Like most of mankind, Senator Craig was caught with his pants down.

Need we be reminded that we are all part of a "fallen" mankind




"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned..." (Romans 5:12).

"What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that he could be righteous? If God puts no trust in His saints, and the heavens are not pure in His sight, how much less man, who is abominable and filthy, who drinks iniquity like water!" (Job 15:14-16).

"For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin." (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5).

"When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to the land of the enemy, far or near;..." (1 Kings 8:46, 2 Chronicles 6:36).

"So He said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.'" (Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18).

"Who can say, 'I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin'?" (Proverbs 20:9).

"What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written: 'There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one...'Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God...For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (Romans 3:9-23).

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us...If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." (1 John 1:8-10).

"If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?" (Psalm 130:3).

Although Senator Craig's statements in the past week (and the media's attention) in the past two days are hypocritical and his past actions on the Senate floor are despicable as regards his unwarranted attacks upon gays and others whose moral code did not meet his and his president's "Christianity," the pictures below show that we are all capable of acts more despicable than anything that Senator Craig managed to do.







The poster graphic below says it all, I think, considering that our country and its Government are regarded by most of us as the best that mankind has to offer ...

He only pleaded guilty to soliciting sex in a men's bathroom--not to being Gay, for goodness sake!

Senator Larry Craig (R. Idaho) in a couple of recent photos taken by the police in Minnesota

I think we should take him at his word that he is not gay, but only guilty of soliciting sex in a public men's bathroom. Too often we tend to accuse Republicans of far worse crimes (e.g., being homosexual) than those they actually plead guilty to (e.g., soliciting sex with a man in a men's bathroom) and thus, lose the credibility of our Progressive views on the really important issues of our time (e.g., the Iraq occupation, unfair taxation, universal health care, etc.).

My personal view is that Senator Craig should be allowed to go on and lead a normal life and surely, he should continue to campaign for Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for president--continuing into the general Election, if Romney should be nominated. That is the generous and loving thing for all of us to do and hope for.

Yes, I do believe that (like Michael Vick) Larry Craig should ask the police in Minneapolis whom he abused verbally to forgive him ... and for him to pray for forgiveness from the One Who Forgives All Sins--and paid the price 2000 years ago for exactly that! [And that last sentence wasn't in jest or an exaggeration! I have been there and thank the Lord for His forgiveness daily.]

Yes, it was awful, but let's get on with life ...

Michael Vick as I would prefer to remember him ...

Yesterday's "Through this, I have found Jesus" and "I will redeem myself ... I have to" was all I really wanted to hear from Michael Vick. You all know how I can come to love nearly any animal and yet, God knows, we have all done awful things of one sort or another in our respective pasts and we all need the forgiveness of Jesus Christ first and of ourselves next--then of our fellow human beings. What I heard in the various video clips on CNN (of Vick) was humble, believably unpolished--even clumsy, obviously unscripted, and most assuredly (by my untrained ears) repentant.

The road ahead for Michael Vick is still uncertain. Rehabilitation is long and hard. Just ask me.

But, I for one do forgive the man ... with the hope that he will do something so wonderful for the animal world that we will look back on these sad days in wonder that it ever even happened.


I see a Forrest Gump somewhere behind those sad eyes

Another loss ... this time, the newest member of the household, "Baby"

Baby 2006-2007

With Alberto Gonzales having finally stepped aside as Attorney General, I had hoped to write something … well, rather feisty and full of sarcastic humor today. But instead, I feel the heaviness of heart that only those of you who have lost a really dear friend can feel.

Baby (a name I would never give so majestic an animal as she was/is) is dead. I woke up at about 5:15 this morning with a warm furry "something" in the curl of my neck. But what wakened me was nothing more than a feeling that something was wrong. The warm furry feeling in the curl of my neck was real, but more of a chimera than any reality of which I am familiar. When I went to move her out of the curl of my neck, I realized that she was stiff—already in rigor mortis, although still warm.

Interestingly, the picture above was taken only about five hours before her death (assuming she died only moments before I awoke). I had just combed the matted hair on her head and thought she looked "picture-perfect." Also, I had only bought the camera earlier in the day and this was a chance to try out my abilities (NOT) to get the thing working. I managed to take two pictures of “Baby.”

I won't go into the entire story about how Baby came into my home and into my heart, but let me simply say that she loved me more than I believed that any animal could love someone not of his or her species. Yes, she was not feeling well, and that might be both part of the reason that she clung to me every moment that I was in the house—and why she couldn't help but urinate on my chest in the middle of the night when she was unable to get to the kitty-litter. She left a couple of other "presents" on my T-shirt in the middle of the night, but I'd rather not have this blog posting become indecorous—especially since it is dedicated to the most loving friend a person could ever have.

