Independence Day: We do Have Something to Celebrate

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." ~ Samuel Adams

Somewhere along the way we stopped calling our most popular summer holiday "Independence Day" and went simply with "The Fourth of July".  We love our Red, White and Blue, but this is the day we pull out all the stops.  Flags fly everywhere, the stars and stripes adorning everything from porches to paper plates to Uncle Sam hats to the holiday advertising pages of every newspaper.  Flags dress floats and bicycles and baby carriages in every parade in every little town in America.  

We love this day--the day to remember our liberty, our exceptionalism, our prosperity.  Those were the days, weren't they?

So what happened?

Not to be a downer on our very favorite day of the year, but I can't shake the feeling that "independence" is one of those words we're starting to look back on with nostalgia.   Does anyone even care that we're not independent anymore?

Our dependence on foreign oil and on anti-American big business and on the production and importation of goods from dubious nations across the globe is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they declared us an independent country and gave us our working papers. 

It started on July 4, 1776 when 56 men signed a paper declaring a dissolution of the 13 united states of America from England, the mother state.  Eleven years later, in 1787, a constitution, the wording hard-fought and brainstormed to death, became the law of the land.   The signers mulled over the first paragraph, realizing, I'm sure, that it needed some oomph if people were actually going to understand the motives behind it. 

They didn't start off with, "WE, the wealthy landowners, in order to keep our fiefdoms going. . .", or "WE, the 39 undersigned, in order to preserve our station and ensure a healthy profit margin. . . ".  

No, they began it like this:

WE, the people. . .of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America  

It all came out of a yearning for independence so strong an entire country was created, and in the course of a couple of centuries we became a model for democracy throughout the world--a force to be reckoned with.  You couldn't find a prouder nation anywhere.  We were going places.

That was then. 

Today, we're in turmoil. It's as if the promises made, the lessons learned, the reasons to form a more perfect union are long gone and long forgotten.  We are as divided as we've ever been since the days of our Civil War, 150 years ago.  We cannot, it seems, find common ground.  We see our America through different eyes, with different fears and different goals.  We don't like what we see, but from entirely different angles and for entirely different reasons.  We try to interpret what our Founding Fathers had in mind for us, but we come at it with our own biases, our own prejudices, trying to mold our purposely vague constitution to fit our own wants and needs.

But on this one day we come together, and it's our love of this beautiful, challenging, imperfect country that brings us to detente.  It's a day when, no matter what's going on outside, the sun is warm, the breeze is balmy, and the shade of the old oak tree brings a delicious coolness.  A lemonade day.  A day for feeling good. The parade is about to start and there is no more beautiful flag in the world than the American flag.

Tomorrow we'll begin again.  Toward a more perfect union.  Toward more than just a day of domestic tranquility.  Toward an independence we, the people, have promised to preserve.

(Note:  If some of this looks familiar, it's because it's an adaptation of my Independence Day post from 2010.  Be well and be kind on this day that is ours and ours alone.)

I probably should have tried Marijuana

In a daring raid in 1948, Robert Mitchum got caught smoking marijuana in Hollywood:

Sept. 1, 1948: Actor Robert Mitchum and starlet Lila Leeds were reportedly caught smoking marijuana during a police raid at the actress' Hollywood Hills home. Two others were also arrested.

Mitchum told police that he and another friend were in the neighborhood looking to buy a house when they stopped to visit Leeds and her roommate, dancer Vickie Evans.

The actor said he had trouble finding the home on Ridpath Drive, which one narcotics agent described as "ideally situated to be a 'reefer resort.' It is perched on a hillside, with no near neighbors, and well-screened by shrubbery," The [Los Angeles] Times reported.

It was reported in the Times but I lived in Michigan, we didn’t yet have the tabloids (or the internet), and I was not quite 11 years old, so it got right past me. (Hedda Hopper might have hinted about it in the movie mags but her hints weren’t always clear.  In her juiciest scoops, the principals remained nameless.  (“What handsome, dark-haired bad boy was caught smoking dope with a blond starlet who wasn’t his wife?” )

Fortunately, a few years later a magazine called Confidential surfaced; a juicy, slimy precursor to the tabloids, and eventually they got around to the story about the not-so-current arrest of that bad boy, Bob Mitchum.  I remember reading it as a teenager, thinking that man is treading on some dangerous ground there.  (Maybe not in those words, exactly.  I probably didn’t talk like that. The point is, I was a teenager, I had seen Reefer Madness!, and I was shocked!)

