Republicans in Aspen

After living there for twenty years, Nan and I moved away from Aspen a little over seven years ago. We still get back there a few times a year to ski and visit friends, and we notice changes that we might not if we still lived there. This was especially true this past weekend when we made a quick overnight trip to visit a good friend.

On our way into Aspen, we passed the old Poppies restaurant building. The business closed a few years ago and the Victorian-era building has been sitting empty, but it is now serving as the local Republican Party headquarters. There was a sign to that effect above the door and signs promoting Republican candidates plastered all over the wrought iron fence out front. Nan and I both expressed surprise, and I reminded her of an Independence Day several years ago, when some local Republicans marched in the annual parade carrying a banner announcing themselves. I had made the comment: "There they go, all four of them."

Times seem to have changed. We saw Romney bumper stickers and yard signs all over town. Aspen used to pride itself on being a tiny island of Democrats in the sea of Colorado Republicans. It also prided itself on what was called "messy vitality," a kind of small-town funkiness arising from the co-existence of folks spanning the entire economic spectrum. Those points of pride are less in evidence these days, and the reasons are obvious. 

In Aspen, the Great Recession hit late, but it hit hard. During the depths, the all-important tourist dollars dwindled to the point where many businesses, especially the mom-and-pop ones, closed permanently. The businesses that survived were the ones that catered to the uber-wealthy, the people least affected by the economic downturn. Surrounded by empty retail spaces, businesses selling thousand-dollar cashmere scarves and five-figure handbags continued to flourish. During this period, downtown felt like it used to feel during off-season, when all the locals cleared out of town, except that it was now year round. 

What we noticed as we walked around town yesterday is that those empty retail spaces, in the wake of modest economic recovery, are filling in with even more stores peddling super-expensive wares. Rather than becoming more affordable as a result of the recession, Aspen appears to have become less so. It has always had the reputation of being the playground of the rich and famous, but now it seems to be the exclusive domain of the "one percenters." And with that cachet comes the Republican mindset that was so much in evidence all around town.

The good news is that President Obama is ahead in the polls in Colorado and will probably take both the state and the election again on November 6. If he does, I hope that the signs and stickers will come down and that people will leave their divisions behind for another four years to let Aspen return to its funky self.

Still hoping for change?

Monday morning on my way to work, I spotted a new billboard. It showed a close-up photo of some guy's torso in t-shirt and blue jeans, with his hands pulling his front pockets inside out. The wording in front of the photo said in large white letters, "STILL HOPING FOR CHANGE?" And the "O" in "HOPING" was replaced with President Obama's familiar campaign symbol. At the bottom of the billboard was the Web address for the responsible party, Compass Colorado, which I will not link to from my blog.

This billboard didn't anger me nearly as much as the one I saw almost two years ago (http://whisperingjesse.blogspot.com/2010/03/welcome-to-grand-junction.html), which showed former President Jimmy Carter thinking, "They can't call me the worst president anymore!" Still, it riled me enough that I checked out Compass Colorado's website. Its message is clear: "Call the White House and demand President Obama stop the spending and save Colorado jobs." What is not so clear is how those two demands are related. Digging deeper, I found: "Colorado’s economy has stagnated due to failed policies on the local, state and national levels. Tax hikes, reckless spending, and burdensome regulations have created an uncertain economic climate and stifled economic recovery and job creation."

To my way of thinking, that argument is completely backwards. Economic recovery and job creation have been slowed by lack of demand, not by government policies. Higher prices and lower wages, for those lucky enough to have jobs, have pinched people to the point where they don't have any money to spend except on basic necessities. Our consumer-driven economy suffers as a result. The tax hikes, so-called reckless spending and burdensome regulations are the successful policies that are facilitating economic recovery while preserving our environment for future generations. The government has created incentives that have saved thousands of jobs while at the same time imposing rules and regulations to prevent the greedy practices that crashed the economy in the first place.

The timing of the billboard's placement is suspicious. The economy has been improving steadily over the last few months, so the associated website's gloom-and-doom message seems a little late. More likely, the billboard is what it seemed to be when I first saw it, an anti-Obama campaign message. That, too, seems a little late. With the Republicans failing to present a credible challenger, President Obama appears destined for re-election, which will keep alive his message of hope and change for another four years.

"Learn to Vote"

When Nan and I arrived back in Grand Junction after our New Year's vacation in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, there was a surprise waiting under the windshield wiper of our car in the airport parking lot. It was a computer-generated note that said, well, I'm not going to repeat what it said. That's a photo of the note, over to the left. You may read it for yourself.