I had made an appointment to see the veterinarian this morning at 11:30 because I noticed that Baby was making strange sounds (she meowed like Donald Duck quacks—and that is not meant to be funny) and not eating as well as she had been when she was first dropped off in my house about six months ago. I was planning on renaming her "Maybelline" for her records at the veterinarians since she actually responded to her name and "Maybelline" was as close to "Baby" as I could come up with--it even kind of sounds like "Baby." The "Baby" moniker was hung on her by an 85-year old woman who fed her while she was running about as a feral cat in the neighborhood. Then, another woman (a former housekeeper and a care-giver to the older woman) who insisted I watch her until she could find and apartment for them both, told me that her "official" name was "Baby."

Of course, the care-giving woman found an apartment that did not permit pets.

You know? I only remembered moments ago that the "given name" on my own birth certificate was "Baby." Hmm ... coincidence or what?

Also of note is the fact that my other cats all stayed away from my bedroom for the past week—as if knowing that Baby needed all the love she could get from me. Later this morning, they all returned as if they knew I now needed their love and friendship. Ralph, in particular, hadn't been even inside my bedroom all of last week and weekend, but he was the first to hop into my bed almost immediately after I had wrapped Baby in a pink blanket on the floor at the foot of the bed. He licked my head and purred the most wonderful and reassuring “words” into my ears. I picked up Ralph and his brother, George, in Saudi Arabia in a past lifetime. It seems strange to think back to when I discovered them being abused by a couple of "princes" in a palace in Riyadh just after the first Gulf war.

They were with the other five kitties whom I have acquired at the bedroom window when I went out back to dig Baby's grave under a rhododendron bush.

Don't tell me that animals—our pets, in particular—don’t wait for us in the same Heaven to which we all aspire. I truly believe that I have a brand new four-pawed angel somewhere among the stardust that comprises Heaven and I look forward to seeing some of my four-legged friends among the two-legged loved ones whom I've lost over the years.

Just thought you’d want to know.

Ryan in 2048 and Lilia in 2056 ... but we need a Constitutional Amendment!

After having climbed out on a limb for Mike Huckabee, I guess it's not too early for me to start pushing for a couple of my grandchildren who are already Libertarian candidates for president for 2048 and 2056. Admittedly, Ryan (on the right but not too far right) and Lilia (below on the left but not too far left) are in the race a mite early. But not really too early if the current primary season is any gauge.

As regards Lilia though, we are going to have to change that pesky Constitution to allow such as Lilia (and Arnold Schwarzenegger) to be permitted to sit in the Oval Office, inasmuch as she was not born in the United States. It's not too early to push for an Amendment along those lines, in my humble [sic] opinion. Any US citizen in good standing with the law should be permitted to attain the job that George W. Bush holds, for heaven's sake!


That aside, they are cuties though, aren't they?

Among the current batch of candidates, only one stands heads and shoulders above the rest ... Mike Huckabee !!!

Mike Huckabee ... an actually deserving wannabee

No other candidate in either party has either the executive experience (10 1/2 years as Governor of Arkansas), the successful writing experience (go to Amazon.com and see for yourself ... starting with Kids Who Kill through to this year's From Hope to Higher Ground) nor the simple out-and-out character ... for the terribly difficult job ahead.
You all know how opposed I am to the war in Iraq, so my backing someone who is actually in support of the war (more or less) says something about the character of the man I'd like to see in the White House in January of 2009. Former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, is certainly not politically correct. But ... he most certainly is is a man of strength, integrity, love, conviction, patriotism, family, honesty and oh yes, Christianity--quite a departure from the two most recent occupants of the WH.

I recommend that all of you read and re-read the events that put Mike Huckabee in the State House in Arkansas--itself a "Profile in Courage." In short, his first inauguration was nearly hijacked and only saved by the work of Arkansas Democrats who put their sense of honor ahead of politics.

Obviously, Huckabee's pro-life position puts him in a politically incorrect camp. He was/is a minister to boot--clearly verboten in American politics--at least since about the time of Jimmy Carter. [Compare Huckabee's position with that of Mitt Romney who has been pro-life, pro-abortion and now somewhere in the middle, or nearly every Democrat except me who are all "Roe vs. Wade advocates" to the core.]