The article about Mitchum is long gone, but I’m remembering his picture this way:  He’s leaning toward the camera as if he’s trying to get up but can’t.  His eyes are half-closed, the famous Mitchum sneer is all over his face.  His hair is damp and matted and probably dirty.  It might have been the picture of a drunk, but it wasn’t.  It was much worse.  Robert Mitchum was stoned. On Reefer.  And it wasn’t the first time.

The shock of it must have marked me for life.  Marijuana was a terrible drug.  It was bad.  The baddest of the bad.  Normal people didn’t go in for it, they went in for alcohol.

In Michigan in the 50s the drinking age was 21.   In Wisconsin, it was 18, so I had my first legitimate drink while we were on our honeymoon at the Wisconsin Dells.  It was a Tom Collins and it was delicious.  No doubt I would have liked it just as well without the alcohol, but in Wisconsin, anyway, I was a grown up!.  We ran around with a drinking crowd most of our young lives but I was never much of a drinker.  The few times I got drunk my body let me know in the most violent ways that there were some things it would not tolerate and an overabundance of alcohol was one of them.  So be it.

Until around the early 70s I didn’t know anyone who had ever smoked pot.  We had new neighbors move in right next door and the guy immediately started a pot garden in the back yard.  When his plants were mature, he started selling his crop.  Their house was close enough so that at all hours of the night we could hear knocking on their door and the low rumble of short conversation.  I gave up thinking poorly of them when I grew to like them for the crazy, dear people they were.  I felt incredibly sophisticated.  I knew pot people!

Then our neighbor two doors over found out that we had never smoked pot.  It was our anniversary and we were going away for the weekend to celebrate, so she decided this would be the perfect time to experiment.  She brought over a gaily wrapped package of pot brownies and insisted I pack them in our suitcase.

They went with us but neither of us wanted to indulge.  Truth is, I was scared to death of them.  (Reefer Madness!) I shoved them way in the back of my underwear drawer and forgot about them.

So last week my daughter and I were talking about how silly it was that marijuana hasn’t yet been legalized.  I said, “I can’t really understand the effects of pot since I never tried it.  I probably should have, at least once in my life.”  Then I dropped the bombshell on her:  I told about the time I had a whole package of pot brownies in our house. 

I waited for her reaction.  She looked at me, startled, and then she began to laugh.  “I know you did, mom.  I ate them!”

Turns out I had told my teenaged daughter about the brownies, never once thinking that it would be anything that would interest her so much she would be stealing them out of my drawer, little by little so I wouldn’t notice, and sharing them with her friends.

I know nothing about life.  Nothing.  Pay no attention to me.  I know nothing.

(Cross-posted at dagblog, as always.)

 

If Ed Snowden is a Hero, we're a Nation Bereft

There is nothing wrong with being young. Nothing wrong with not having a high school diploma. Nothing wrong with being idealistic.  Nothing wrong with distrusting the government if something they're doing doesn't strike you right.

There is something wrong with taking a job so sensitive to national security it requires a solemn oath to keep what you've seen secret, and within three months of your starting date you've already disregarded the oath and have stolen the very secrets you promised to protect.

Edward Snowden, through his top security clearance, had access to our most sensitive materials.  He worked on government contracts assigned to a private contractor--an arrangement common in this country.  Depending on the job, these private contractors are often privy to state secrets.

Candidates for top security clearances are vetted and investigated through a process worked out by the government.  The FBI is involved and, often, so is the CIA.  It isn't an overnight process and any dark mark in the candidate's past can stop the process dead.  At the end of the process, every employee awarded a high security clearance signs an oath and is warned that a security breach is against the law.  They will be prosecuted.  That warning is repeated every six months. It takes time and much footwork to make sure the candidate will live up to such serious responsibilities, and that's the way it should be.  We put our nation's secrets in their hands.  We give them an enormous responsibility and we expect them to honor it.

We've had two incidences in the past few years where young men took it upon themselves to use their clearances to steal classified materials.  (In 2010 I wrote about Bradley Manning in a piece called "Still Looking for the Wikileaks Heroes", which caused a veritable firestorm over at dagblog at the time.  I went back and read it this morning. I believed what I wrote then and I believe it now.)  I wonder how many more wannabees are waiting in the wings, ready to use their high security access to steal more documents?  I can only hope their idealism is coupled with judicious, thoughtful consideration of the implications.  I can only hope they understand what they were told:  that what they're doing is against the law and they will be prosecuted.  Barring that, I can only hope they'll find another line of work.

We are not a country where gulags abound.  Our young men don't disappear into the night because the government fears they will rise up and attempt an overthrow.  We don't have government-led massacres, we don't throw our citizen-dissidents into prisons, we don't punish people for making hateful remarks against the White House or congress.  So far, every prediction about the terrible things the government will do to us if they catch us talking against them hasn't come true.  There is no evidence that our government is coming to get us.