I have an "Obama 2012" bumper sticker on the back of my car. The note is an obvious criticism of my choice for the upcoming presidential election, but it comes off more as a criticism of my ability to vote. Trust me. I have had plenty of practice in the voting booth. This year's election will mark the tenth time I've voted for president. My choice doesn't always win, but he did in 2008 and I'm confident he'll do it again in 2012. Oh yes we can!

Welcome to Grand Junction!

Last month, when I read about the billboard in Wyoming, Minnesota, that featured a smiling, waving George W. Bush, with the caption, "Miss me yet?", I thought it was one of the most ridiculous things I had ever heard of. But the good citizens of my fair city, Grand Junction, Colorado, must have taken it as a challenge because one of them recently one-upped it in a big way. Yes, the billboard above is real. It sits near the intersection of 1st and Grand, about two miles from my home. Go ahead and click on it if you want to see the full 800x600 view.

The thinking behind this message is so foreign to me that I didn't even understand it at first. Obviously, Jimmy Carter's thought bubble is meant to imply that our current president, Barack Obama, has taken over the title of "worst president," but Obama has only been in office for just over a year. It's a little too soon to be making that kind of judgment, unless you're basing your opinion on factors other than job performance, like the man's skin color. Racism is alive and well here, and it was on full display at candidate Obama's rally in September 2008 and at President Obama's town hall meeting on health care in August 2009.

The more difficult thing for me to understand is Jimmy Carter in the role of previous "worst president." I will grant you that I didn't vote for him in either 1976 or 1980, but I most certainly did not vote for Gerald Ford or Ronald Reagan either. I voted for Independents in both of those elections. But Jimmy Carter as worst president? I don't get it. Like President Obama, he inherited an economic mess from the previous administration, and he was unlucky to be in office when the Iranians decided to take some Americans hostage. Still, he narrowly lost to Reagan in 1980, so how bad could he have been? Former President Carter is now widely regarded as the most effective former president in history, acting, along with his wife Rosalynn, as America's ambassador to the world.

I don't care how much Karl Rove tries to sugar-coat it in his new book, George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst president ever--far worse than even Andrew Johnson, the first president ever to face impeachment. We will be living with the unconscionable economic and political damage of the Bush years for decades to come. President Obama was elected to begin the repairs, but he has no cooperation from the party that helped to wreck things in the first place. Yesterday's purely partisan vote on health care reform is clear evidence of that.

A more realistic billboard might show Republicans Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence laughing hysterically and giving us all the finger. Now that's a message I could understand.

Garrison Keillor on health care

I am a long-time fan of Garrison Keillor. I enjoy not only his radio program, Prairie Home Companion, but also his writings, especially his columns. During the 2006 mid-term elections, I posted to this blog my favorite Keillor column, "We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore", which begins, "Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party." It's as true today as it was then, as is evident from Keillor's column last week:

Published on Saturday, January 23, 2010 and distributed by Tribune Media Services

Grab a cup of coffee, and let's talk politics

Anybody can play the game, but only the realists can govern.

by Garrison Keillor

The tea partiers are enjoying their day in the sun, but coffee is the beverage preferred by most Americans, and we don't have time to gang up and holler and wave our arms -- we prefer to sit quietly with coffee in hand and read a reliable newspaper and try to figure out what's going on in the world. Great heaps of dead bodies are moved by front-loaders and dumped, uncounted, unidentified, into open pits in a stricken country while people feast and walk treadmills on enormous cruise ships sailing a hundred miles off the coast en route to the Bahamas and Jamaica. That's the real world, not the paranoid hallucinations of the right.

The problem for Democrats right now is that nobody can explain health-care reform in plain English, 50 words or less. It's all too murky. The price of constructing this intricate web of compromises for the benefit of Republican senators (who then decided to quit the game and sit on their thumbs) is a bill with strange hair and ill-fitting clothes that you hesitate to bring home to Mother. Like all murky stuff, it is liable to strike people as dangerous or unreliable. And demagogues thrive in dim light.

The basic question is simple: Should health care be a basic right or is it a privilege for those who can afford it? Rush says it's a privilege -- pay or die -- and for his colonoscopy, they use a golden probe with a diamond tip, but most Americans agree that health care is basic, like education or decent roads or clean water. Holy Scripture would seem to point us in that direction. And yet the churches, so far as I can see, have chosen to stay aloof from this issue. Churches that feed the hungry and house the homeless dare not offend the conservatives in their midst by suggesting that we also tend the sick. And the opposition has beaten on garbage cans and whooped and yelled and alarmed the populace, which they're quite good at. These people look at a clear blue sky and see a conspiracy.

