Mr. Bush's blind arrogance!

Years ago the FBI knocked on my door; that is a story for another time but it sets a stage. Because given the environment President George Bush has created in this country, we have every reason to believe it will happen again. And it will start when ordinary citizens begin to do small, extraordinary things to take back the country they love.

It may not be as simple as providing housing for young men scared to death of war; trying to discover why students at the University of California at Berkeley were willing to get their head bashed to stop it or having the body count effect a life so personally. This time it may will be more abstract.

But the process of change must begin again.

There is nothing about Mr. Bush that is American, patriotic, loving, good or kind. With each day, each minute, each millisecond he inflicts upon this country the very worst of human nature. Listen to today's news: "Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the (CIA) from using interrogation methods like waterboarding, a technique in which restrained prisoners are threatened with drowning."

Even senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has criticized the technique. "Sure," he said on CBS's 60 Minutes, "yes, without a doubt. We prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II and one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they waterboarded Americans."

It is universally rejected by military and law enforcement agencies and it is internationally scorned. Yet Mr. Bush thinks it is American, that it is patriotic, that it is a good thing to subject people to it!

Well, damn it, not in my name!

A blight like some Egyptian plague has come over us. Collectively we, as a people, have lost our way. For reasons this one ordinary citizen can not grasp, the United States of America has become the home of the intolerant and fearful where justice is no longer the rule.

There is no rational reason for Mr. Bush's blind arrogance in redefining the rule of law. Only tyrants and evil people would seek to justify coercive interrogation tactics.

At the end of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet a little noticed character, The Prince who is the ultimate moral arbitrator of the play laments with at his countrymen:
"Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this..."

For never was a story of more woe ... but, now, we need to reclaim what it means to be a good and decent again.

FEAR AT 3 AM IN THE MORNING?

Dear Wife:

During our long and wonder conversations you have expressed positive feelings about our former vice-president Al Gore.

After dinner tonight I was reading his recent book, "An Assault on Reason". In the chapter entitled "The Politics of Fear" Mr. Gore reminds us of something former President Richard Nixon said in an interview after he left office in disgrace, "People react to fear, not love. They don't teach that in Sunday school, but it's true."

Gore goes on to say in relation to his father's and Edward Muskie's political loses in 1968, "There are only two kinds of politics. There is not radical and reactionary or conservative and liberal or even Democratic and Republican. There are only the politics of fear and the politics of trust. One says you are encircled by monstrous dangers. Give us power over your freedom so we may protect you. The other says the world is a baffling and hazardous place, but it can be shaped to the will of men." Mr. Gore expresses pride in both men and feels that their "politics" will eventually win out.

As I reflect on the recent Democratic primary, the political slogan that comes to mind is, "Who is answering the White House phone at 3am in the morning?" Is that the politics of fear or the politics of trust? And I wonder, will politics ever raise about that tactic? Am I just a dreamer?

Lovingly,

JUST OFF THE 10 FREEWAY IN PHOENIX - Dick's Cabaret ...

So does that headline sound like the beginning of cheap novel? I am sitting here thinking it does and mostly laughing to myself even if the eventually ending maybe sad.

Just off the 10 Freeway in Phoenix, Arizona between the weekday motels, U-haul's rentals and dusty, empty lots is East Illini Street. There is absolutely nothing on that street for an out-of-town tourist. Trucks, daytime work traffic and the average Phoenix guy on a 9-to-5 transportation job is all you'll find there ... with one exception, one soon-to-be, nationally known exception: street number 3432.

You see, it's what happens after dark, down that dead-end street, that's about to make the headlines. Like a "superman character" during the day, number 3432 is a single story, ubiquitous, light-green building with an empty, gated parking lot. But at night when the truckers leave, the gate opens and Dick's Cabaret comes alive!

Yes, none other than the world famous, Dick's Cabaret!

Well, "Darn it," you say, "I've never hear of it." Well, until twenty minutes ago, neither had I.

Good, old Dick's Cabaret was stuck in dusty, Phoenix anonymity until a former, male stripper named David Hernandez, who apparently did quite well stripping naked for the gentlemen, became one of the 20 finalists on American Idol - the highest rated show on American television.

But, oh David ... doesn't he know that a male strippers can't make the big time? I mean, can you imagine American Idol taking a winning David Hernandez "back home" to Phoenix? Back to his high school? Where thousands of screaming kids yell, "David, David, David"? Where Mayor Phil Gordon give him a key to the city? Will Police Chief Jack Harris managed the traffic when the city's "son" comes home?

I doubt it.

I doubt it, not because this whole situation isn't funny or because it will drive the Phoenix or Glendale (his home) city father's or the television people crazy or even that Mr. Hernandez maybe the season's scandal. I doubt it because Mr. Hernandez danced at a gay club and we know what that means! And God knows in our current political climate, a city or a high school or a state could not be seem as supportive of "that kind" of young person and his dreams or hopes.

I don't know if he is gay; I don't know nor do I care if he danced at Dick's; Hopefully the "Idol Machine" is not spitting out a PR piece. What I hope is that he is as talented as the rest of his companions. If he is, I may have to figure out how to vote for an American Idol.

SATAN, AKINOLA & SEXUAL ORIENTATION

One of the public figures I have poked fun at is a certain United States Senator from Wyoming for his so-called "restroom" behavior. I do that because of his hypocrisy. But all of that seriously pales in comparison to the extreme actions of Archbishop Peter Akinola as revealed in the Atlantic Magazine.

The Archbishop as you may remember called the ordination of the gay Bishop Gene Robinson satanic. But "Satan" was truly at work when Nigerian Archbishop Akinola's organization, "had a prominent role in the slaughter of Muslims. Not only did his thugs shoot children."

Written by Eliza Griswold, the daughter of former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and entitled God's Country, it is an in depth report on the tensions between Christianity and Islam in Nigeria. "They (Christians) burned mosques, raped pregnant women, burned corpses in the streets and forced Muslims to eat pork and drink booze. Akinola incited the mass violence with a speech in which he proclaimed: 'May we at this stage remind our Muslim brothers that they do not have the monopoly of violence in this nation'."

It is hard for me to even fathom things like this, or for that matter even make a comment on it. But I do wonder what the former United States Episcopal Bishops and congregations who have aligned themselves with the archbishop will say now.

Really folks, in the realm of importance, where does someone's sexual orientation stand? Nothing puts it all in place than news like this.

PRESIDENT BUSH AND YARDDOG'S GAS PRICES

The Washington Post report today that "the House of Representatives brushed aside threats of a White House veto yesterday and voted 236 to 182 in favor of an $18 billion tax package that would rescind a tax break for the five biggest oil companies and use the revenue to boost incentives for wind and solar energy and energy efficiency.

"The Bush administration, Republican lawmakers and big oil companies condemned the bill, which they said would raise fuel prices for consumers..."

Who exactly is Mr. Bush trying to fool? Gasoline at my local station is $3.49 for regular. Is he nut?