It's chilling to think that these young, untested men are stealing government documents and are picking and choosing which parts of them will be released to the world.  But what's even more chilling is that there are whole factions in this country that so distrust our government they're willing to defend their right to do it. 

Guest Post: A New High School Graduate Takes on the Gun Issue

In the 4 1/2 years I've been writing this blog I've never felt inclined to bring in a guest poster.  Today I do, and I couldn't be happier that Briana Morganroth has agreed to let me reprint the essay she wrote about her thoughts on gun control.  

She is the granddaughter of my friend, Ramona Moormann, the publisher of The Marcellus (MI) News (where my own pieces sometimes appear), and I first read this essay in her newspaper a couple of weeks ago.

But here--I'll let Ramona tell you about her granddaughter:

Briana is a 2013 graduate of Stevens Point High School (Wisconsin). She will attend University of Wisconsin/Madison this fall. All during her teen years she was active in the YMCA’s Youth In Government Program. She took part in their  Legislative Conferences in the state capital in Madison annually.

    I read on the group’s website that their mission is to ” help create the next generation of thoughtful, committed and active citizens by teaching them the principles of a democratic society. They also intend to create leaders through their roles in the models of local, state and national government. The premise is that leaders are developed by doing.”

    No doubt, the program has been an influence on Briana. She is very vocal about her political beliefs and ‘doesn’t suffer fools gladly’.

 Our young people need to know that their opinions count, that their bravery is recognized and supported, and that their voices will be heard.  Young thinkers like Briana are our hope for the future.  Her writing is forceful, articulate and impassioned, and I'm proud to offer it here.

Gun Control: It’s Time 

by Briana Morganroth

It’s time.

It’s time for the hysterical and overdramatic claims that the government is coming for your guns to end.

 

It’s time to stop worrying about your precious hunting rifles – guns which the government has no plan of banning. It’s time to realize that this isn’t an attempt at taking away the second amendment, but simply a reevaluation of that right which was given by the men who birthed this nation in a time where they couldn’t have imagined our new-age weaponry – weaponry which makes their muskets look like a toy.

 

It’s time to stop making excuses that “It’s not about the guns” and come to our senses as a nation.

 

It’s time to open our eyes to someone other than ourselves and places other than our own “safe” community, and think about those who have been permanently shaken and broken by the reckless gun violence that is consuming our country.

 

It’s time to stop the much-too-early funerals for an ever-growing number of beautiful and innocent children.

It’s time to come to the realistic conclusion that semiautomatic military-grade assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and armor-piercing bullets are in no possible way needed by anyone outside of military or police personnel.

 

It’s time to think logically about the harm that could be easily prevented by simple, required background checks on weapon purchases.

 

It’s time to stand up to the NRA, and their out of touch CEO, no matter how hard it may seem. It’s time for Congress to grow a spine for the first time and take charge on this pressing and critical issue.

 

It’s time to think about what is really important here – the right to own these ridiculous and murderous weapons, or the right to live without fear. 

 

It’s time to clear our minds, come to terms with the horrible current events, and move forward quickly and effectively to prevent further tragedies.

It’s time for every assault-weapon and high-capacity magazine owner to stop clinging to their weapons that were solely made to kill.

 

It’s time for them to open their eyes to the fact that their right to own those horrific tools is trumped a million to one by simple American rights: by the right of a moviegoer in Aurora, Colorado to enjoy a movie without watching her boyfriend die right before her eyes as he covers her from the rain of bullets, because of his heart wrenching, undying love; by the right of former Senator Gabby Gifford to live without being permanently disabled by the two point-blank gun shots she received to the head; by the firefighters in Webster, New York to be living heroes remembered for their dangerous-but-heroic job that Christmas Eve, not fallen servicemen who’s tragic end came about from reckless gunfire; and by the rights of those kids at Sandy Hook Elementary to never have to run through the blood of fellow classmate, to never have to hide behind a selfless teacher who moments later is strewn with bullets, and to never suffer such immense pain and loss at such a young age.

 

It’s time for children to never have their safe haven called school turned into something of the opposite nature: a terrible, nightmare-inducing place.

 

It’s time to realize that those moviegoers, those police officers, and those kindergartners are gone forever, and their friends, families, communities, and the whole nation are forever scarred.

 

It’s time for madness and violence to end.

It’s time.

###

Congratulations, Class of 2013.  No pressure, but we're counting on you.

FRIDAY FOLLIES: Bachmann's Adios, Hitler Tea Kettle, Michigan Dreaming, and Scandalous Cheerios

Michele Bachmann to leave Washington to spend more time with her "family".  Prompts the resurrection of FRIDAY FOLLIES.  (What?  Every Friday?  Uh. . .we'll see how it goes.)