Arousing alarm is easy, teaching is tough. It takes patience and discipline to teach; any bozo can drop a book on the floor and make people jump. This is true even in Massachusetts. And in Nevada, where Sen. Harry Reid is facing a tough challenge in the fall.

Reid is the gentlest and most patient soul in the U.S. Senate and his presence there in a colony of bull walruses is a tribute to Nevada. He's a soft-spoken man from hardscrabble roots in the mining town of Searchlight who possesses Western honesty and openness and a degree of modesty startling for a senator, and if he goes down to defeat to some big bass drum, the Republic will be the poorer for it.

Sometimes you despair of common sense when you see an empty helmet like former Mayor Giuliani strutting up to the podium, or hear the Rev. Robertson opine on the earthquake in Haiti, or the lunatic congressman from Michigan who intimated that the president is somehow responsible for the Fort Hood massacre -- you just roll your eyes and hope these guys have friends who will take away the car keys.

Paranoia sells better in January than in November, however. And Sarah Palin was not elected vice president, and she is not in the West Wing advising President McCain on foreign policy. It didn't happen. She is investing her windfall profits from the book about how the Eastern media beat up on her, but we the people decided she was not vice presidential material. We don't choose our family doctor based on his ability to yodel, and we don't elect a woman vice president because she's perky.

And your high school civics teacher would not have given you a high mark for saying, as the Rev. Robertson did, that the earthquake in Haiti was God's judgment on voodoo. God has tolerated voodoo in Washington for years and not seen fit to shake the city yet. Priests and mojo men dance around the Capitol every day, waving skulls on sticks, scattering their magic powders, trying to stop progress with a hex, and God is content to observe them. So do we coffee drinkers. Government is in the hands of realists and in the end we shall prevail.

We can only hope.

President Barack Obama

Like there was ever a doubt. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves after a wish becomes reality.

But the anticipation, the not knowing, makes our stomachs hurt. That's how I felt yesterday, Election Day, while waiting for a moment I had been expecting for four long years, since the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when Barack Obama was introduced to the world through his keynote address.

Something bad is going to happen, I kept thinking. It's too good to be true. But then Ohio turned blue and it took only moments to add in the west coast votes to reach a total beyond 270. When those west coast polls closed, it was official.

I watched McCain's concession speech and wondered why he hadn't displayed such nobility and candor in his stump speeches. I watched Obama's victory speech and believed, as I did on 9/11, that everything has changed.

At odd moments during the day today, I thought, oh yeah, Obama is our new president. And it made me feel good, like the future is going to be just fine. Like there was ever a doubt.

Obama in Grand Junction

Barack Obama spoke in our town today. My friend Phillip Linville and I witnessed the historic event from just fifty feet away thanks to Phil's willingness to wait in line for three hours on Saturday to get us tickets. Still, after waiting another three hours this morning, nowhere near the front of the line, we were both amazed to be so close. It more than made up for not getting tickets to Obama's acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium during the Democratic National Convention a few weeks ago.

The warm-up speakers were obviously excited to be sharing the stage with Obama and speaking before a crowd estimated at about 6,000 people. Notables included Governor Bill Ritter and Senator Ken Salazar, but the introduction duties fell to local citizen Bill Haggerty, who mangled Obama's name but scored points with the audience when he presented him with a locally grown peach.

Obama's speech focused primarily on the economy, which was especially pertinent today given the failure of Lehman Brothers, the acquisition of Merrill Lynch and the record decline in the stock market. He also spoke about issues important to Western Colorado, particularly water rights and energy development. Overall, his message was one of hope for a better future for all Americans.

The importance of this election in deciding the future course of history, either change for the better or more of the same, was evident on the faces all around us. People were still waving their "Change We Need" signs as they walked back to the parking lot.

Seeing Barack Obama speak in person was a tremendously uplifting experience, one that could not be dampened by the protestors lining the entrance, not by the boy in the Denver Broncos jersey with the "Your [sic] in McCain country" sign and not by the young woman holding the racist "Got White Guilt?" banner. Has there ever been a greater divide in the way people think in this country?

