Southwest Virginia Blogs

The fuel prices are only the least of your worries if you can still afford them.  The shame of the higher prices is that we cannot use any of the money to shake our dependence on foreign oil.  It will not be any surprise when oil companies show up with obscene profits once again.

Actually rising fuel costs is not what I want to discuss.  I think we have a much more serious issue.  I have actually tried to keep politics out of my posts for several months.  There is plenty of political commentary around.  It is not hard these days to find someone who agrees with you.  I am pretty sure that my two cents are just that.

I admit to reading a small subset of newspapers, including the NY Times, Washington Post, Toronto Star, Roanoke Times, Raleigh News and Observer, Daily News from Jacksonville, NC, and The Carteret County Times.  Obviously I do not read all of them in any one day, but I am a news junkie so I do lots better than most folks.

That list of papers goes from ones with some of the finest columnists in the country to one where Ann Coulter is featured regularly.  The point is that I see a lot of columnists, and there seems to be a growing consensus that our President is out of touch.  I guess the column that really nailed it home for me was the one by Richard Cohen in today's Washington Post.  The column,"How's Your War?," starts out with a discussion of Senator elect Webb's exchange with President Bush the other day.  However, it quickly gets to the point that just maybe Webb's approach wasn't as appalling as most have thought.

Sans manners, nothing would get done. Even with them, precious little is accomplished.

Still, there is accumulating evidence that Bush is talking to mirrors and taking instruction from his dog. He makes no sense, saying he's amenable to change one day and digging in his heels the next. "I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said recently. Yes. Absolutely. But what is the mission? Please, ask the dog. Lives are being wasted.

That, of course, is the whole point. This imbroglio about Webb and manners is, at bottom, about the (very) premature deaths of young people in Iraq -- the sons and daughters of people much like Webb. Their only hope is that Bush is a liar rather than a fool. There is ample evidence for both propositions.

Presidents by nature have huge egos.  They are surrounded just like most CEOs by people who are more often interested in currying favor than they are in bringing bad news.

We got in this situation with Congress being a lapdog.  We are not going to find solutions if Congress continues to be a lapdog.  When some of our best young people are dying in a place that does not want them for a reason that no one can define, it is time to start figuring out how to bring them home as quickly as possible.

The next thing we need to do is make sure that the people responsible for this ill-conceived mess at least understand what they did.  Finally we must make sure something like Iraq never happens again.

Paul Krugman had a good piece in the NY Times yesterday.  It was called "Two More Years," and is available to Times Select subscribers.  The article closed with this.

Well, here’s a question for those who might be tempted, yet again, to shy away from a confrontation with Mr. Bush over Iraq: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a bully’s ego?

As fall weather become more common, it's easy to get lost in the beauty of our surroundings.  We live in a country whose natural glory often lulls us into a false sense of well being.  That is unless you're a member of arguably one of the worst group of elected officials that we've ever seen in this country and are facing the prospect of losing your election.

In one last attempt at fear mongering, the real Beltway Bandits have passed detainee legislation that will likely be remembered as a low point of American government.

I like the comments in by Andrew Cohen in his Washington Post article, subtitled "The Ball is Now in the Supremes' Court."  I hope the Supreme Court stands tall when faced with this challenge.

I wonder what the Justices are thinking this morning as they read and hear and see coverage of the passage of the new anti-terror law. I wonder if some of them see it, as many others do, as an affront to their own authority to determine and protect the rights of individuals. I wonder if some of them already are thinking of ways in which to discount Congress' effort to take away from all future detainees, including legal residents here in the States, the right to challenge their detention in federal court. And I wonder if some of the Justices understand that they, too, will be judged by history in large part upon how they react to this legislation.

We're at an interesting point in our history.  Will we swing back from the excesses of these people who are protecting us by attempting to accumulate excessive power in the Presidency?  How far are we from it being hard to even say something like that before getting in trouble with the powers that be?

The NY Times had an interesting article this morning, "Pirates of the Mediterranean" which talks about how the checks and balances in the ancient Roman Constitution were given up in a moment of fear.  Robert Harris, the author, wonders from Kingsbury, England if the same thing isn't happening in America.

Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of “serious” physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant — all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.

Anyone who has taken the time to study history knows how rarely any good has come from giving government more power.  It's amazing to me that the very folks who campaigned on government being bad have spent their time in office consolidating government power in the hands of the executive branch.

It's a dangerous situation, but hopefully the electorate won't be fooled this time, and the Supreme Court will draw a line in the sand.

As fall weather become more common, it's easy to get lost in the beauty of our surroundings.  We live in a country whose natural glory often lulls us into a false sense of well being.  That is unless you're a member of arguably one of the worst group of elected officials that we've ever seen in this country and are facing the prospect of losing your election.

In one last attempt at fear mongering, the real Beltway Bandits have passed detainee legislation that will likely be remembered as a low point of American government.

I like the comments in by Andrew Cohen in his Washington Post article, subtitled "The Ball is Now in the Supremes' Court."  I hope the Supreme Court stands tall when faced with this challenge.

I wonder what the Justices are thinking this morning as they read and hear and see coverage of the passage of the new anti-terror law. I wonder if some of them see it, as many others do, as an affront to their own authority to determine and protect the rights of individuals. I wonder if some of them already are thinking of ways in which to discount Congress' effort to take away from all future detainees, including legal residents here in the States, the right to challenge their detention in federal court. And I wonder if some of the Justices understand that they, too, will be judged by history in large part upon how they react to this legislation.

We're at an interesting point in our history.  Will we swing back from the excesses of these people who are protecting us by attempting to accumulate excessive power in the Presidency?  How far are we from it being hard to even say something like that before getting in trouble with the powers that be?