So Michele Bachmann is leaving her fancy, paid position as a Representative of Only Certain Teapartiers, One Percenters and Planetary Aliens.  She is not pulling a Palin--quitting--but will not seek re-election in 2014.  This is good news for some, but you will not be astonished to learn that there are still folks--Glenn Beck among them--who are wailing over the treatment of this poor, misunderstood Minnesotan.  If she had been given her due respect, she might well still be in congress years from now, maintaining her impeccable talk-silly, do-nothing record.

But all is not lost.  She will be on the taxpayer dole until January, 2015, which should give her plenty of time to wow us with more of her wacky whoppers.

I have nicely chosen not the worst pic of Michele Bachmann.  The worst of them are somewhere else on this blog.

I guess you've heard that famous designer Michael Graves partnered with famous department store J. C. Penney and came up with the subversive idea to make and sell a tea kettle that looks like famous monster, Adolph Hitler.

No, really.  Hitler.  You don't see it?  Sure you do! Look again.

 I'm not putting up a picture of Hitler, but if you look hard at that black dip on the handle, it'll begin to look like a long black bang swooshed to the side, and if you pretend the black rounded handle is a short, fat mustache, and then consider the spout as a raised arm signifying "Heil!", you will see what the mayor of Culver City, CA saw.  The mayor of Culver City saw Hitler up there on that billboard and he was furious!

The execs at J.C. Penney may or may not have seen it, but they took the billboard down tout suite, and have removed any pictures of the offending tea kettle from their online catalogue--but not before they sold out those teakettles completely.  (No word yet on what Michael Graves thinks about all this but would I LOVE to be a fly on the wall at his studio right about now!  Still--they did sell out.  Completely.)

So it's not just American icon J. C. Penney in hot water these days, now the Heart Healthy cereal, Cheerios, has done it, too.  The parent company, General Mills, actually thought a commercial featuring an adorable girl-child, the product of a clearly identifiable interracial couple, would be okay in the 21st Century.  Ha!  The racist ignorami came out of the woodwork and spewed such crap the comments had to be disabled on YouTube.  It was as if they were just waiting for something like this.  Because, you know. . .

Cheerios cutie

The website Mothering Justice published an online newspaper called The Mackinac Chronicle the other day, and it was shocking.  It showed Michigan politicos in a light I hadn't seen since the days before a bunch of rich con men convinced a bunch of dumb yahoos that the way to be patriots was to usurp the words "Tea Party" and help the rich con men take over the country by obstructing any kind of forward movement, thereby encouraging the entire nation to just give up and become a wholly-owned, for-profit venture. 

 The headline read, "Lawmakers and Business Leaders:  Workers are at the Top of Our Agenda".  Atop the picture of two adorable minority kids the headline read:  "Kid's 'Sick-In' Softens Top Lawmakers Hearts".  The story below the fold promised, "After Visiting Actual School, MI GOP Leaders Reverse Stance on Key Education Issues."

It was as if the long nightmare--the Siege of Michigan--was over and the duly-elected sell-outs had come to their senses and recognized the need to forget about those damned Koch Brothers and actually abide by their job descriptions.

Could it be?????

No, it couldn't.  Alas, it was a hoax.  A newspaper page showing The Way It Should Have Been.  A wake-up call and a damned funny one.  But, as I said. . .Alas.

This next one isn't really funny and maybe shouldn't even be here, but it's disgusting in a weird way, so here it is:  The Chicago Sun-Times has laid off (read "fired") all of their staff photographers.  All of them.  All 28 full- and part-time staff, including at least one Pulitzer Prize-winner.  A big, big city newspaper with no staff photographers has to be a first anywhere in the world, even including those ignominious Third World countries we've pointed our fingers at so often throughout our own glorious past history.

But apparently, here in 21st Century America--a century that will live in infamy--getting rid of talent to satisfy a bottom line preferring to service the no-talent CEOs at the top is becoming the accepted norm:

The move to have reporters shoot video and photos while covering stories is a growing trend among television stations and newspapers, according to California-based media analyst Alan Mutter, who said quality may be sacrificed in the process.
"We'll always have a lot of pictures — there will always be something between the articles — but will we have great photography, the memorable iconic images? Probably less so," Mutter said.

So it's settled.  We've become a nation half full of idiots and instead of fighting them we're looking for new and better ways to pander to them.  Probably in hopes that we'll all become them someday.  All except that noteworthy Koch-addled One Percent.  They'll be in charge.

Hey! Whoa!  Stop that!  Friday Follies is supposed to be FUN! (Enough with the exclamations already. That's my quota for the week, I swear.)