Opinion vs. Fact

A few months ago, I had a brief argument with a person about whether or not Barack Obama is a Muslim. She said that she had heard from her friends and family and had read on the Internet that he is indeed a Muslim. I countered that I had seen interviews on TV and read in newspapers and magazines that his father was a Muslim but that Barack had been raised a Christian by his mother and grandparents, and that he is a member of a Christian church in Chicago. She shrugged and said that she could believe what she wanted to believe. That unexpected reaction threw me for a few seconds. Then I responded that there is a difference between facts and opinions. She shrugged again and walked away. Argument over.

I was reminded of that incident recently when John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate. As a virtual unknown, the press dug into her background quickly. It's no secret that I support Obama and do not think too highly of his opposition, but some of the dirt on Sarah Palin still surprised me. Mostly it was the obvious pandering to the Christian fundamentalists. I expected the strident anti-abortion stand, but then it was reported that she was "skeptical" about evolution and global warming. I started looking around for something to throw at the TV.

It amazes me that people think it's acceptable to have opinions about the validity of scientific theories, as though the word "theory" lessens the truth somehow. What about the theory of gravity? Would anyone hold an opinion denying gravity? Why then would anyone deny scientifically proven theories confirming evolution and global warming? Because they don't fit certain religious principles or a particular worldview? A better idea, and one based on the scientific method, would be to adjust one's thinking to conform to observed, repeatable phenomena. Fossils have not been placed in the earth to test our faith. Faith has nothing to do with them. Faith is for phenomena lacking sufficient evidence one way or the other, like the existence of God.

Applying faith and opinion to matters of truth and fact is not intelligent. The idea that we might elect someone to the second highest office in our country who thinks this way should make all right-thinking Americans consider their votes carefully.

Obama for President

Today is only the second official day of the 2008 presidential election, but it's already looking like Barack Obama will win it easily.

Almost four years ago, when Newsweek started running his photo and announcing that he would be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention, I was one of many asking, "Barack who?" But then I watched his speech, and I was one of many thinking, "This guy is going to be our first black president."

Later that year, when Obama won his senate seat in the 2004 election, I was one of many thinking, "He's on his way." In early 2007, following the huge Democratic victories in the 2006 mid-term elections, when Obama was considering a run for president, I was one of many hoping he would take the chance.

Back in March, when he easily won the Iowa primary, I was one of many who were not surprised. And when he became the Democratic candidate for president last Tuesday, I was one of many thinking, "I can't believe this is really happening."

Now we face five months of what will be the most contentious presidential campaign in history. It will start with the choices for vice president. I am one of many hoping Obama chooses Jim Webb, the Democratic senator from Virginia. Webb, a Vietnam hero and former Republican in the Reagan administration, would provide excellent balance to the ticket.

I am also one of many hoping John McCain chooses Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and former presidential candidate. Long on money and short on ideas, Romney could provide a "Quayle effect" that further muddles an already seriously muddled Republican campaign.

Faced with such an overwhelming opponent, the Republicans will go ugly early. They will make John Kerry's 2004 swift-boating seem like a friendly scrimmage by comparison. I am one of many who will be thinking, "There is nothing they can do now that will change my opinion."

Barring unforeseen circumstances, the change this country so desperately needs will begin on January 20, 2009 when Obama is inaugurated president. I am one of many who couldn't be happier.

Caucus in Colorado

On Super Tuesday, I attended my precinct's Democratic caucus at Scenic Elementary School. By 7:00 PM, there were close to three hundred people packed into an average-sized classroom, sitting at short tables on short chairs and standing three and four deep along the walls. Precinct captain Dan Robinson stood on a table to welcome us and get the evening started. He laughed as he told us that four years ago, during the 2004 election, only fifteen people showed up, so it was pretty obvious how important this election was to all of us. The smiles and nods all around confirmed his words and loosened up the crowd for what came next, an opportunity for people to speak on behalf of the Democratic candidates. Young and old, black and white, man and woman stood to declare their support for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. The Obama supporters outnumbered the Clinton supporters about two to one. Situations like this have the potential to escalate into shouting matches, but to their credit, people were civil and supportive of each other.

When everyone had had their say, it was time to head to the gym and break up into groups by precinct number. Dan and our other precinct captain, Tom Acker, presided over our group. They began by handing out copies of the party's resolutions, which are worth presenting here in their entirety:

RESOLUTIONS OF THE MESA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY (Draft)

The Democratic Party has a long and proud history of hope, opportunity and progress toward a better life for the citizens of these United States. The Democratic Party is rooted in the ideas of our founding fathers as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This platform builds on these foundations.

Continuing Resolutions

This We Believe:

1. A healthy economy is dependent upon hard-working men and women receiving a fair living wage for their labor.

2. Working people have the right to organize and bargain collectively without fear of intimidation or permanent replacement during disputes.

