I saw a teenage Road Runner the other day.  Don’t know if it was male or female, I’m still learning about Road Runners.  It was loud — a proud high pitched outburst, like an Indian chant.  And it could fly higher and longer than the adults.  One thing is true no matter the age of the Road Runners — small birds attack them nonstop.  And the Road Runners take off, usually on foot.   

and Bill Clinton, too.  I was one of the last hold-outs in my circle of friends, even after the impeachment hearings and the pardons.  But the behavior of both of them, first Bill, lately Hillary, have made my stomach turn and my blood boil.  I could not sleep after the speech Sen. Clinton gave after her ”wins” last Tuesday.  Her tactics are Roveish and Bushish — say and do anything to win.  I was a feminist long before most of the women I know and certainly long before most of the men I know.  This race between Clinton and Obama is not about feminism, sorry Tina Fey.  It is about integrity and honesty, something that is sorely lacking and in need of repairing in American politics or our country runs the chance of being sucked down the drain like so many soapy hair balls.  I feel dirty when I hear Sen. Clinton lie about Sen. Obama.  I need a shower to cleanse the filth.  Bring it on, any woman or man out there who want to see a woman president before a black president.  Debate me.  There is no pecking order here.  Just a revulsion order.  Hang in there, Sen. Obama.  And don’t believe the line that Sen. Clinton is readying you for the republican onslaught if you get the nomination.  The putrid stench of your fellow democrats attacking you is far worse than the McCain swift boating that lies ahead.  It is a measure of your electabilty and foresight that you had a plan after Super Tuesday and Sen. Clinton did not.  Forge ahead.    

It is unfathomable to me how many hearings Congress has held regarding Roger Clemens and steroid use.  Had the House investigated abuses committed by Bush and Cheney with as much vigor, we might have prevented their successful grab of the powers of the Presidency and privacy, not to mention the secret energy hearings held by Cheney early on which have everything to do with increased oil and gas prices and the fattening of his wallet and Bush’s wallet and all their top donors’ wallets.  Congress, during the past 8 years, whether controlled by Republicans or Democrats, has ignored this administration as if it doesn’t exist.  Bush and Cheney have had free reign to do what they want, free of oversight, especially since the Supreme Court took sides in the 2000 election.  (I have read the ruling and it is an abomination.)  Without Congress and the Court(s), our balance of powers has collapsed into the welcoming arms of the Executive Branch.

Leave Clemens alone, dammit. 

In the ’80s we had Reagan Democrats.  In the ’08s will we have Obama Republicans? 

Is the south more religious because of the violent, unpredictable weather?  And do southerners vote against their own best interests because of their religious fervor? 

Does Obama have a better chance of beating McCain than Clinton?

If Hillary Clinton was not married to Bill Clinton and her name was Hillary Campbell, would she have a better chance of winning the nomination and then the general election?

Has John McCain inspired you to donate money and volunteer for his campaign?

Do you think the baby boomer politicians have done a good job of governing?

Do you want the U.S. to stay on the same course it’s currently on for the next 8 years?

Do you think I’m still handsome even though I’m pushing 100?

I have attended two Democratic Conventions, the first in 1976 at Madison Square Garden in NYC when President Carter was nominated, the second in 1984 in San Francisco when Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro were nominated and lost to President Reagan and future President Bush.  I was inspired by President Carter in 1976 — why does no one invoke his name, he isn’t dead?  I was enthusiastic in 1984 with Mondale and especially Ferraro on the ticket even though I knew they would lose…  I was a boy when President Kennedy was elected and then shot and killed.  I remember the emotions around me during both events, unbridled joy at his election and palpable grief at his death. 

Now in 2008, having lived through Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2, I am supporting Obama.  We need a President who inspires all of us, young and old, no matter the hue of our skin, no matter our religious beliefs.  We need a president who will awaken our best inclinations, a leader who inhabits the ability to excite and transform young voters;  it is the young who will guide us into our future.  You bet I’m a dreamer and I’m damn proud of it.  Dreams become realities.  Our country needs reality.

Our next President ought to be Barack Obama and I will do everything I can to turn that dream into reality.   

Rest in peace, Heath. 

Luke found out that his Gibson guitar, which he bought in the seventies, is in perfect shape.  The guitar guys he took it to couldn’t take their hands off it.  Now he’s playing again.  And it is music to my ears. 

I watched “Trip to Bountiful” yesterday on the movie channel.  Geraldine Page.  Whew…  She takes your breath away.  She is losing her breath in the movie and the audience has to breathe for her.  Geraldine’s character hums hymns and sings hymns throughout the movie.  The most prominent hymn is “Jesus is Calling.”  Something about that hymn makes me sob so hard I have to remember to breathe.  Horton Foote wrote the script.  Miss Page won the Oscar, her first, after eight nominations. 

“Softly and tenderly…

Today I discovered that since I upgraded my website software a few months ago, I must approach the “comments” to my blog in a different way.  The upgrade allows me to keep out the spam comments which I get hit with but it also means I must approve the non-spam comments before they are posted.  I’ll never keep out anyone who posts a disagreement to my views or hates or loves me but this upgrade does allow me to keep out the xxx comments from the xxx websites who want free advertising on my site, for instance, rent your sex toy here, embrace your desires with a few ropes and pulleys here, see the biggest, hottest photos of _____  (you fill in the blank here) — you get the picture.  

I spent an hour today going through all the comments.  “Whew,” is all I can say after reading the xxx ones.  In spite of my reaction to the xxx, I only uploaded the legit ones.  So, those of you who are not trying to sell your xxx on my site without me making any xxx money (a crucial distinction) have had your comments posted and I will keep up with your comments from now on.

The good news is:  It took two months to discover this “comments” blip because I’ve been working like crazy on my new novel.  Thanks to Luke, as always, for asking me the questions that led to the answers regarding my “comments” issue.  He understands my altered writing state and bless his heart for doing so.    

Hey, NY Times, you ignored your responsibility as a major player in creating the smear job you discuss in Looking at America (see below) and you chose the last day of the year to try and wipe off the smudge… 

Is it your opinion you have excelled in your job during the past seven years?  If you received insufficient answers to your questions and opposing views from your editorials, did you dig deeper, did you pursue?  And if so did you report what you discovered?  Or tuck the info away, say, for a reporter’s book, where a small chunk will be revealed, way too late and for a profit?  Is this the reporting of the future? 

The reason your newspaper is losing readers is because you are not doing your job.  It has nothing to do with the internet or television.  Right now, the public is firing you.  If you want us to hire you again, start doing your job.   

December 31, 2007
EDITORIAL
Looking at America

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.

The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.

Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.

In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.

The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners — some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports — to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.

These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.

We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company