The NY Times had an interesting article this morning, "Pirates of the Mediterranean" which talks about how the checks and balances in the ancient Roman Constitution were given up in a moment of fear.  Robert Harris, the author, wonders from Kingsbury, England if the same thing isn't happening in America.

Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of “serious” physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant — all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.

Anyone who has taken the time to study history knows how rarely any good has come from giving government more power.  It's amazing to me that the very folks who campaigned on government being bad have spent their time in office consolidating government power in the hands of the executive branch.

It's a dangerous situation, but hopefully the electorate won't be fooled this time, and the Supreme Court will draw a line in the sand.

As fall weather become more common, it's easy to get lost in the beauty of our surroundings.  We live in a country whose natural glory often lulls us into a false sense of well being.  That is unless you're a member of arguably one of the worst group of elected officials that we've ever seen in this country and are facing the prospect of losing your election.

In one last attempt at fear mongering, the real Beltway Bandits have passed detainee legislation that will likely be remembered as a low point of American government.

I like the comments in by Andrew Cohen in his Washington Post article, subtitled "The Ball is Now in the Supremes' Court."  I hope the Supreme Court stands tall when faced with this challenge.

I wonder what the Justices are thinking this morning as they read and hear and see coverage of the passage of the new anti-terror law. I wonder if some of them see it, as many others do, as an affront to their own authority to determine and protect the rights of individuals. I wonder if some of them already are thinking of ways in which to discount Congress' effort to take away from all future detainees, including legal residents here in the States, the right to challenge their detention in federal court. And I wonder if some of the Justices understand that they, too, will be judged by history in large part upon how they react to this legislation.

We're at an interesting point in our history.  Will we swing back from the excesses of these people who are protecting us by attempting to accumulate excessive power in the Presidency?  How far are we from it being hard to even say something like that before getting in trouble with the powers that be?

The NY Times had an interesting article this morning, "Pirates of the Mediterranean" which talks about how the checks and balances in the ancient Roman Constitution were given up in a moment of fear.  Robert Harris, the author, wonders from Kingsbury, England if the same thing isn't happening in America.

Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of “serious” physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant — all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.

Anyone who has taken the time to study history knows how rarely any good has come from giving government more power.  It's amazing to me that the very folks who campaigned on government being bad have spent their time in office consolidating government power in the hands of the executive branch.

It's a dangerous situation, but hopefully the electorate won't be fooled this time, and the Supreme Court will draw a line in the sand.

We're starting to see our first serious stretch of sunshine after nearly eleven inches of rain up here on the mountain.  I woke to find an article, "Cow tipping? Probably bull," in today's Roanoke Times. The story  pulled me into another time and place.

It brought back memories of my first up close and personal experiences with cows.  I  had just bought our first few head of cattle from the guy who sold me one of our farms.  Cows being what they are, they immediately broke through some fences and got mixed up with the neighbor's dairy cattle.  Our first chore was to separate the two herds.  I should have stopped right there and given the cows to the local dairy farmer, but I didn't.  We eventually got rid of those cows and enjoyed a relatively cowless time in Nova Scotia.

As today's (09-06-06)  Shoe cartoon indicates, I don't think my memory was very good even then.  My wife, Glenda and I moved to New Brunswick. We ended up with nearly two hundred head of cattle.  Most years we saw between 60 and 70 calves born.  I was there for many of the births.  We actually ran that farm for nearly ten years until we dispersed our cattle herd in the fall of 1981.

I shoved more cattle through handling chutes than I care to remember.  I once had a bull that stalked me for a couple of months until I tricked him onto a truck headed for the slaughter house.  We had mostly purebred Angus cattle, but over the years we had experience with Charolais, Herefords, and even a Guernsey which I milked for several years.

Anyone that tells you he's done cow tipping is full of bull.  First off, no cow that I've ever met would let you sneak up on them.  Secondly most that I've seen would either run or run after you if you tried to hit them anywhere.  The cow tipping reminds me of the tractor tipping in Cars, the movie, which I wrote about in my post, "Cars- A great movie."  Tractors are pretty darn stable unless you drive them on a hillside where most SUVs would have already turned over.

While cow tipping is a pretty easy mystery to clear up, I've been looking for some more explanation on the  George Allen "Macaca" incident.  I was born in North Carolina and have spent much of my life wandering the south from Tennessee to Virginia.  I've never heard the term "Macaca" until the news reports of this event so I was a little mystified.  Of course I don't travel in the circle of those who keep a hangman's noose on display.

Last night I read an article, "George Allen's 'macaca moment’" in the The Week Magazine.  It offered up a pretty good explanation.

“Macaca,” derived from macaque, a genus of monkey, is a racial slur used in France against foreigners with dark skin. Allen—who has a French Tunisian mother and speaks French fluently...

Naturally the French are to blame.  :)

The rest of the article went on to highlight some interesting points about Allen.

The irony here, said Michael Scherer in Salon.com, is that the man Allen insulted is a native-born Virginian of Asian Indian heritage, whereas Allen, the son of legendary NFL coach George Allen, grew up wealthy in California. Since then, however, he’s been wearing cowboy boots, chewing tobacco, and wooing the Republican Party’s right wing as a “down-home” champion of the “‘real America,’ the one without homosexuals, movie moguls, or Ivy League professors who want to ban guns and burn flags.” Hey, it worked for George W. Bush, said Mike Allen in The Washington Post.

Well with this news "Florida's Katherine Harris won the Republican primary despite dismal poll numbers, a subpoena in a bribery investigation and droves of campaign deserters,"  I think it might be time to stop reading the news for a while.