3. A strong public education system with adequate and equitable funding and independence from political whims is the core element of modern society.

4. The health of an economy is dependent on the health of its environment, and it is necessary to have a clean environment to attract and keep well-paying jobs.

5. A healthy economy relies on appropriate maintenance of our public infrastructure, including roads, bridges, water, sewer, and funding of police, fire protection and school facilities.

6. While violent criminals definitely need to be imprisoned, more resources need to be devoted to programs that prevent crime, provide rehabilitation and reduce recidivism.

7. A system of universal health care coverage is needed to repair a badly broken and ineffective system currently unable to provide appropriate health care to Americans.

8. National security should not be used to limit those individual civil liberties guaranteed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights on which this country was founded.

9. The constitutional guarantee to a right of privacy extends to decisions involving a woman's reproductive choices, and affordable and well-informed choices should be available to all.

10. Government support of community amenities including art and culture, parks and recreation, and historic preservation insures that they are available and affordable for all.

11. The integrity of the voting system and its accessibility must be preserved at all levels of government, with results being verifiable.

12. Freedom of speech and the press are the most vital of our constitutional rights. It is essential that we speak and write our concerns, regardless of current popular sentiment. We strongly oppose the concentration of our media in a few partisan hands.

13. The fundamental principles of freedom of religion and separation of church and state must not be compromised.

14. Social Security and Medicare reform must preserve benefits for current and future generations.

15. The right to equal treatment must be available to all persons regardless of race, creed, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation/gender identity.

16. A grateful nation needs to provide its veterans with the best possible care, and, when necessary, rehabilitation.

Current Resolutions

This We Believe:

1. The proposed "Right to Work" initiative would destroy unions' ability to be a voice on behalf of working families in Colorado and would lead to more government interference in businesses and workplaces.

2. The costs to local government for supporting activities involving energy related mineral extraction must be ameliorated by a fair and equitable distribution of severance tax revenues. An increase in the severance tax rates to make them more comparable to neighboring states is long overdue.

3. The financial crisis in this state precipitated by the interaction of the Tabor Amendment, the Gallagher Amendment and Amendment 23 needs to be addressed.

4. Enhanced early childhood education and better identification of and programs created for gifted and talented students will benefit all citizens of the state.

5. In today's world, post-secondary education is critical in order to create the opportunity for success. Higher education must be available to all who seek it. Funding for higher education in Mesa County is not adequate and needs to be addressed by the legislature.

6. It is important that the borders of our country be secure. At the same time it is important to recognize that the undocumented immigrants seeking employment in the United States are for the most part responsible, hard-working individuals who deserve the respect afforded any person.

7. It is time for Mesa County to have a Recreation Center accessible to all.

8. The negative and misleading political advertising put forward by 527 organizations is abhorrent to all serious campaigners. We call for its elimination.

9. Democratic candidates should reject the abuse of power, violation of Americans' civil liberties, and contempt for the Constitution demonstrated by the current administration.

10. School districts must instill in our young people a community spirit by teaching and modeling fairness, tolerance and participation in the political process.

11. The development and use of renewable energy resources and technologies is essential to achieving lasting national security and energy independence. All energy exploration in Mesa County must be undertaken with the utmost regard for the continued protection of our health, our water, our air and our environment.

12. The future of our community lies with our young people, and their future is jeopardized by a lack of support services for children. The high rates of suicide, methamphetamine abuse and other self-destructive behaviors, and high rates of physical and sexual abuse of children in Mesa County speak to the importance of placing greater attention on the needs of our children.

13. The Women's Freedom Amendment should be added to the United States Constitution.

14. Automobile insurance needs to be affordable to all drivers, regardless of their economic status. Credit scores should be eliminated as a factor in setting rates since they most affect those who most need the insurance.

15. Economic development and jobs are important for the health and well-being of Colorado's residents, but we oppose subsidies and incentives that do not clearly result in the creation of new high-wage jobs. Furthermore, companies that move their manufacturing facilities offshore should lose any subsidies or tax breaks they may have received.

16. The No Child Left Behind Act has proven to be a failure, replacing teaching time with excessive testing.

17. The support of our troops in harm's way is compromised by the privatization of the armed forces instituted by this administration. Halliburton, Black Water and other friends of the administration have made obscene profits while shortchanging the young men and women serving our country.

18. Real science needs to be reintroduced to national health research in this country. Limitations placed on the use of federal funds in seeking advances in health care must be based on hard scientific facts rather than personal beliefs. New strains of viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria are potentially huge threats to the nation, and greater efforts at developing prevention are sorely needed.

