Oh BAMA!

Five against one and he pulled it off. Even the voters in Indiana, that odd red state on the Great Lakes, nearly gave him a win. He fought Bill and Hillary with McCain throwing some elbows too. Even Rush 'Oxycontin' Limbaugh greased the floor with his blather. Of course, the reverend made things difficult too. Chelsey was on the bench cheering mom.

I'd say that if Obama could win against this motley crew, then he deserves the nomination hands-down. The hapless Bush look-alike, John McCain, ought to be easily knocked off in November.

Most of Hillary's women will come back to Obama in the fall. The rednecks won't but the Democratic Party doesn't need them anyway. The GOP has them locked up. It reminds me of the Dixiecrats, those racist Democrats in the 60's, who left the party because of civil rights legislation that they couldn't stomach. Today they have a red grip on the South.

Hillary will score a great victory in West Virginia next week; the folks there are her base of support. Undereducated, rural, bigoted whites who really should be Republicans will give her a double-digit win there. The state has gone far afield from its historic split with Virginia over the issue of slavery back in the 1860's. Once a solid Democratic bastion, they voted for George Bush in the last two elections and will no doubt vote GOP this fall.

These West Virginia voters continually vote against their own economic interests year after year. They are easily duped by political advertising into voting Republican due to so-called 'values issues.' The flim-flam game works every time and the GOP is expecting to trot it out once again in November.

The racial bigots there won't need any prodding; they'd never vote for a 'nigger.' So, Hillary can bask in her upcoming West Virginia 'win' but many of the votes she will receive are from people who really belong in the Republican Party.

U.S. Copies Israeli Wall: Wall in Those Muslims

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! " Ronald Reagan speaking of the Berlin Wall. The Chinese built one too to keep out the Mongols. Israel has several keeping out those Palestinians. Now, never learning from history, the U.S. is building one in Sadr City.

"Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.The construction, which began in April, is intended to turn the southern quarter of Sadr City near the international Green Zone into a protected enclave, secured by Iraqi and American forces, where the Iraqi government can undertake reconstruction efforts." - NYT

One more stupid idea of the Bush/Cheney regime. Who has been keeping track of their idiotic blunders?

Simpsons Outpace U.S. Constitution

"Sorry I voted for Bush/Cheney twice." I've yet to hear anyone utter that phrase and no wonder: they did not know what they were doing, apparently. Simpsons Outpace U.S. Constitution is a headline form CBS News this morning. They report:

AP) Americans apparently know more about "The Simpsons" TV show than about the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half can name at least two members of the TV cartoon family, according to a survey. The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.

Oh lord! I suspected such but it is awfully hard to see the data. No wonder it was so easy for Bush/Cheney to fool most of the people most of the time. Bart Simpson trumps James Madison.

Obama: Five Against One

I'm quite sure that Barack Obama could go 1 on 5 in a basketball game, but this ain't b-ball. He's one man facing 5 opponents. Hillary and Bill are the first two, both slapping him around today in Indiana and North Carolina. Chelsey's on the bench waiting to be called in when dad gets winded. Naturally John McCain sees Obama as his opponent in the fall and uses his stump speeches to smack him down whenever the occasion arises. Rush 'Oxycontin' Limbaugh has been urging his dittoheads to register as Dems and vote for Hillary. Tens of thousands did so in Pennsylvania last week. Finally, Rev. Wright throws a body block or two just to mess up Obama's shots.

Five on one. If Obama manages to get the nomination after scrapping with this bunch of losers, he's on his way to the Oval Office. Unless, of course, the KKK has other plans.

Pat Gets IT

Speaking and writing recently about NAFTA and other
free trade agreements Pat Buchanan makes the following
point:

"Free trade is hollowing out U.S. industry,
destroying the dollar, and plunging the country
into permanent dependency and unpayable debt."

Have to admit, Buchanan in this instance has hit the
nail squarely on the head.

What's Our Plan of Action the Day Bush Bombs Iran?

Raise you hand if you don't think Bush/Cheney will bomb Iran before their term is up. You may be dismissed; read another blog.

If you didn't raise your hand, you and I need to do a couple of things to save this nation from doom after the boneheads order the bombs dropped.

