me little drummer man

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Sweetwater Jam is shown here finishing up their demo and will be back to start on a new cd soon.

Brian Stoner working on a preservation project to preserve the American Native language in song so youngsters can learn the old songs

of the Ponca Tribe. This is a wonderful idea. Hopefully this will catch on and more will do it regardless of nationality or race... much is being lost as time rolls on...

Chad Sullins in Studio working on finishing up his first official CD...

Looking north before I jumped in truck and headed home... sigh.. winds to 65 knocked down power lines in Stillwater and a friend of mine had 4 ft. dia

trees blown down along with the huge hi line poles that feed Stillwater from the east...

One day a week or so back... in the late afternoon a storm rolled through .. .this is the leading edge looking east from my office

From a friend....

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 - 15 years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demanded and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we knew could never pay back? Why? We learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, **but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.

Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "We the People," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x 10. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word:Change...radical change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning.

I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission.

And then he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy.

The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world.

He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and...change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.

Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency - it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.

Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think I am.

About the author via Google...

Pamela "Atlas" Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child, but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School.

Jeff Salantai is the first person living with hemophilia to summit Mount Rainier.

This is the real deal...

Jeff Salantai (in photo with RED COAT on Mt. Rainer) and I set out with a mission to climb Mt. Rainier. For those of you who don’t know Jeff he is an account manager for us living in Austin Tx. Jeff works with BioRx’s hemophilia group. After more than 7 months of training and prep work we attempted to summit the mountain this past week. In fact we got home late last night.

We received tons of thoughts and prayers from many of you and we just wanted to say thank you to everyone who called or wrote wishing us luck.

We summited the mountain at 7:20am on Saturday at 14,410 feet….so wiped out we could barely function (only to realize we had about 7 more hours of continuous trekking to get back down) but we did it.

I’ve attached three pictures and below are some snippets about what we did if you are interested.

1^st picture (047) – this is a picture of the sunrise we took from the side of the mountain at about 12,500 feet. It was taken around 5am (although I’m not sure exactly when it was). At this point we had been on the mountain for about 21 hours (we started at about 8 or 9 the previous morning) with just one rest brake at 10,000 feet to grab a couple hours of sleep. It was breathtaking (literally) being above the clouds looking down at huge peaks below us and seeing the sun pop through the clouds. It was my favorite moment. At this point I would say we were both thinking “holy crap we still have 2 more hours to go and 2,000 feet of vertical elevation to the top…the hard work is still ahead of us!”.

2^nd picture (050) – this picture was taken from about 13,600 feet near the top of Emman’s glacier. We were about 1 hour from the top. You can see the peaks and other mountains around us more clearly and the cloud layer that was thousands of feet below us. In the bottom left of the picture you can see a climber heading back down and a little bit of the ice trail. By now we are having to force food into our body. I was feeling sick and trying to eat frozen energy gels, power bars or anything was horribly nauseating to me but our guides were berating us to eat. We were both wiped out by this time and were sort of on auto-pilot. I think we knew that by now with only 1 hour to the top we were going to make it. Everyone who was going to wash-out of the climb had already been taken off the mountain by guides.

3^rd picture – (065) This is a picture of Jeff and myself along with our lead guide, Dave Hahn. This picture was taken on Columbia Crest at 14,410 feet…the summit…the glory shot!. Jeff is in the red coat on the right, Dave is in the middle and I’m on the left. As it turns out our guide is a famous mountaineer legend who has summated Mt. Everest 11 times and still counting. He has summated Rainier 252 times. He has led expeditions to find the bodies of some of the early climbers on Mt. Everest and has filmed and been in numerous TV documentary’s about it. He guides Rainer trips now once or twice a summer for fun and we drew the lucky straw. The banner we are holding is a summit flag that Jeff had made. It has the BioRx logo on it and says “Summit for Someone” which is the charity we were raising money for. We got to rest for about 20 more minutes after this picture was taken before starting back down.