Now for the Moment Sublime:

Pencil drawings by Erica Rose Levine.  Scroll down her Facebook Page for more. (H/T to Jezebel, who wrote about her first.)

And because I haven't done these for a while, here's another Moment Sublime.  The sidewalk art of Michigan's own David Zinn:

 Cartoon of the Week

Mike Lukovich

Six Things Media Personalities Could and Should Avoid when Covering a Disaster

On Monday, May 20, a devastating monster of a tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma; the second category 5 tornado to hit this little town. (It happened before on May 3, 1999, with 44 deaths.) Reports coming in today, the day after, state it was two miles wide, of colossal, possibly even record-breaking, proportions. Whole neighborhoods have been flattened, and the grim prediction is that the number of dead, at 24 as of this writing, is sure to rise.

Tragically, the 2013 tornado in Moore took out two separate elementary schools while children were attending classes.  They each took direct hits, with numerous injuries and at least nine school deaths reported so far.

Because it's such a huge disaster, some 24 hours afterward, after a full day and night of non-stop coverage, facts and theories are competing for attention with the non-stop emotional wrangling provided by fully grown, professionally trained, gainfully employed anchors and reporters who, in calmer times--we can only hope--really, truly hate that sort of thing.

I've been wandering around the internet today while watching the coverage on TV and I think I can safely say that for that one person out of a hundred who wants to see bloodied heads and terrified kids and TV personalities asking how the victims are feeling, there are 99 of us who don't.

So here is my short list of things those pros might want to avoid when reporting a disaster, if they want to remain professionals and not be seen forevermore as shameless hacks:

• 1. If it's a hurricane, a blizzard or a tornado, do not allow yourself to be talked into standing out in the wind and rain/snow in order to show your audience that it's incredibly windy and raining/snowing really hard.  Get yourself inside. Plant yourself in front of a window and direct the cameraperson (who doesn't want to be out there any more than you do) to film you as you report on the wind and rain you can both see outside that window.  We will see what you see.  The effect will be the same--big wind, heavy rain/snow--and you'll save your clothing, your hair and your dignity.  (The best part is that it won't be about you trying to challenge the weather when the real story is about the many others who will have lost everything.)
  

• 2. You should at all costs avoid the overuse of the following words or phrases--unless the use of them is absolutely essential to the story:  (Hint:  There is almost no case where these words will add anything to your story.)  Death and destruction, horror, terror, disturbing, unspeakable, heartbreaking, heart-wrenching, heartrending, mangled bodies, crushed bodies, body parts, severed limbs, entrails, decapitation, impalement. 
  

• 3. After the first two hours or so, it's time to stop describing the scene as "like a battle/war zone".  Ditto, the sound as "like a freight train".  Break out the thesaurus if you must, but really--I beg you to cease and desist. 

• 4. Do not stand in the same pile of rubble, teddy bear in hand (or Disney Princess bowling ball--my god, CNN!), repeating the same script hour after hour. Use a little imagination.  We're not all just coming to you for the first time; some of us are tuned in impatiently waiting for some real news. 
  

• 5. Avoid like the plague interviewing anyone who insists that God has saved them or their loved ones.  We all understand that their gratitude knows no bounds once they find that they/their loved ones are alive, and it does seem miraculous, but please give some consideration to those folks who weren't so lucky.  Logic dictates that if God has the power and the inclination to save one person, he could--but didn't--save another.  If the interviewee doesn't have enough sense to understand how hurtful that can be to a victim's family, you as the professional should.  Don't be a witness to that.
  

• 6. And lastly and most importantly, never, never, never bend over and shove a microphone into a small child's face, expecting them to say something meaningful.  You will not only appear insane look stupid, you will have lost all semblance of integrity.  Even if a parent gives permission and is standing right there encouraging that small child, do not do it.  It isn't about you.  It isn't about the parent.  It isn't about the ratings.  As the viewer, it's not about me, either.  It's about the children.  This is their tragedy, not ours.  We can't begin to know how they feel, and it's not our place to expect them to explain.  (Note:  if you find yourself searching for sad signs of a happier, pre-disaster child; a disheveled doll, a mangled pedal car, a broken toy, so you can go all melodramatic on us--stop.  Just stop. Please.)
  

The victims deserve not to have to be victimized twice, all in the name of filling time while waiting for the rest of the story.  The last thing they need in times like these is to have to wrestle with an over-zealous yahoo with a microphone and a camera.  That's why so many of them ask you to go away.  It's a pity more of them don't.


(Addendum:  I should have known.  Wolf Blitzer topped them all today.  He interviewed a tornado survivor and her son and ended it by asking her if she "thanked the lord" for being here.  She said, "Actually, I'm an atheist."  Priceless!)