19. Education vouchers and tax credits divert tax dollars away from public education and give them to unregulated and untested private schools, thus diminishing the financial support for Colorado's public schools.

With minor revisions, the resolutions were unanimously accepted. Finally, it was time for the straw poll. In my group of eighty-one, forty-six were for Obama, twenty-four were for Clinton and the rest were undecided. This worked out to five delegates for Obama, two for Clinton and one uncommitted. Hands were raised by those willing to attend the county caucus meeting next month either as a delegate or as an alternate. And then it was over.

I watched the primary and caucus results that night on MSNBC and was not at all surprised to see Colorado go for Obama by a two-to-one margin over Clinton, exactly as my precinct had. The results in other states were not so decisive, so the decision that Super Tuesday was predicted to render did not materialize. But Obama's better-than-predicted showing, as far as the polls were concerned, seemed to create momentum going into this past weekend that resulted in his sweep of all four state contests: Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana and Maine.

Tomorrow is the "Potomac Primary." Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC will help determine if Obama is indeed riding a wave a momentum, or if Clinton really is the presumptive candidate. My guess is that Obama will take all three states but win narrowly in Virginia. That will tip the delegate count firmly in his favor heading toward Ohio and Texas, but what about the superdelegates? Do they stand to thwart the will of the people? Are we heading toward another 2000 election fiasco before we even get to the nomination? These are exciting times.

Republicans equal life; Democrats equal death?

Keith Olbermann closed out his Countdown program on MSNBC last night with the best analysis I've heard so far regarding the state of fear the Republicans have been using since 9/11 to control the American people. Here is the transcript from MSNBC.com:

A special comment about Rudolph Giuliani’s remarks at a Lincoln Day dinner in New Hampshire:

Since some indeterminable hour between the final dousing of the pyre at The World Trade Center, and the breaking of what Sen. Barack Obama has aptly termed "9/11 fever," it has been profoundly and disturbingly evident that we are at the center of one of history’s great ironies.

Only in this America of the early 21st century could it be true that the man who was president during the worst attack on our nation and the man who was the mayor of the city in which that attack principally unfolded would not only be absolved of any and all blame for the unreadiness of their own governments, but, moreover, would thereafter be branded heroes of those attacks.

And now, that mayor — whose most profound municipal act in the wake of that nightmare was to suggest the postponement of the election to select his own successor — has gone even a step beyond these M.C. Escher constructions of history.

"If any Republican is elected president — and I think obviously I would be best at this — we will remain on offense and will anticipate what (the terrorists) will do and try to stop them before they do it."

Insisting that the election of any Democrat would mean the country was "back ... on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued: "But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will go on longer."

He said this with no sense of irony, no sense of any personal shortcomings, no sense whatsoever.

And if you somehow missed what he was really saying, somehow didn’t hear the none-too-subtle subtext of "vote Democratic and die," Mr. Giuliani then stripped away any barrier of courtesy, telling Roger Simon of politico.com:

"America will be safer with a Republican president."

At least that Republican president under which we have not been safer has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic distance between himself and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic president — or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani’s flights of grandeur in New Hampshire — even if they elect a different Republican.

How ... dare ... you, sir?

"How many casualties will we have?" — this is the language of Osama bin Laden.

Yours, Mr. Giuliani, is the same chilling nonchalance of the madman, of the proselytizer who has moved even from some crude framework of politics and society, into a virtual Roman Colosseum of carnage, and a conceit over your own ability — and worthiness — to decide who lives and who dies.

Rather than a reasoned discussion — rather than a political campaign advocating your own causes and extolling your own qualifications — you have bypassed all the intermediate steps and moved directly to trying to terrorize the electorate into viewing a vote for a Democrat, not as a reasonable alternative and an inalienable right ... but as an act of suicide.

This is not the mere politicizing of Iraq, nor the vague mumbled epithets about Democratic "softness" from a delusional vice president.

This is casualties on a partisan basis — of the naked assertion that Mr. Giuliani’s party knows all and will save those who have voted for it — and to hell with everybody else.

And that he, with no foreign policy experience whatsoever, is somehow the messiah-of-the-moment.

Even to grant that that formula — whether posed by Republican or Democrat — is somehow not the most base, the most indefensible, the most un-American electioneering in our history — even if it is somehow acceptable to assign "casualties" to one party and "safety" to the other — even if we have become so profane in our thinking that it is part of our political vocabulary to view counter-terror as one party’s property and the other’s liability ... on what imaginary track record does Mr. Giuliani base his boast?