If you are interested here are a couple of snippets about what we did.

1. Mt Rainier is the tallest mountain in the lower 49 states (only
Alaska has a higher mountain). It is located just outside of
Ashford, WA..
2. About 30% (5 of 18) of the group that started with us did not make it
3. Jeff and I raised about $9,500 for at-risk youth in a program
called Summit for Someone. We additionally raised some money (we
don’t know how much yet) for Save One Life which provides factor
and financial support to people with bleeding disorders in 3^rd
world countries. BioRx is going to match the funds for Save One Life.
4. We both agreed that this is the hardest thing we’ve ever done.
I’ve run a marathon, done 4 more 23 mile runs, completed 5 Olympic
length triathlons, climbed 2 other 14ft mountains (no glaciers)
and raced in 100k road bike races Jeff likewise has done some
pretty spectacular physical challenges like climbing the 2^nd and
third largest mountains in the US, rock climbed some amazing
cliffs, and competing in 100mile bike races on a routine basis. We
both agreed that they all paled in comparison to the effort and
mental trial of this experience.
5. We were blessed with good support, great guides, lots of friend
and family like you wishing us the best.

Most spectacularly – we are 99% sure that Jeff is the first person living with hemophilia to summit Mount Rainier. There are certainly other higher mountains (Denali, K2, Everest) but Jeff is in a very elite group and who knows he may now hold a record for the highest summit in the world by someone with hemophilia …who knows….he almost certainly is the first to summit Rainer. We are going to try to fact check this and if we can confirm it we’ll publicize that fact. We know of one other hemophiliac who attempted Rainier two years ago but was taken off the mountain at 12,500 feet in an unsuccessful bid.

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers. This was a great experience that we’ll never forget and something I’m proud that our company participated in.

*Eric Hill*

Uncle David tried to cut off his finger Monday...

Uncle Dave was working on fixing a flat tire at his business early in am on Monday, when something did not work as planned and he said he thought there might be a problem after his finger started hurting and he looked and it was hanging on by the skin... got 'er sewn back on and will know today if it is going to work or not..

just fyi... Ann knows more I am sure.. just wanted everyone to know..

later.. s

Obama's healthcare horror

Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's!

By Camille Paglia

Aug. 12, 2009 |

Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do.

Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.

Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

With the Republican party leaderless and in backbiting disarray following its destruction by the ideologically incoherent George W. Bush, Democrats are apparently eager to join the hara-kiri brigade. What looked like smooth coasting to the 2010 election has now become a nail-biter. Both major parties have become a rats' nest of hypocrisy and incompetence. That, combined with our stratospheric, near-criminal indebtedness to China (which could destroy the dollar overnight), should raise signal flags. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?

What does either party stand for these days? Republican politicians, with their endless scandals, are hardly exemplars of traditional moral values. Nor have they generated new ideas for healthcare, except for medical savings accounts, which would be pathetically inadequate in a major crisis for anyone earning at or below a median income.

And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.

But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.

Surely, the basic rule in comprehensive legislation should be: First, do no harm. The present proposals are full of noble aims, but the biggest danger always comes from unforeseen and unintended consequences. Example: the American incursion into Iraq, which destabilized the region by neutralizing Iran's rival and thus enormously enhancing Iran's power and nuclear ambitions.

What was needed for reform was an in-depth analysis, buttressed by documentary evidence, of waste, fraud and profiteering in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Instead what we've gotten is a series of facile, vulgar innuendos about how doctors conduct their practice, as if their primary motive is money. Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.

Of course, it didn't help matters that, just when he needed maximum momentum on healthcare, Obama made the terrible gaffe of declaring that, even without his knowing the full facts, Cambridge, Mass., police had acted "stupidly" in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Obama's automatic identification with the pampered Harvard elite (wildly unpopular with most sensible people), as well as his insulting condescension toward an officer doing his often dangerous duty, did serious and perhaps irreparable damage to the president's standing. The strained, prissy beer summit in the White House garden afterward didn't help. Is that the Obama notion of hospitality? Another staff breakdown.