A Psychic Got it Wrong. Who Knew?

As if it wasn't enough this week that three young women held captive and terrorized by a madman were found alive after 10 long years, we now learn that in 2004, celebrated psychic Sylvia Browne made an appearance on celebrated sinceremeister Montel Williams' television show and told the mother of one of the captives that her daughter was dead.

None of us can be sure that that pronouncement hastened Louwanna Miller's death a mere two years later, but there is no doubt that the poor woman's last years were marred by a belief that her daughter, her beloved daughter Amanda Berry, had been pronounced dead.

There was no body, no evidence that it was so, but she sought out Sylvia Browne, hoping to come to terms with her daughter's fate, no matter what it was, and when Sylvia said, "She's not alive, honey," all doubt was gone. Her daughter was dead.

Except she wasn't.

Sylvia Browne, a woman who is paid in the six figures to perform her magic, has been wrong before.  It comes with the territory.  Psychics are not God, as Sylvia says.  Mistakes are made.  So sorry.

But oh no you don't.  You don't get off that easy.  If you're going to carry the mantel of a psychic--a person making a grand living off of your claim of a mystical gift of second sight--you cannot be wrong.  Ever.

And yet you, Sylvia Browne, are most often wrong.

If you are Montel Williams, making a grand living off of your claim to be a sincere attendant to the miseries of poor unfortunates, you cannot partner with charlatans.  Ever.

And yet you, Montel Williams, did just that.

Sylvia Browne and Montel Williams

I don't know why Louwanna Miller agreed to go on the Montel Williams show; why she became so convinced that Sylvia Browne had some inside information about her daughter's fate.  I've never had to go through the horror of losing my daughter.  I can't begin to understand the kind of desperation that led Ms. Miller down that path, but even more than that, I can't begin to understand how anybody can make the decision to deliberately feed off of undiluted, agonizing misery in order to make a name or a fortune.

There are no excuses for what Sylvia Browne and Montel Williams have done, not just to Louwanna Miller, but to so many others over the years.  I have no delusions that either of them will suddenly see the light and resort to sackcloth and ashes as penance for their wrongs.  But how to keep people in such pain from being victimized ever again by Sylvia, Montel and their like?

I don't know the answer.  But I do know where not to look for it.

Forcing Religion in Public Schools is not Frowned on in Mississippi. I'm Shocked.

So one day somebody at Northwest Rankin High School in Flowood, Mississippi came up with the idea to hold a series of mandatory Christian assemblies, where students would be required to watch a Christian video and listen to ministers (and fellow students) from the Pinelake Baptist Church preach to them about the importance of being a Christian. 

Now, it isn't so much that someone in a public taxpayer-funded secular school came up with the idea--off-the-wall ideas are everywhere. It's that so many others thought the idea was a good one.  They thought it was such a good idea, in fact, that part of the plan was to station teachers and parents at the doors so that no kid could escape leave.  When some of the students tried to leave, according to the complaint, Officer White, the truancy officer, "harassed them and told them to sit down".  When some of them tried to go from their classrooms to the library instead, Officer White was on it.  They were herded to the assembly.

The complaint says that over the three assemblies there were anywhere from 20 to 30 staff members in attendance, along with anywhere from five to 10 of the student church representatives' parents. So, in essence, (no, in fact) the kids in that public school were forced to listen to the preaching of a particular brand of a particular religion, and--get this--nobody in charge thought there was anything wrong with that.

It wasn't a one-time fluke of a thing.  As noted, it happened at least three times, starting on April 9.  At least three times preachers were invited into a public school assembly and at least three times the students at Northwest Rankin were pulled out of their classes and required to attend.

Finally, one of the kids taped a portion of the assembly and it found its way to the American Humanist Association.  Now it's a First Amendment issue, along with another chance at embarrassing a heretofore oblivious sorry mess of an American state--futile as that might be.

Some of us will be shaking our heads over this, tsk tsking all over the place, but who wants to bet nothing much will happen here?  At most, they'll have to agree to stop holding Christian assemblies and that will give them a chance to scream about freedom of religion.  We'll be seeing those posters and tee shirts where God is sad about not being allowed in schools, and anybody who sees what happened at Northwest Rankin High School as a bad thing will be reminded that the lesson is an innocent one about Jesus' love so who but a liberal commie atheist would complain about that?

 Well, I would.  And I did.  And I will.  Because it isn't about God, it's about religion.  And because forcing any religion in public schools is frowned on in a country where freedoms are supposed to be cherished.  All across this free country laws upholding fundamentalist Christian values are being written in states where those groups have gained a foothold.  They're re-interpreting the constitution to read that while no national religion can be established, it's perfectly okay for states to have some wiggle room regarding somebody's idea of faith-based values.

