Oh, this is a wonderment! Democrats in the Senate closed its doors in protest of the war on Iraq. Republicans are outraged, which just leaves me tickled.

“The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership,” Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said. “Never have I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution.”

Oh, and it’s high time, Billy boy. Y’all been needin’ a good slap, not to mention a swift kick in the ass.

This is cool. I always enjoy it when Google changes its logo for a holiday, because they’re so creative.



That must be a fun place to work.

See what I mean?  If James Dobson is glad about the nomination, it just can’t be a good idea.  

I got this from MoveOn.org today:

Dear MoveOn member,

This morning, with his administration growing weaker by the day, President Bush caved to pressure from the radical fringe of the Republican Party and nominated Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. Alito is a notoriously right-wing judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He has consistently ruled to strip basic protections from workers, women, minorities and the disabled in favor of unchecked power for corporations and special interests.

That’s why today we’re joining the fight with an emergency petition to the Senate, calling on them to stand up for ordinary Americans and reject Alito’s nomination. We’re aiming to gather a quarter million signatures and comments in the next 48 hours.

Can you sign today?

http://www.moveon.org/stopalito

I agree we don’t need a man on the Supreme Court with a poor record on civil rights. We don’t need a Justice who appeals to the extreme reactionary fringe who pull Bush’s strings. We need a person who will uphold the Constitution to the greatest possible good of us all. So I don’t think Samuel Alito is a wise nomination. Bush is just giving in the to the suction from the far right wing of his party.

Time for us all to stand again and yell, “Shenanigans!”

I see in the news this morning there’s a call for Bush and Cheney to apologize for actions of the people who work for them – meaning Scooter. And I got an e-mail from MoveOn.org, the subject of which is Indicted! White House Caught In Iraq Cover-Up.

On this beautiful Sunday morning, maybe someone should point out that, while Bush and Cheney owe us and the planet a great many apologies, and the whole war has been steeped in a massive cover-up, Scooter hasn’t been convicted. And his indictment in itself isn’t proof of the cover-up.

If you and I talked on the phone today, do you think I could swear under penalty of perjury to what we said, if called to testify on Tuesday? No. Not unless I made meticulous notes, and only read from them at the hearing. Nobody I know has perfect recall, so in order to convict Scooter, they’ll have to prove not only that he lied, but that he had the intent to lie.

So the indictment only proves that the prosecutor persuaded the required number of grand jurors that he has the requisite persuasive evidence that Libby lied about what he discussed with people, concerning elements of the cover-up. And in his grand jury testimony. So yeah, things look grim for Scooter. But If you want direct proof of the cover-up, that’s easily found in the public speeches of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

So let’s not all get on our high horses over this. Yet. We all know these guys are mostly assholes, and Bush and Cheney deserve to be boiled in oil for the tragedies of this misbegotten and immoral war. But one is innocent until proven guilty in the USA, and I don’t know for sure but that Scooter is simply a career politician who screwed up. Maybe he had bad counsel.

At sunset this evening, I stopped on my way home from watching the Fresno State game with my folks, to go for a walk on the bluffs near my house. Above is a photo of my neighborhood. (Click to enlarge.) It’s pretty out of date. All that brown area from the freeway to the ocean is a nature preserve now; all replanted with beautiful native scrub plants. The street at #3 is gone, and there’s a smaller, eco-friendly clay and gravel parking area. It’s really a nice park.

Anyway, I parked my truck in the lot at #1, walked straight toward the ocean, then turned toward #2. My plan was to make it back to the truck, via #2 and #3, in somewhat less than my personal best of 18 minutes. I made it in 16 minutes, 22 seconds. And I would’ve made it in 15, except that I had to stop at #2 to be sniffed by a very large but friendly Rottweiler.

As you can see, I’m as far as I can get from #1, the safety of my truck, and at least as far from #4, which is my house. No place to run, no place to hide.

I’m telling you this just by way of saying Thanks God that Mr. Rottweiler was friendly. He was off leash, his owner was 30 feet behind him, and he could sniff my hand without tilting his big, beautiful head.

I’m not afraid of dogs. I wasn’t afraid of Mr. Rottweiler. But I am afraid, when I stop to think about it, of being seriously injured by anything at all. Big dog, power tools, motor vehicles, it’s all the same. I just don’t relish the concept of being anesthetized, stitched up, and kept overnight for observation. I hate the thought of being bandaged, unable to bathe or button my fly or type at my computer. So when I saw the big black and tan gentleman, I stopped and waited for him to reach me, sniff me and smell Happy, and decide I wasn’t a threat to his owner, or his supper.

The dog and his owner were friendly, and went on their way, turning to your left at #2, which pathway leads to the seal rookery via that line of trees. The owner said “Sorry if he scared you,” and I said, “No, not at all. I love dogs.” But the truth is, as I’ve expressed here before, keep your fercryinoutloud pets on a leash, for their safety and mine. If I’d had Happy with me, she’d have piddled all down the front of my shirt.