Which party held the presidency on Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party held the mayoralty of New York on that date, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party assured New Yorkers that the air was safe and the remains of the dead recovered and not being used to fill potholes, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party wanted what the terrorists wanted — the postponement of elections — and to whose personal advantage would that have redounded, Mr. Giuliani?

Which mayor of New York was elected eight months after the first attack on the World Trade Center, yet did not emphasize counter-terror in the same city for the next eight years, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party had proposed to turn over the Department of Homeland Security to Bernard Kerik, Mr. Giuliani?

Who wanted to ignore and hide Kerik’s organized crime allegations, Mr. Giuliani?

Who personally argued to the White House that Kerik need not be vetted, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party rode roughshod over Americans’ rights while braying that it was actually protecting them, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party took this country into the most utterly backwards, utterly counterproductive, utterly ruinous war in our history, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party has been in office as more Americans were killed in the pointless fields of Iraq than were killed in the consuming nightmare of 9/11, Mr. Giuliani?

Drop this argument, sir.

You will lose it.

"The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us," Mr. Giuliani continued to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner last night. "Never, ever again will this country be on defense waiting for (terrorists) to attack us, if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense."

There is no room for this.

This is terrorism itself, dressed up as counter-terrorism.

It is not warning, but bullying — substituted for the political discourse now absolutely essential to this country’s survival and the freedom of its people.

No Democrat has said words like these. None has ever campaigned on the Republicans’ flat-footedness of Sept. 11, 2001. None has the requisite, irresponsible, all-consuming ambition. None is willing to say "I accuse," rather than recognize that, to some degree, all of us share responsibility for our collective stupor.

And if it is somehow insufficient, that this is morally, spiritually, and politically wrong, to screech as Mr. Giuliani has screeched, there is also this: that gaping hole in Mr. Giuliani’s argument of "Republicans equal life; Democrats equal death."

Not only have the Republicans not lived up to their babbling on this subject, but last fall the electorate called them on it.

As doubtless they would call you on it, Mr. Giuliani.

Repeat — go beyond — Mr. Bush’s rhetorical calamities of 2006.

Call attention to the casualties on your watch, and your long, waking slumber in the years between the two attacks on the World Trade Center.

Become the candidate who runs on the Vote-For-Me-Or-Die platform.

Do a Joe McCarthy, a Lyndon Johnson, a Robespierre.

Only, if you choose so to do, do not come back surprised nor remorseful if the voters remind you that "terror" is not just a matter of "casualties." It is, just as surely, a matter of the promulgation of fear.

Claim a difference between the parties on the voters’ chances of survival — and you do bin Laden’s work for him.

And we — Democrats and Republicans alike, and every variation in between — We Americans! — are sick to death of you and the other terror-mongers trying to frighten us into submission, into the surrender of our rights and our reason, into this betrayal of that for which this country has always stood.

Franklin Roosevelt’s words ring true again tonight.

And, clarified and amplified, they are just as current now as they were when first he spoke them, 74 years ago.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" — and those who would exploit our fear, for power and for their own personal, selfish, cynical, gain.

Good night, and good luck.

Christmas Letter 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

Every time I sit down to write our annual Christmas letter, I reflect on life's changes. A year ago at this time, the business I had started in Grand Junction, Colorado was shutting down and I was looking for a real job, Nan was working at Aspen Valley Hospital and coming home to the house we had bought in GJ on weekends, and we were both wondering what to do next. Job opportunities in GJ were few and paid poorly, but as luck would have it, after posting my résumé on Monster.com, I received an email message that my old job at AVH was available again. It had been almost two years since I was laid off and I wasn't sure if I should apply, but Nan insisted. They hired me back without even an interview, not as Network Administrator but rather in the newly created position of Database/Internet Administrator. I started in late February, leaving behind my interim employment as a ski instructor at Powderhorn Resort, a great little ski mountain just outside of GJ. My half of the photo shows me in uniform but free skiing on Powderhorn's best powder day of the season, March 12, after it snowed four feet in two days.

Nan and I agreed that it didn't make sense to move back into our Aspen house, which was being rented at the time. The move to GJ had been an ordeal and we weren't eager to repeat the experience. And besides, we had grown fond of our living situation in GJ--the friendly climate, the good shopping and restaurants, the beauty of the high desert. We just couldn't afford both mortgages. So we found a house to rent downvalley and put the Aspen house up for sale in May as the lease ran out. We thought we could save on commissions by trying to sell it on our own, but the negotiating process was too draining, so we listed it with an old friend who had a firm offer in less than a week. We closed at the end of August. Now I guess we're former Aspenites even though we both still work there and live, during the work week anyway, just down the road.