Both Gates and Obama mistakenly assumed that the original incident at Gates' house was about race, when it was about class. It was the wealthy, lordly Gates who committed the first offense by instantly and evidently hysterically defaming the character of the officer who arrived at his door to investigate the report of a break-in. There was no excuse for Gates' loud and cheap charges of racism, which he should have immediately apologized for the next day, instead of threatening lawsuits and self-aggrandizing television exposés. On the other hand, given that Cambridge is virtually a company town, perhaps police headquarters should have dispatched a moderator to the tumultuous scene before a small, disabled Harvard professor was clapped in handcuffs and marched off to jail. But why should an Ivy League panjandrum be treated any differently from the rest of us hoi polloi?

Class rarely receives honest attention in the American media, as demonstrated by the reporting on a June incident at a swimming pool in the Philadelphia suburbs. When the director of the Valley Swim Club in Montgomery County cancelled its agreement with several urban day camps to use its private pool, the controversy was portrayed entirely in racial terms. There were uninvestigated allegations of remarks about "black kids" made by white mothers who ordered their children out of the pool, and the racial theme was intensified by the director's inept description of the "complexion" of the pool having been changed -- which may simply have been a whopper of a Freudian slip.

Having followed the coverage in the Philadelphia media, I have lingering questions about how much of that incident was race and how much was social class. Urban working-class and suburban middle-class children often have quite different styles of play -- as I know from present observation as well as from my Syracuse youth, when I regularly biked to the public pool in Thornden Park. Kids of all races from downtown Syracuse neighborhoods were much rougher and tougher, and for self-preservation you had to stay out of their way! Otherwise, you'd get knocked to the concrete or dunked when they heedlessly jumped off the diving board onto our heads in the crowded pool.

In general, middle-class children today are more closely supervised at pools because the family can afford to have a non-working parent at home -- a luxury that working-class kids rarely have. What happened at the Valley Swim Club, whose safety infrastructure was evidently also overwhelmed by too many visiting kids who were non-swimmers, may have been a clash of classes rather than races. Were the mothers who pulled their kids out of the pool that day really reacting to skin color or what they, accurately or not, perceived to be an overcrowded, dangerous disorder? The incontrovertible offense in all this, which went unmentioned in the national media, was the closure for budgetary reasons by the city of Philadelphia this summer of 27 of its 73 public pools. There is no excuse for that kind of draconian curtailment of basic recreational facilities for working-class families, sweltering in the urban summer heat.

Now on to art and pop. Highlight of the month for me was definitely a recent performance by Alo Brasil, a local Brazilian music and dance ensemble, at Philadelphia's World Cafe Live. I positioned myself smack in front of the stage to bathe in the magnificent, hypnotic drumming, a Bahian style with West African roots that takes one into another reality -- sublime and trans-historical. Of course, then there was the sensory overload of the beautiful, nimble, long-legged samba dancers in their jeweled bikinis and high heels! But all the dancers of Alo Brasil, male and female, are absolutely brilliant -- it was mind-blowing. Anyone born and raised in Bahia (such as Daniela Mercury) has obviously been immersed in these rhythms from earliest childhood. They are surely profoundly transformative, reshaping the neural synapses and opening the mind toward ecstatic group communication. To be continued!

Our pop medley for this column begins with the Algeria-born Etienne Daho, whose three-disc set, "Dans la Peau de Daho" (2002), I have been working my way through. Last year, I posted two other videos featuring Daho -- his quietly compelling duet with Charlotte Gainsbourg and his moving tribute to Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick. This song, "Paris le Flore," is a hauntingly atmospheric ode to random encounters in the streets and cafés of Paris. In the narrative superimposed by the video, two notable French performers do their thing -- Virginie Ledoyen (who appeared with Catherine Deneuve in "8 Women" and with Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Beach") and singer/actor Benjamin Biolay, ex-husband of Chiara Mastroianni, the daughter of Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. I love the way Daho's shimmery song re-creates the meditative mystique of French eroticism, shown in a thousand films. And that liquid, stuttering bass line -- divine! (Hey, Salon readers, if you don't have good speakers on your computer, you're missing the cultural riches of the Web.)