Until now, I have not really endorsed Huckabee nor ever even written a blog posting on "Why I Like Mike". The main reason is that I have never considered him to have had much of a chance against the tens of millions of dollars that his Republican rivals have put up, nor does he seem to have a chance against the far more charismatic and well-known Democrats who are running this time around.

And, oh yes -- a couple of other factoids:

"First, He has the most Executive Experience out of the remaining (and yet to be announced) GOP Candidates for President. In early 1993, Mike Huckabee became only the 2nd elected Republican Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas...since Reconstruction. He served as Lieu. Governor until a conviction in the "Whitewater Scandal" forced then Governor Guy Tucker to resign. Mike was sworn in as Governor on July 15, 1996...becoming only the 3rd Republican Governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction. He was overwhelmingly re-elected (in a Democratic state) for two more full terms...finishing his service at the end of 2006.

As a conservative Republican Governor, Mike worked with the Democratic State Legislature and got things done. Mike led the state in becoming more fiscally responsible, implementing "pro-life" and "pro-family" laws, improved the education system in the areas of resource accountability, student test scores, and teacher enrichment (while also supporting "Homeschool" families), and promoted advancements in the Health care system (especially for preventive measures and health care for underprivileged children)." ... taken from his unofficial "Elect Mike Huckabee in 2008" Blogsite

But quite frankly, I see him as also being the winner of every Republican debate until now and, after having finished second in the Iowa Straw Poll ... maybe, just maybe ... this fine and credible candidate has a chance.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Iraq is no more like Vietnam than the Iraq Occupation is part of the "War on Terror" ... or even remotely connected to the events of 9-11-01 !!!

On the other hand, the sad events that took place on April 29, 1975 that were captured so poignantly in this photo by Hubert Van Es ...



Certainly give rise to cartoons such as the one below by Carlos Latuff ...



[For the record, Carlos Latuff is an artist and activist based in Brazil. He can be contacted at latuff@uninet.com.br. He's also a brilliant cartoonist--as you might guess by the most recent cartoon above--and his brilliance certainly scores deeper than my concerns over the current "results" of the surge, doesn't it?]

The point, however, is deadly serious. George W. Bush has truly played the "fear card" one time (actually several times) too often. His speech yesterday warned us not to make the mistakes of Vietnam all over again. The Cold War was a seriously nervous matter and, at the outset, Vietnam indeed seemed to be very much a part of that Global threat. In time, we saw Vietnam for what it was (a quagmire and not at all related to our fears of the nuclear missiles in Soviet Union silos and bombers) and we ultimately got out at great cost to both us (50,000-plus dead) and Vietnam (countless). In the case of Iraq, we knew full well from the outset that it was in no way related to the 9-11 attacks and now we even know that the White House was well aware that Saddam Hussein was not only an enemy of Osama bin Laden, but didn't posses nuclear weapons either. The name of the game is, and always has been, P-O-W-E-R !!! [a.k.a. O-I-L !!!]

Interestingly, the Soviet Union collapsed of its own dead weight and Vietnam is now a trading partner of the U.S. even though we ultimately saw that our slogging on with the conflict there would only cost us more returning body bags and more suffering for the Vietnamese people. Even while I was there in 1969-70, it was evident to me that we weren't wanted there by most of the Vietnamese, although I (admittedly) believed that China was ready to step in and colonize Vietnam if we left. [I was wrong, of course.]

Whether we can survive the foreign policies of Messieurs Bush and Cheney until either of the two possibilities that I laid out in the previous posting occur in 2008/2009 is a really scary exercise in angst. [My sister in Maryland recently taught me to pronounce the word, "angst," so I had to use it.]

And oh yes, Mr. Bush -- the "killing fields" and "boat people" that you mentioned in your scare tactics yesterday would never have happened were it not for secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia that no one knew of until years after the war was ended. I thought I had every security clearance on God's green earth and yet didn't know about those bombing campaigns until I read about them in newspapers and in Time magazine years later.

Long before Rachel Maddow even dreamed such a thing ... I predicted it to my brother Richard in Connecticut ...

Yes, I suggested even before the famous hunting "accident" or his stubbornness with Congress over wiretapping and such ... that Richard Cheney would step down so that Jeb Bush could become the interim Vice-President long enough to settle the squabble among Republican candidates [sic].

That was long before Rachel Maddow on Air America brought up a similar thought once or twice sometime back on Air America. That aside, it does seem as though Ms. Maddow really did come up with an even juicier--and very original--conspiracy theory today when she leisurely thought about Lieutenant General David Petraeus filling the "Jeb Bush role" in the original Mediawingnuts theory.

