Author: BobHiggins

I wrote a short piece a week or so ago in response to Tony Snow’s ridiculous comparison of the Iraq war and the Battle of the Bulge in WWll. In that story I mentioned my friend Steve who landed at Normandy and fought through France, Belgium and into Germany.

Steve Miller died this past Saturday the 24th of June 2006.

I lost a friend, his family lost a great treasure and America lost a piece of her soul.
Steve was born in Celina Ohio on September 17, 1919. He grew up in that small town Ohio farming community and came to Dayton as a young man in the thirties seeking work in the local plants which were already gearing up the arsenal of democracy for the gathering storm in Europe and the Pacific.

I’m working from my memories of many conversations with Steve at the local VFW and the details are sketchy but I believe he joined the Army a couple of years before the outbreak of war and trained in Texas where he met Ike, his future bride and the woman he loved and treasured until and beyond her death a few years ago.

When D Day arrived Steve was a Sergeant and at the ripe old age of twenty six one of the elder statesmen of his outfit, the 173rd Field Artillery in which he commanded “Old Glory” a “Long Tom,” a 155mm howitzer atop a Sherman tank one of the most effective weapons in the American arsenal in Europe. Over the last ten years he shared with me many pictures of “Old Glory” and it’s young crew, his buddies, with whom he shared the next seven months of unbelievable hardship and trauma, of pain and sadness, of filth and degradation and death. Of war.

As he described it the 173rd was a “bastard outfit” pieced together from parts of others and throughout the campaign assigned at various times to the command of many different divisions. Several years ago I tracked his outfit using order of battle documents from the US Army found it phenomenal how many times the 173rd changed commands and locations, was scurried here and there in support of various units in the insane and desperate scramble of total war.

From DDay through St Lo and the fighting around Caen across France and into the bitterly cold and merciless horror of the Ardennes, St Vith and Malmedy and Bastogne this man and so many others of his generation were tested in ways that most people will never be able to imagine. Through the forests of Belgium and across the Rhine into Germany he fought for his life and those of his crew until the second of his tanks was shot out from under him and he received wounds which would keep him in military hospitals for most of the next year.

I have a picture on my computer of Steve recieving the Silver Star from Lt General Walt Gerow in January of 1945 just weeks before the engagement which ended his war.

No Rambo here, no John Wayne or Chuck Norris, just a small tough unassuming Ohio kid. No boastful, chest thumping, high fiving movie hero. A young faithful, honest, determined American kid.

Just a man who did his duty as he saw it and gave every bit of service that he was capable of to his comrades in arms, to “Ike” his bride of more than a half century, his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and to those who were fortunate enough to know and call him friend.

We will bury Steve Miller today in a grave at the Dayton National Cemetery in the company of nearly thirty thousand of his brothers, where his wife Ike has waited these last several years. I know that they will rejoice at being joined together again and forever. I am glad for them both.

I will miss the light of amusement and friendship in his eyes and the quiet noble dignity that was central to who he was as a man.

I have lost a friend, his family has lost a great treasure and America has lost a piece of her soul.

Here’s to you Steve.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

The Republican controlled US Senate, after weeks of focusing it’s august attentions on such critical issues as gay marriage and the repeal of the estate tax is about to take up what some feel is another burning issue that requires the immediate attention of a country currently embroiled in two wars in which our citizens are being slaughtered daily, deeply in debt to foreign interests, under the grip of rising unemployment, crime, poverty, and lacking even basic health care for more than 35 million of it’s people. The burning issue du jour is the desecration of Old Glory.
There were three, (3), THREE, instances of flag desecration in this country last year says the Citizens Flag Alliance (CFA), a group that, according to their web site consists of over 140 national organizations who are tirelessly working (providing campaign contributions) to stop this tidal wave (3) of flag desecration that is sweeping the nation. Three (3) instances and that’s just this year, so far, up to right now. As of today, three.

I recognized many of the organizations listed on their web site, I even belong to one of them. I belong to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, but the VFW didn’t consult me before announcing their support for this thoroughly misguided and potentially repressive attempt to amend the Constitution of the United States in order to address a non existent problem.

Another name featured on their web site is former Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham who I’m sure is continuing his patriotic pursuits from his prison cell. I’m amazed that our Reps and Sens have time to spare from their busy schedules. I.m not sure what’s closer to Duke’s heart , Old Glory, Jesus, or the piles of tax free greenbacks he amassed while performing his patriotic public service in the US Congress.

Senate Majority Weasel, Bill Frist, is pushing this issue hard in an attempt to unite his wacky conservative base before the mid term election in November. Apparently it’s very important to the Barking Moon Bat Wing of the Republican party to announce where it stands on non existent problems and offer legislative non solutions to them to as further proof  of it’s incompetence in performing it’s duties of government in an election year. After the wars, the economy, the energy crises, the rampant political corruption of the last six years, no additional proof is required.

A non solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

The amendment:

“The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States”.

Notice, if you will, that this amendment does not make desecration of the Flag illegal, it simply says that congress shall have the power to prohibit such acts.