Next on the docket is Sharon Stone, exploding in all her topless glory on the cover of Paris Match. Now there's a gal who knows how to work the gym while still keeping the sacred flame of sexiness alive! Yes, you know who the Big Bad Example is of obsessive gym culture gone to seed -- that increasingly artificial construction of paraffin and chicken wire, our Madonna of the Shallows. Jesus Luz must be blessedly myopic. (Cue the Contours' 1965 R&B hit, "First I Look at the Purse.")

Caught HBO's 1998 movie "Gia" for the umpteenth time on cable the other day. My admiration remains boundless for the 22-year-old Angelina Jolie's bravura performance as the Philadelphia-born fashion model Gia Carangi, a heroin addict who died of AIDS in 1986. I've often recommended Stephen Fried's excellent 1993 biography, "Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia," but this time I hit the Web to see what else I could dig up.

Mother lode! I found Gia's original nude fence photos, shown in the movie being shot by the perverse fashionista Chris von Wangenheim. I was startled to learn that Wangenheim was killed in a car accident in 1981, another blow for Gia. In trying to find his obit, I discovered that New York Times files of the World War One era are filled with references to his noble German ancestors, many of whom were barons killed in battle. Another German decadent artiste, like the incomparable Helmut Newton.

Here are some wonderful photos of Wilhelmina (stylishly played in the movie by Faye Dunaway), the Dutch fashion model veteran of 300 covers who founded an agency that hired the scrappy Gia but who then tragically died of cancer at age 40 in 1980, leaving Gia bereft. And here's Gia's ever-patient, real-life girlfriend, Sandy Linter, who turns out to be a more in-your-face urban type of the Deborah Harry school than she was portrayed in the movie.

Interested parties should check out this pastiche of clips, with a great song, which ingeniously conflate Gia with Patricia Charbonneau in that lesbo classic "Desert Hearts" (1985). This is a good chance to appreciate anew the charming eroticism of the car-in-the-rain first kiss between Charbonneau and Helen Shaver, which proves the point I made in my last column about the best lesbian scenes on film having ironically been performed by straight women. Finally, here is Gia herself -- a late clip showing her in surly, rambling butch mode, with druggy speech and tics, and then a dazzling collection of her peak high fashion images, which whiz by too fast but still reveal what an astonishing, almost supernormal presence she was.

Oh, one last note. Gay trivia: The 17-year-old hustler who in 1975 murdered the gay film director Pier Paolo Pasolini by repeatedly running him over with his own car on an Italian beach was named Giuseppe Pelosi. Hmm ... Hustling must run in the family.

Camille Paglia's column appears on the second Wednesday of each month. Every third column is devoted to reader letters. Please send questions for her next letters column to this mailbox. Your name and town will be published unless you request anonymity.

Hey Cowboys fans,

Hey Cowboys fans,

Enter the College Colors Day fan photo contest by Friday, August 21st for a chance to win one of the following prizes from Champs Sports:

$250 Champs Sports Gift Card
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Good luck and Go Cowboys!

-The FanSection Team

wow... no one can please obama...

obama says police are stupid, his wife says they are NOW proud to be Americans, he makes a known tax cheat head of the IRS and our treasury.... Hilary says she is in fact Sec. of State (I thought either Bill or obama or that nut Joe was) and now if you work for the post office.. this dumbell says... "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. ... It's the Post Office that's always having problems."

and one wonders where all the pent up anger is coming from, how about average Americans who are just sick and tired of this nonsense and would love to have a President who can lead with sound judgment, not just pretty words, who exhibits wisdom in the place of incorrect snap decisions, who understands this country was not built in a day, that people have brains and love to be part of the process, yelp, the one that Washington seems to forget ... WE OWN!!