These transitions didn't leave us much opportunity for travel this year. We carried through on reservations we had made almost a year in advance to spend a June week in Las Vegas, originally to attend the annual eBay convention, but my struggling business had eliminated any enthusiasm for that pursuit. Instead we walked all over the Strip, read novels by the pool at the Paris hotel, gambled a little and saw two great Cirque du Soleil shows, the Beatles' "Love" show and "O".

Nan and I both made it home to Wisconsin on separate trips for family time. My sister Susan organized a small family reunion that brought the Chicago contingent to Milwaukee for a day of food, fun, reminiscence and music. The rest of the week was a blur of spotty golf, a concert with sister Jane in Chicago and a visit to the Wisconsin State Fair. Nan's visit home brought together almost all of her eleven siblings. In between visiting around the dinner table at 846, Nan attended the Fall Festival at Camp Sinawa, where her father was so involved, and made day trips to see sister Sarah's family in Green Bay and old friends in Door County.

Most of our weekends were spent in GJ working on our new house, but we also managed a few weekends elsewhere, like in Moab, Utah a few weeks ago, where Nan ran in the Winter Sun 10K. As you can see in her half of the photo, Santa was there to record her finish time, which was good enough for third place in her age group.

We'll be making up for the lack of travel in a big way next year, including a repeat of our 2004 sailing adventure in the British Virgin Islands, this time on a bigger boat with Nan's sister Monica and friend Vicky as crew. Hopefully, it will go more smoothly than our ill-fated "Where's the dinghy?" experience.

Things definitely appear to be looking up, not just for us but also for our country. The November election proved that most people, at least the ones who vote, are paying attention and want a return to peace and sanity. We're hoping the momentum carries through to 2008, when we expect to see the election of our first African-American president. Go Barack!

Best wishes to you and yours this holiday season!

Love, John and Nan

Ever so much more so

Two years ago, during the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, Garrison Keillor wrote a commentary on the then-current state of the Republican Party. His line about hypocrisies shining like cat turds in the moonlight has stuck with me since I first read it and seems all the more apt during this election season, when the biggest hypocrite in recent memory, ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida), may have unwittingly thrown Congress over to the Democrats.

If it rang true then, it rings ever so much more so now:

Published on Friday, August 27, 2004 by In These Times

We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the Party of Newt Gingrich’s Evil Spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch President, a Dull and Rigid Man, whose Philosophy is a Jumble of badly sutured Body Parts trying to Walk?

by Garrison Keillor

Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.

Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy—the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.

The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.

Our beloved land has been fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.

There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.

Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.

This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.

Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.

Amen.

Gore 2008: Save the Planet!

Last night Nan and I saw An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary film about global warming. It was an eye-opener. I had been lukewarm to the idea of global warming for some time, especially since reading Michael Crichton's book, State of Fear, in which he presents scientific evidence in a fictional context to show that global warming is part of a natural cycle perhaps somewhat enhanced by human activity.

Al Gore blows the top off that idea in the first few minutes with his graphs showing the cycles of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last fifty years. The growth is exponential. Then he goes on to show the potential future consequences of having this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is not a world we would want to live in: flooded coastlines, summer temperatures consistently over one hundred degrees, even more devastating hurricanes and cyclones, accelerated desertification, political unrest, and natural disasters claiming millions of lives.

The critics are saying that everyone should see this movie, and I agree. If you have an open mind, it will change the way you think about the earth and our future on it. The problem of global warming makes the war on terror seem inconsequential by comparison. Personally, I think Al Gore should run for president in 2008 on the platform of instituting the steps necessary to minimize the impacts of global warming. Anyone who has seen An Inconvenient Truth would have his vote.

Here is the text of a hand-out I picked up in the movie theater lobby:

Ten Things To Do

Want to do something to help stop global warming? Here are 10 simple things you can do and how much carbon dioxide you'll save doing them.

Change a light
Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Drive less
Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You'll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don't drive!

Recycle more
You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

Check your tires
Keeping your tires inflated properly can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere!

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year).

Avoid products with a lot of packaging
You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Adjust your thermostat
Moving your thermostat down just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Plant a tree
A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

Be a part of the solution
Learn more and get active at ClimateCrisis.net.

Spread the word! Encourage your friends to see An Inconvenient Truth