My God! It's perfect! Of course! Why else are the Republicans blowing Petraeus up to an almost-God to the electorate? Good Lord, they've turned over the entire Iraq War (spelled O-I-L) to him with little more than a whimper ... although they are writing his long-awaited September Assessment.

Even I like General Petraeus ... unless he turns himself into a shameless backer of all of our failed policies in Iraq, of course. But the questions have to be asked, don't they? Why is the White House staff preparing General Petraeus' September assessment of the surge? Why haven't the Republican big-whigs (corporate and financial interests) gotten behind even one of the current crop of Presidential wannabees? Why? Why? Why?

Why? Because they see another "Ike," that's why!

The Neocons actually HAVE A CANDIDATE and have not yet named him openly, that's all!

All that lays before us is the "whatever" that will cause Dick Cheney to resign, die, become an astronaut, whatever!

(And oh yes, wasn't Mr. Bush his own Vice-President for a couple of hours only a few weeks ago while I was in Shelton learning to crack necks and other fun passtimes?)

And Jeb Bush? I see a Petraus-Bush ticket that will cause the Clinton-Obama ticket to shake in its boots.

You read it first on Mediawingnuts ... although my brother Richard in Connecticut is the "Karl Rove" between my ears.


Lieutenant General/Vice president David Petraeus

Followed shortly by ...

Just who the hell are the Yazidis anyway?

I was almost beginning to believe that we just might ... just might, mind you ... be required to slog it out in Iraq for maybe three or four more years to insure that the al-Qaida militants who grew from essentially zero presence in Iraq before we invaded to becoming a fourth (or is it a fifth?) active insurgent force to be reckoned with there wouldn't grow to the size of bin Laden's organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And just when we believe that we have the insurgent Sunni militias lined up with us (against those evil-but-small-in-number al-Qaida forces), what happens but that the Shiite insurgent militias (backed by Iran--not the al-Qaida) give us a present last week--the worst day in Iraq since the Iraq War began. In fact, it was the worst terrorist attack by anyone anywhere since 9-11!!!

Two small Kurdish towns were targeted by Iranian-backed Shiite insurgents--as best as can be determined today--although the pentagon at first said "It's al-Qaida; it's al-Qaida!"

In any event, more than five hundred Kurdish civilians died and many, many more were injured--like the young boy pictured above. Their crime? They happened to belong to a relatively unknown sect of Islam cum Christianity (actually pre-Islamic in its origins) called the "Yazidis" that had stayed pretty much out of the fray until we invaded four years ago.

Since then, we have heard stories of stonings and other atrocities that weren't really our business since that was part of the Iraqi way of doing business under the new Government that we installed. The latest stoning, by the way, was of a former Yazidi woman who was stoned to death by the Yazidis for becoming a Muslim. The vengeance for her death was/were a few executions (shootings) of Yazidis by Muslims ... and the band plays on.

Now, I have to ask myself whether we will ever really untangle the Sunni-Shiite-al-Qaida-Yazidi-Kurdish-secular-Baahtist spaghetti-with-blood-sauce that we have concocted. Where the Sunni insurgents end and al-Qaida begins is anyone's guess. Where the Shiite insurgents end and Iranian support begins is anyone's guess. And where the Iraqi government forces end and US forces begin is the hardest of all of the slimy, fuzzy dimensions of this ill-begot war.

Hillary thinks we might have to be there for some time to insure "stability." President George Bush only shrugged his shoulders at his last news conference. They appear to be about equally puzzled on this issue.

But three or four more years?

Not on MY dime!

Things really DO come in threes, don't they?

The latest ... let's call Karl #1

My mother (coincidentally also the mother of my brother Richard in Connecticut) used to opine that things generally came in threes. Like the Trinity and Spiderman movies. Anyway, when President Bush decided to accept the resignation of Karl Rove earlier this week, I immediately thought of two other species of animals that have recently become extinct.

Only a year ago or so (in late December), the Iraqis hanged Saddam Hussein and only four hundred or so years ago, we (mankind) decided that the dodo bird was indeed extinct. One two three!


I suppose that Saddam ranks a #2 rating


And the fifty pound dodo bird makes a perfect #3

I guess the dodo bird is a little out of order here in that the mommy dodo bird would always put a rock of similar shape next to her one egg to fool the predators who feasted on her egg(s) up until about 1607 A.D. She seemed to have more common sense than either Karl or Saddam in the overall scheme of things,

So, I guess things really do come in threes, Mom; or am I missing something here?