Read all about it.

My favorite points:

>Libby’s indictment is a political embarrassment for the president, paving the way for a possible trial renewing the focus on the administration’s faulty rationale for going to war against Iraq — the erroneous assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.”

>Democrats suggested the indictment was just the tip of the iceberg. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the case larger than Libby and “about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president.”

Of course I don’t know what’s going to happen with Fitzgerald’s indictin’ party tomorrow, though it’s sure to make good television. But as I ponder what may or may not be hanging over Rove and Scooter’s little round heads, I keep thinking of a song, by the good ol’ Grateful Dead:

So as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share now, what’s mine
And then the harder they come, the harder they fall
The harder they come, the harder they fall one and all.

… or as The Chink said in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, “Ha ha, ho ho and hee hee.”

I went to the candlelight vigil tonight, to commemorate the loss of over 2000 of our people in Bushco’s hostile takeover of Iraq. It was held in the sunken gardens of our beautiful county courthouse. I’m bushed – I guess we all are. But before I go to bed, I have these thoughts and images.

This was a fine group of caring people, willing to give of themselves to speak out against this atrocity of this war, and I was glad to be among them. My friend Erik was there, and he introduced me to some great people I’ve heard about, read about in the paper and seen on local TV. They are making a difference. But very little was said about the 2002 who are dead. The vigil host – an educator – asked us to think about what we can do to create peace, and to discuss our thoughts among ourselves. He said don’t talk about blaming the government, how much we hate the warmongers, etc. I imagine the dead were in people’s thoughts while we stood in silence. But I think this loss is just cause for an outpouring of national grief. Can someone out there show how to mourn?

There was one woman there with a small boy. I’m thinking her grandson. He was asking her many questions about what we were doing and why, and why people in cars were honking at us as we by the street. They passed close enough for me to hear his small voice clearly: “The question is, how will these candles do it?”

I thought that was a most excellent question, and I almost turned and followed to hear what Grandma had to say. For me, every butterfly matters, even if only resting on the temple bell. Or on a cannon.

[note: It’s hard to take a long exposure with one hand while hot wax is dripping on the other. I’ll get better at it.]

There’s no need to be worried. We’ve been this way
before, and always found the way back home.
On better days, we walked the field beyond that brush,
around a track edged by Jerusalem sage and wild
oats. I remember you were young. I remember
this road. Maybe the heart is deceitful, a lover
of cruelty, but the eyes know where the patterns lie.
The intentions of the mind are always good.

See now, here at the end of this line of trees,
the path leads up the hill, to where we left the car.
And you can see how desperate, how wicked,
the heart is. It tries to make them tall and splendid
sycamores – or a line of graceful poplars – while
the mind sees ragged, messy eucalyptus.
The limbs grow too heavy for their own good,
and break off in hard weather.

The clock in the living room is weary,
needs winding. Then we can sit
through the long evening quietly and listen
to its voice. You remember how it was,
when Papa was alive and late at night
the house was still. And in the small hours,
with no sound but the breathing and snoring
of us all, this clock would chime. Just once,
then twice, and on until the sun came up.

It helps to burn a candle for chopping onions.
Unless you want to cry. I think I might, a little,
but let’s have the candle anyway. A little light
to help us see the problem here. There’s no wine
to pour and let breathe, no bread to cut thickly,
butter, set by on the stove to warm
while we bake the fish we caught today.

Again we see how the heart lies, buries
the truth in a special corner of the yard,
where we change the flowers year to year.
You know as well as I we never fished today,
and whatever goes with these onions
was trucked in cold, deep frozen.

No need to set the table for just one,
since the mind knows you got old and sick
and died. But I can stand for it.
I know the families of trees by how
they turn the wind. The pathway
home is marked by broken sand.

© 2005 by J. Kyle Kimberlin
3rd draft, 10/23/05

There will be vigils tomorrow evening, to reflect on the fact that 2000 young Americans have died for absolutely nothing in Iraq. I believe I’ll go to the one in Santa Barbara. Maybe I’ll see you there. If you go to this page, you can search for a vigil in your area, or register your own.

The rationale has gone from WMD to letting more die to avoid dishonoring the ones already dead. If that makes any sense, I’ll eat an M-16.

Maybe we can’t stop it, but we don’t have to sit still for it either.

I just checked my site counter and found I had more than the usual number of visitors on Monday.  So now I feel bad I didn’t post on Sunday.  They went away with nothing. And since it’s so close to Halloween, they’ll probably tip over my trash cans or something.

I wrote a poem over the weekend, and I’m doing a little polishing on it. If you guys don’t trash anything – if you’re good – I’ll post it tonight or tomorrow.  

That scary enough for you?