First, we need to decide which actions of civil disobedience will cause the greatest disruption of 'business as usual.'

Next we have to get the word out on the plan.

Finally, we need to connect with like-minded citizens to coordinate the massive action.

It is fairly obvious to anyone who hasn't been in a coma for the past 8 years that these two meat-heads never learn from their mistakes and/or don't care whether they make mistakes. Look at the fiasco 'Mission Accomplished' turned into. Recall WMD's and the uranium from Africa. The connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam. The mobile biological weapon centers. The smoking gun as mushroom cloud. We'll be greeted as liberators. The war will last at best 6 weeks. We've reached a turning-point. The surge is working. We've turned the corner.

How many lies was that? I've lost count.

Raise you hand if you can believe anything that Bush or Cheney says. If your hand is up, go home.

Obviously, for those of us who have been paying attention, we couldn't trust these two bums to tell us the time. So, when they claim that 'we have no plans to invade Iran' we have to parse the phrase. They may have no plan to INVADE Iran, but they sure in hell have a plan to BOMB Iran. And who doubts it? Raise your hand if you doubt it. Those with your hands raised please go to bed.

So, the rest of us know that it is going to happen; one day/afternoon/evening/morning there will be Breaking News on CNN: U.S. missiles launched against targets in Iran. We know this. All we don't know at this point is the date; we also don't know the massive civil disobedience plan that will be activated right after the Breaking News appears on CNN.

That's our task: what will be the various civil disobedience actions that will spread across America on that day? Remember, it must be massive and it must cause disruption of 'business as usual.' Our survival as a nation depends on this planning because, if we can get a massive, nationwide plan in order before the event, it may deter the event from happening. Sort of like a pre-emptive strike before the pre-emptive strike.

Are you with me? Raise your hand. If you didn't raise your hand, go to the library and read the U. S. Constitution and an easy reader version of the American Revolution.

Brainstorming time: what would constitute a massive civil action, easy to accomplish, that would spread quickly from coast to coast and stop 'business as usual?' Come back tomorrow with your suggestions.

Class dismissed.

Bush Approval Rate at All Time Low- Too Late Now

Twenty-eight percent approval, 72% disapproval- a historic record low rating for a U.S. President. Where the hell were these 72% back in November 2004? Did they not see the past as a pathway to the future? Or, were they crossing their fingers hoping he would improve?

The uproar about these numbers is meaningless, about as meaningless as Congress. The governance of our nation is shameful. At no time in our history have so few elected officials been worthy of praise for their courage and wisdom on behalf of the citizens. Never.

Who is to blame? The citizens, of course. As the title of Lee Iococca's book suggests: Where have all of the Leaders Gone? We're much too partisan believing that OUR candidate from OUR party has to be better than THEIR candidate. The foolishness of it all is astounding.

Will we citizens break free this Fall and elect the best person regardless of politics? Will we citizens be duped by slick commercials and negative ads? Will we sit it out believing its hopeless?

My crystal ball needs new batteries.

"The Ape that Evolved God."

Quite a title, but it's not; it is in the first paragraph of a book written by an anthropologist with the desire to discover, through scientific inquiry, if 'religiosity' is an inborn trait of humans. Anthropology professor Barbara J. King of William and Mary penned this opening paragraph of her book: "We humans crave emotional connection with others. This deep desire... can be explained by the long evolutionary history we shared with other primates.... At the same time, it explains why humans evolved to become the spiritual ape--the ape that grew a large brain, the ape that stood up, the ape that first created art, but, above all, the ape that evolved God."

No doubt there is a great collective gasp from the fundamentalist community at this statement, but I'm not the least bit interested in what they have to say; I've heard it all and it doesn't impress nor educate me one bit. No funny Fundy comments, please.

The book is Evolving God, a puzzling title in itself. Dr. King's website includes an interview she had with NPR as well as an interview with Steve Paulson of Salon He writes this about the author:

"King argues that religion is rooted in our social and emotional connections with each other. What's more, we can trace back the origins of our religious impulse not just to early cave paintings and burial sites 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, but much earlier -- back to our ancient ancestors millions of years ago. And today, King says, we can see the foundations of religious behavior in chimpanzees and gorillas; watching our distant cousins can do much to explain the foundations of our own beliefs."