PS: The following was the first and best rendition of the news that Karl was indeed leaving our lives and assuredly deserves the #1 ranking in the "threes" of this millennium: "Karl Rove RESIGNS!!! Karl Rove Resigns - Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead [breaking news - no irony] Short and Sweet: Rove resigns!"

Someday soon I will summarize all of the "good" things that we have as a result of Bush's brain having been in place within our "Head of State" for so very, very long.

Another week watching TV from my bed in the Super 8 Motel in Shelton ...

Another weekend back home in Ocean Shores and away from “class” and another weekend to try to figure out exactly what actually happened during the week. Yes, the DOW soared and then tanked--more on that next weekend, I think. And oh yes, Mitt Romney bought the Iowa Straw polls (for what that was worth) and we had another week of watching a single scene on TV all week. Last week it was the bridge in Minnesota and this week it was some coal mine in Utah and the face of what can only be described as a southern preacher in a Mormon state asking the nation to pray to the tune of his tears over the miners trapped in his rickety coal mine that has made both him and his family millionaires over the past couple of decades.

Still, the big news was … yes … it’s the economy stupid, but no one seems to realize that when the Republicans say “robust, ” what they mean is that “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class gets squeezed out.”

So what’s really new other than that I managed to pass the physical tests that precede the written tests? The written qualifiers (and others) are next week for me to get “certification” of some sort that seems totally inconsistent with my age and size. I truly wish I were free to tell the world (you) exactly what I’m going through and why, but rules are rules. And in another week, it will be ALL OVER … and I can go back to being a teacher … of sorts.

Only in America ...

Hey, Mitt Romney's millions have actually bought an election (the Iowa Straw Polls held yesterday) and it's 100% legal and above the board.

I had never really paid attention to those stupid polls in Iowa until now, but I thoroughly agree with John McCain's and Rudy Giuliani's decision to stay a million miles from such out and out unamerican bullshit. How such crap can even make the daily newspapers is beyond me, but any semblance to reality is clearly lost in a 'poll" that is based on entry fees (really!) and expensive bus rides (paid for by the candidates, it seems).

But for the record ... and to show that Mediawingnuts is a true wing nut after all, Romney "earned" (bought) 31.5 percent of the vote, with former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., coming in second with 18.1 percent, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., placing third with 15.3 percent.

I guess it does test a candidates' ability to earn/steal money enough to play the silly game, but for me .... YUCK!!!

A"minor" player in a not-so-minor ordeal of the real miners.

This entire past week (or so it seems), I have been trapped in a mine/motel room with Bob Murray (photo left and/or above, depending in the size of your PC monitor) telling us just how safe his mine in Utah is/was and how its collapse was "an act of God."

And if you believe only 25% of what he has to say, I have a couple of beautiful pure-bred cats to sell to you and a beautiful two story home in Ocean Shores for sale. (Not really!)

He has ranted for the entire week about the miners being "in the hands of the Lord," about Global Warming being a "myth," about the "earthquake" which he will "prove" caused the mine to collapse. about mine safety (his have earned more than 500 violation citations per year for over a decade), his own background as a miner (yes, he claims to have lied about that too in order to get a job while underage) and ... the list goes on and on as he seems to expend more energy talking to the American public than actually helping to extract the miners trapped in his rickety mine in Utah.

He even got a major segment on Larry King Live, for God's sake!

It's the economy stupid!

Without a question, it is NOT a robust economy, as both the Republicans and my brother Richard in Connecticut have been trying to tell me for what seems like decades.

During my entire lifetime--or at least the past thirty years, I seem to have been watching the middle class sinking in both size (its proportion of the population) and the ability to own a home, have a couple of cars and raise more than one child whose education might not put the family into simple straight-out poverty.

One of my daughters and I were running through a number of ways in which the economy seemed to be tanking (like the stock market early last week and the week before), and we came up with quite a list.

For starters, Bernie Sanders (on his Senate website) mentions that "5.4 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty; nearly seven million Americans have lost their health insurance; median household income has gone down by nearly $1,300 [note from Mediawingnuts: this figure was between 2000 and 2005, the latest year for which we have accurate data, but it is down by almost 4% in only the past year, according to the US treasury] ; three million manufacturing jobs have been lost; the real earnings of college graduates have gone down by about 5 percent; entry level wages for male and female high school graduates have fallen by 3.3 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively; and three million American workers have lost their pensions" in only the past two years.

