://hankedson.squarespace.com
[1] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[2] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[3] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[4] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[5] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[6] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[7] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[8] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[9] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[10] Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, (New York, Simon & Schuster 2004), p. 292.
[11] Jim Lobe, “Pentagon’s Feith Again at Center of Disaster,” Inter Press Service, May 20, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm.
[12] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[13] Tara McKelvey, “We Were Torturing People For No Reason,” The International Herald Tribune, March 29, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/29/166.
[14] Joseph Palermo, “Bush’s Shame: From “Buscuit” Teams to PTSD,” CommonDreams.org, March 20, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-28.htm.
[15] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[16] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?printable=true.
[17] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[18] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, May 10, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa-fact?printable=true.
[19] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[20] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[21] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[22] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[23] Amy Goodman, “Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame ‘Goes All the Way to the Top,” Democracy Now!, October 26, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10-/26/1423248.
[24] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[25] Chris Shumway, “Rumsfeld’s Torture Panel Clears Rumsfeld,” The New Standard, August 26, 2004, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/shumway.php?articleid=3450.
[26] Elizabeth Holtzman, “Calling Nancy Pelosi: The People’s Case for Impeaching Bush,” The Washington Spectator, November 14, 2006, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-22.htm.
[27] Phil Worden, “Has Bush Committed Impeachable Acts?,” The Bangor Daily News, April 30, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/875/print/
[28] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[29] Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water,” CommonDreams.org, December 10, 2005, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/1210-27.htm.
[30] “About John Yoo’s Torture Memo,” The National Lawyer’s Guild, Boalt Hall Chapter, http://nlg.boalt.org/Yoo.html.
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