If there ever was an example of the Peter Principle at work, it is Washington DC. We need to replace any of those nuts who support this socialist view and approach to things. Our forefathers gave their lives or risk them so we might enjoy the land of the free and home of the brave... not so America could become socialist!

Ragan driving west of Stillwater home yesterday towards Guthrie

RIP...

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the Presidential election:

• Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29
• Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000
• Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million
• Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1

Ice Cream anyone??

ONE OF THE BEST EXPLANATIONS OF WHY OBAMA WON THE ELECTION

 

   From a teacher in the Nashville area - "We are worried about "the cow" when it is all about the "Ice Cream"

    The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year. The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class president.

    We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

    To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members. We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have. We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

    The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids. I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support. I had never seen Olivia's mother.

   The day arrived when they were to make their speeches. 

  Jamie went first. He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best. Everyone applauded and he sat down.    

    Now it was Olivia's turn to speak. Her speech was concise. She said, "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down.

The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream." She surely would say more. She did not have to.

 A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure. Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it. She didn't know. The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream.

  Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide. Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.

They want ice cream.

The other 48 percent know they're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess."

Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone --- that they have not first taken away from someone else.

 

Often times, analogies can over simplify a matter, (and, or,) be improperly applied, however the following analogy, though simple and to the point, seems to be fair and accurate to me.

 

The ending anonymous quote, reminds me of a quote by Gerald Ford; "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything you have...." this quote has often been attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

 

His actual quote was; "The natural process of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground."

 

The above analogy illustrates, that all things must be paid for, as nothing is free, but what it fails to mention, is that the ice-cream that President Obama wants to give, is not only prohibitively expensive, it tastes so bad, nobody will want to eat it.

"No, he can't."

Trinkets that stick it to Obama start to sell
Cashing in on 'No, he can't'
By Andrea Billups (Contact)
Originally published 04:45 a.m., August 11, 2009, updated 08:22 a.m., August 11, 2009


In the political paraphernalia department, "Yes, we can" is becoming "No, he can't."

Anti-Obama memorabilia -- from T-shirts to bumper stickers to buttons -- is increasingly emerging in the marketplace as the president's economic and health care policies polarize supporters and detractors.

While "Mama for Obama" was a popular slogan during the 2008 election cycle, that design has been retooled with angry and fickle disenchantment: "To the Mama for Obama -- thanks for the tax hike." The "Audacity of Hope," the title of Mr. Obama's popular book, has been replaced by the "Audacity of Hype."

"It really started peaking about a month ago," said Amy Maniatis, vice president of marketing at the online seller Cafepress.com.

"You see it as a direct response to some of the promising messages that happened a year ago. Whereas we had the campaign of Obama centered around hope, and it was a very optimistic message, now they're asking: 'How's that hopey-changey thing going?' "

The Cafepress.com store, a cultural barometer of sorts for political and social expression, offers about 3 million Obama products, she said, but now is up to about 1 million that are "anti-Obama-oriented," reflecting a "significant shift in the last couple of months than what was the trend a year ago."

Pro-Obama gear is still selling well, she said, "but now we're seeing a much larger swing toward the critical designs. It will be lighthearted as commentary on his gaffes as in 'Acted Stupidly,' " a play on his remarks about the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., "or with folks reacting to headlines or what is going on with the economy."

The political change in memorabilia mirrors the public-opinion divide on Mr. Obama as he moves to reform health care and attempts to revive the economy.

A poll of likely voters by Rasmussen Reports, released Thursday, found that 32 percent "strongly approve" of the way the president is doing his job, while 38 percent "strongly disapprove." Overall, 49 percent at least ?somewhat approve? of his performance, and 51 percent at least somewhat disapprove.