You might have seen that North Carolina was in the news last week over a state religion proposal by a couple of Tea Party legislators.  It was quashed the next day but there's something just weird about a headline that reads, "North Carolina Won't Establish State Religion."  (Alrighty then.  Next?)

Apparently there's nothing mandatory about elected or even school officials being made to understand the reasons why certain clauses in our particular constitution came to be.

We should probably work on fixing that.

Politicians out of control on Guns: Never Forgive, Never Forget

Yesterday 46 members of the Senate voted down a proposal that would have been a logical first step to gun control--universal background checks.  They were able to vote it down, even though 54 members voted for it because they rigged the way the votes count now.  Voting it down for no good reason is bad enough but they did it through cowardice, lies and cheats. The whole process was despicable, made even more so by the fact that it happened in the chambers where expectations of fairness and fidelity used to run quite high.

These public servants ignored the wishes of at least 90% of Americans and caved, instead, to willful profit-oriented special interests.  They lied about the content of the bill and insured their success by forcing a 60-vote approval instead of a fairer, more honest majority vote.

In a sane world, this would be enough to cause those who voted against the wishes of the people some actual discomfort, if not some actual punishment.  Our outrage (those of us who have sense enough to be outraged) comes today because we know nothing will happen to them.  They will go on for another day and another day after that making bad decisions that will affect all of us in one way or another, and all we can do is shout about it.

We are outraged.  The parents and families of the Newtown School massacre are outraged.  Gabrielle Giffords is outraged. The president is outraged.  The Democrats (all but four senators) are outraged. Certain members of the press are outraged.  But our rage at these 46 members of the United States Senate who voted to keep guns out of our control is, in the end, no more than hot air.  Rage, like hot air, dissipates.  It weakens to anger, and anger, when it is not satisfied, weakens to a sigh.  A futile sigh. We are exhausted.  We inevitably leave it behind and go on.

They get away with these undemocratic actions once again because we have neither the authority nor the strength to stop them.  And they know this.

The president gave a masterful speech yesterday, designed to both clarify his rage and to shame them for their actions.  They don't care.

A portion of what the president said: 

Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders –- not just to honor the memory of their children, but to protect the lives of all our children.  And a few minutes ago, a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn’t worth it.  They blocked common-sense gun reforms even while these families looked on from the Senate gallery.

By now, it’s well known that 90 percent of the American people support universal background checks that make it harder for a dangerous person to buy a gun.  We’re talking about convicted felons, people convicted of domestic violence, people with a severe mental illness.  Ninety percent of Americans support that idea.  Most Americans think that’s already the law.

And a few minutes ago, 90 percent of Democrats in the Senate just voted for that idea.  But it’s not going to happen because 90 percent of Republicans in the Senate just voted against that idea.
A majority of senators voted “yes” to protecting more of our citizens with smarter background checks.  But by this continuing distortion of Senate rules, a minority was able to block it from moving forward.

Gabrielle Giffords wrote an impassioned editorial in the New York Times yesterday, designed to show her rage and to shame those senators.  They don't care.

From Gabby:

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

James Fallows wrote a great piece in the Atlantic yesterday called "For the Love of God, just call it a Filibuster".    They don't care. 

1. Today a provision that would increase background checks for gun purchases was blocked in the Senate, even though consideration of the bill was supported by 54 senators representing states that make up (at quick estimate) at least 60 percent of the American population.
2. The bill did not fail to "pass" the Senate, which according to Constitutional provisions and accepted practice for more than two centuries requires a simple majority, 51 votes. Even 50 votes should do it, since the vice president is constitutionally empowered to cast the tie-breaking and deciding vote, and Joe Biden would have voted yes.
3. It failed because a 54-vote majority was not enough to break the threat of a filibuster, which (with some twists of labeling) was the real story of what happened with this bill. Breaking the filibuster would have required 60 votes.

The Twitterverse clogged the place yesterday listing one by one the names of those senators who voted "no".  They don't care.

Journalists, essayists, bloggers, and hundreds of thousands of enraged activists took to their preferred soapboxes and shouted out in anguished rage.  The senators ignored us all.  They don't care.

They're counting on our inattention, our tendency to be distracted and manipulated, our refusal to believe our elected politicians could turn against us so cruelly, so blatantly, and so often.

This is our chance to show them how much we care.  We can't forget.  We must not forgive.  We will not let them get away with this latest insult.  They should not be allowed to win again.  Not if we are who we think we are.