Paulson asked her: Why would an anthropologist who studies apes be interested in religion?

She answered: "I think religion is all about emotional engagement and social action. And we can get a whole new read on the evolutionary history of religion by asking the kinds of questions that we ask of language and culture. We can see that way back in our past -- literally, millions of years ago -- some practices are visible in the archaeological record that reflect the deepest roots of religion. And apes today are pretty good stand-ins for those very early human ancestors. So when I go to the National Zoo in Washington, or spend time in Kenya looking at monkeys, what I see is very social. It's about emotional connection that's at the very ancient roots of religion."

When asked to clarify this connection with the religious King explains: "I'm not talking about a set of beliefs. When I think about religion, what comes to mind are personal relationships with the supernatural, with God or with spirits, and compassionate action. Not necessarily books or texts that you read, but some sort of action in the world."

This point clearly separates her from those who would automatically condemn her for linking apes and a deity. She clarifies it: "And the way I approach that is to look at the active expression of this emotional connection in something that I can identify as a spiritual realm."

Here are four things Dr. king looks for in studying her apes: "I look at four different kinds of behavior -- meaning-making, imagination, empathy and following the rules. Together, I think they give us a sense of what religion might have started out to be."

Ha! Following the rules. Hammer hits nail. Imagination was noted just this week in an article highlighting the work of anthropologist Maurice Bloch: Religion a figment of human imagination

King goes on: "The apes have bits and pieces of all these four things, but not in a coherent pattern that adds up to religious behavior. To my mind, apes are conscious beings and they do these four things in incredibly fascinating ways."

I would like to be able to discover if Homo Erectus, that extinct human species, left any clues to that would shed light on this question. After all, he is the link from the ape to the human. So is Neanderthal - the first of the human species that buried the dead. Of course, 'why' they buried them is not known; it could have been that strong emotional connection that Dr. King proposed. Perhaps Neanderthals didn't like to see their dead relatives eaten by carnivores- the ones painted on their cave walls.

Somewhere along the evolutionary chain an epiphany moment occurred in one of these primitive humans that began the idea that maybe there is more to life than just living and dying. And thus , the ape evolved God.

Collateral Damage from that Other U.S. War

Many of the daily murders committed throughout Iraq are 'sectarian' in nature: an all-encompassing term generally meaning revenge killings. Many are Sunni-Shia, a perpetual dual set of historic enemies. Other murders occur for quite another reason. Many Iraqis are killed because they aided the United States military during this occupation. Traitors or turn-coats in the American Revolution. New Brunswick was the refugee 'camp' for these American-British sympathizers.

I'm not sure if the Iraqi-American 'sympathizers' have a camp to which they can flee. They are rather stuck in the killing fields.

All of this reminds me of the Vietnam War and the plight of the hill people of Laos, the Hmong, who were recruited by the CIA to search the area for American pilots who had been shot down on bombing raids. After the US pulled out of Vietnam, the Hmong were sitting ducks for the vengeance and retribution of the VietCong. As a result, many Hmong were slaughtered- entire villages wiped out. The lucky ones ran for their lives and ended up in Thailand.

Just last evening my wife and I were the guests of a Hmong family that we helped settle in Toledo back in 1979. The husband talked of longing to return for a visit to his mountain village with his wife and older children. "Are you going?" I asked him. He hesitated, looked down, and said, "You know I was part of the American military and the authorities there might recognize me." He said that he longs to return 'to help out my family there because they have nothing.' He wants to bring some money with him to build a mechanical water pump for the village. Now they have a well and a bucket. "They have nothing," he said, "not even running water." His daughter has begun a charity to raise money for that project.

The daughter, visiting from San Francisco, was born in the refugee camps in Thailand and longs to see the place where her mother and father grew up. "I feel like I need to connect with my family heritage," he said to me. "I've only seen photos of the village and the people there and it is so poor and primitive. Look at all we have and they don't even have running water!" Tears welled up in her eyes.

Collateral damage of war. Such an innocuous term for such a monstrous reality. Once again it is being played out- this time on the sands of Iraq.