And you can add to that the fact that the deficit is at record highs--not made any better by Friday's bailout of the stock market.

Take a good long look at the above pie chart and you can clearly see America for what it really is. Those of us who "think" we are in the Middle Class might wonder just how long we have left ...

Another week of "school" and another week of nothing new on the Cable News

Simpson Logging's #7, the "Tollie" is on display in downtown Shelton in front of the post office

Well, another week in Shelton, and another dollar or so, more or less. Certainly (for me) a faceful of OC (pepper spray) and a lesson in how not to apply wrist, waist and ankle restraints.

And for the rest of you, it must have seemed like an endless single TV picture of a single bridge lying flattened over and in the Mississippi River. Out of that, we might actually get moving on fixing the aging infrastructure in America, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. We’ve been watching the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the 520 Bridge in Seattle disintegrating for as long as I’ve been here with at least three closures in that time and many hours of my time searching for alternate routes to work or elsewhere while I lived in Bellevue—before coming to the coast where all I have to worry about is Global Warming and the Pacific Ocean reaching heights that will inundate all of Ocean Shores.

As for politics, well, it was T&A time for both parties, it seems. Bush’s colon, Cheney’s heart and Hillary’s cleavage were all the news until the London Bridge (or one like it) fell down.

The murders in Iraq (March of 2006) were finally more or less closed out, although I think there’s still a state trial for one of the soldiers still ongoing and he might even get the death penalty--and I have no idea how that is even possible--for the murders and rapes of people in Iraq.

Hopefully, I will be able to get something on my TV cable news at the Super 8 Motel in Shelton besides scenes of some flattened bridge in Minnesota.

These will be around for as long as I'm on this earth, I'm afraid ...

Two good examples of the disintegrating bridges in the Seattle area are shown in the pictures above (the Alaskan Way Viaduct) and below (the 520 or "Evergreen" Bridge over Lake Washington).

I had the fun of driving over the Evergreen Bridge nearly every weekday for five years before I moved to Ocean Shores. Of course, it was closed a couple or three times for repairs--like when the foundation was seen to be crumbling after a November windstorm and again when cracks were seen--that are presumably still there.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct is actually becoming sort of famous for its disrepair and nothing substantive will be done to repair it in my lifetime, that's for sure.

As for the 520 bridge, well the one good thing that can be said for it is that it is better than taking I-90 into Seattle from Bellevue if your kids are all located on the northern part(s) of the city.

And it is kinda pretty from the air, isn't it? In fact, all of Seattle is pretty from the air--as long as we don't have a 6.0 or above earthquake up in these parts for another hundred years or so.

Jesse Spielman is paying the price for all of our collective guilt ...

God knows, I wasn't there and I surely don't know.

But the 100-plus years long sentence given to Army Private First Class Jesse Spielman for whatever his part was in the brutal murder of an entire family and the rape of the 14-year old Iraqi girl before she was shot in the head is, in some way bothersome. It's seems too convenient, too clean-cut, too ... I just don't know.

No one now is saying that he actually took part in the murders and rape of the young girl, but the US Army alleged he went to the house knowing what the others intended to do and served as a lookout.

I certainly do not condone the brutal actions that must have taken place on March 12, 2006 in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. I only think that the investigation and trial--especially of Spielman--were ... just too pat ... too convenient.

And the White House is completely without any smears of blood.

The sky is falling .... the sky is falling ...

And we seem frozen to national policies that insure that the bills for a solid roof over our children and grandchildren won't be paid and they will simply sit back and wonder, "wha' happened?" The rent is long overdue!

It’s not understood yet why a major section of our country's interstate highway system collapsed just after six o'clock on Wednesday night over the Mississippi River in Minnesota. And we are still looking at an unknown number of fatalities and lifetime injuries. But one thing seems very clear to me: We really are neglecting America's physical infrastructure, and the bill appears to be coming due.

Whether it's the next bridge to fall or the next pipe to explode (under the streets of Manhattan or elsewhere), it's going to happen and happen and happen. The Reagan tax cuts that brought the richest tax brackets down by more than 50%--to be reduced again by our current Republican president--are going to make it near impossible to catch up.

While the Bushies have been telling us--as regards terrorism--that it's not if, but when ... the country is crumbling is so many ways before our eyes.

There was a special news segment on America's decomposing roads on CBS recently and they stated that the problem started roughly 20 to 25 years ago. It's not a conspiracy theory to remind ourselves that Reagan reduced the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28% by the end of his time in office and yet no one today seems to be able to connect the two.

Can we untangle the mess pictured below?