Hulabaloo at the Soo

Let me just say right off that when it comes to Homeland and border security, I'm all for it.

When it comes to appreciating how essential shipping is to the Great Lakes, I'm right at the head of the line.

When it comes to being in awe of the engineering feat that is the Soo Locks I am so in awe I can't stand it.

The Soo Locks.  From Left: MacArthur, Poe, Davis, Sabin

So when I got back on my turf last week and read in our local paper that an investigation into a possible bomb threat had closed the locks just days after the spring shipping season opened, my first instinct, naturally, was to blame Gov. Snyder and the Republican legislators and then the Koch Brothers and the Mackinac Center. (Because they're to blame for so much around here it's hard not to blame them for everything.  I'm sure you can understand.)

But here's what happened:  At 7:30 AM on the morning of March 29 a mailroom clerk at the Soo Locks was gathering up mail to be delivered to the boats scheduled to go through the locks on that day.  (It's a most efficient mail delivery system, given that the boats are girdled into the narrow lock and mail bags can be cast onto their decks as they wait out the raising or lowering of the water in the lock.)  This person heard beeping in one of the packages and thought it might be a bomb.  He called the Army Corp of Engineers who then called the Chippewa County central dispatch, who then sent out the police to check things out.

The police set up a command post at the guard building at the Locks main gate.  From there (and I'm quoting here from the St. Ignace News, April 4, 2013 - not yet available online) :

"Sault Ste. Marie Fire Department, Army Corp of Engineers, Coast Guard, Customs, Border Patrol, Immigration, the U.S Post Office and staff from the International Bridge were also on the scene.  Police on the Canadian side of the St. Mary's River were also advised of the situation.

The Coast Guard temporarily closed traffic on the St. Mary's River and established a 'limited access area' in the vicinity of both the locks and the International Bridge while the investigation was in progress.

A Michigan State bomb disposal unit was brought in from Gaylord [A full 115 miles to the south of the locks, it should be noted] before both it and a MSP K-9 unit searched the mailroom, where no explosives or other hazardous material were found and no packages were heard to be beeping.  Several small packages were then removed from the room where the beeping originated and checked using a mobile scanning vehicle.

Following the scan the packages were opened with one providing the source of the beeping:  an alarm clock."

It seems the alarm clock was set to go off at 7 AM (35 minutes before the mailroom clerk first heard it) and someone packing the thing either forgot to turn it off or neglected to take out the batteries.  (Admonition from Sault Ste. Marie police chief:  "Because of situations like this, the public is reminded not to include batteries in packages that are being sent through the U.S Mail.") So in the course of that few hours of shut-down, 11 lakers and salties (ocean-going vessels) were laid up --six upbound and five downbound--anchored far away from any threat of explosion.

Every boat, big or small, heading into or out of Lake Superior has to go through the Soo Locks System.  In earlier times it was possible to portage around the rapids (there is a 21-foot height difference between Lake Superior and the St. Mary's River) but nobody does it anymore.  Now we depend on the locks.  (Another note:  A new and bigger lock has been approved since 1989 to replace the obsolete Sabin and Davis locks but guess what?  The approval didn't come with funding, and even though they finally broke ground for the thing 20 years later, in 2009, that apparently wasn't impetus enough to free up some cash for it. I would say that's like promising a congressman an annual salary of $174,000 a year without actually providing the funds to pay it, but it isn't.  It's nothing like that.  So never mind.)

But back to the story:  Beeping from a package is a big deal.  (A thought here: Would a bomber really create a bomb that beeps?  Yes.  In the movies. How else would you know to be terrified that there was a bomb in there? Otherwise, probably not.)  Our locks at the Soo are a big deal.  So while I do admit that the Keystone-coppishness of that story tickled my funny bone, I've wondered at times about the vulnerability of the locks.  So I felt pretty good knowing our law-enforcement agencies are sort of on top of situations like these.

In this video (not mine), taken from the public observation deck at the Soo Locks Park, you can see how close the public is allowed to get to these boats.  The observation deck is glass-enclosed but there are other areas in the park where fences might keep humans out but bombs could easily be dispatched.  After 9/11, security was tight and we could only enter the park through one entrance, where guards with wands checked us through.  Now we can meander through unguarded gates at any time during open park hours without fear of bodily wanding.  Since that whole color-coding plan went bust, there is, it seems, nothing written in stone about Homeland Security. 

 A few of my own photos from the Locks:

MacArthur Lock in foreground; Indiana Harbor in Poe Lock

Algoma Transport downbound in MacArthur Lock

"Saltie" Whistler entering Locks channel downbound.  International and railroad bridge ahead.

Locks tour boat upbound in MacArthur Lock.  International Bridge in background.