A Red herring, and in a moment of candor the Majority Weasel himself let this slip:

The flag is a symbol of the Constitution, he said. “If we can recapture the flag, we can begin the march to recapture our Constitution” against court decisions that take away the rights of Americans to own property, pray, post the Ten Commandments and nativity scenes, say the Pledge of Allegiance and define marriage……

I love the smell of witches burning in the morning.

I served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam in the sixties, the idea of flag burning is abhorrent to me and I am not one who worries over much about symbolism.

I’ve never witnessed a flag burning or other act of desecration against Old Glory and I’m approaching sixty two years on this planet, I have seen such acts performed on television but  ninety nine percent of those instances took place abroad, in places, and among people who don’t seem to have the same respect for America as I do, or the kind of respect for America and it’s institutions shown by, say, Randy Cunningham.

Our Majority Weasel, who supports his bumbling President so strongly on Iraq and accuses the Democrats of a cut and run mentality has two sons at just the right age for service in Iraq or Afghanistan where Daddy is all too willing to serve up the offspring of other Americans on his altar of oil. I would have much more confidence in his good faith if he had a child serving in harms way but in this matter he, along with many in his party, and I’m sorry to say, in my own, is able to ignore the symbolism of the lack of service of his family but is overwhelmed by the symbolism of the burning of Old Glory.

Frauds, Flimflam Men, Charlatans all, with nothing to serve at the public table but Red Herring.

On the fifteenth of June Medal of Honor recipient Bob Kerrey had this to say about the proposed amendment:

Unfortunately, enthusiasm for this amendment appears to have grown even as flag-burning incidents have vanished as a means of political protest. The last time I saw an image of the U.S. flag being desecrated in this way was nearly 20 years ago, when the court issued its decision. Thus this amendment — never appropriate in the oldest democracy on earth — has become even less necessary. But necessity is not always the mother of legislation.

And this:

If our First Amendment is altered to permit laws to be passed prohibiting flag desecration, would we like to see our police powers used to arrest an angry mother who burns a flag? Or a brother in arms whose disillusionment leads him to defile this symbol of the nation? I hope the answer is no. I hope we are strong enough to tolerate such rare and wrenching moments. I hope our desire for calm and quiet does not make it a crime for any to demonstrate in such a fashion. In truth, if I know anything about the spirit of our compatriots, some Americans might even choose to burn their flag in protest of such a law.

And finally this:

Real patriotism cannot be coerced. Our freedom to speak was attacked — not our flag. The former, not the latter, needs the protection of our Constitution and our laws.

In yesterday’s Washington post there was a letter to the editor from Brooks Minnick a military retiree with 21 years on active duty:

It’s ironic, when we are battling repressive nations, cultures and religions that would seek to undermine and destroy all that we stand for, that we would demonstrate weakness in our own moral character by seeking to impose repressions of our own.
Whether over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, a battlefield in Gettysburg, a rocky hill on Iwo Jima or a desert outpost in the Middle East, the flag has always flown in proud defiance. When someone burns or desecrates one, there will always be another to rise and fly in its place, and very likely a patriot with even stronger resolve to hold it higher.

Last week I read an article posted on My Left Wing by teacherken in which he writes:

Lest any reader think the confrontation I request is not important, I want to you think seriously of the consequences. The proposed amendment would be the first constitutional limitation of the First Amendment rights which are so basic to our system. That amendment begins with our religious liberties because the Founders understood how religion could be used to suppress liberty, because they knew the recent history not only of England and the Continent, but also of the early settlement of this nation. The other four freedoms of the First Amendment are essential guarantees that we need in order to fully function as “we the people” – the true sovereigns of this nation. Restrict our political rights and we will cease to live in a democratic republic.

As the above entry would indicate I don’t do scholarship, I piss and moan, sometimes effectively sometimes not so much, therefore I’ll give the final word on this to teacherken at My Left Wing. Please read his article,linked below,carefully.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust
I draw a line in the sand. Will you stand with me?

The names of twenty five hundred young men and women have been erased from the chalkboard of life by the merchants of pain and death in our government.

They were erased from the list of the living by the hands of arrogant men wielding erasers soaked in the blood of tens of thousands of others who were maimed and wounded and tens of thousands of Iraqis whose deaths they will not dignify by counting or even mentioning.

It’s a number, another irritating milestone that they hope falls on Friday so that the press flap will dissipate over the weekend.

Bush’s mouthpiece Tony Snow was asked last week:

American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500. Is there any response or reaction from the President on that?

Tony Snow: It’s a number, and every time there’s one of these 500 benchmarks people want something. The President would like the war to be over now. Everybody would like the war to be over now. And the one thing that we saw in Iraq this week is further testimony to the quality of the men and the women who are doing that, and the dedication and determination to try to ensure that the people of Iraq really do live in a free, effective democracy of their own creation and design.

What is the number Tony? What are we counting, the dead, the injured, the lost limbs, the ruined minds, the destroyed lives? 

Are we counting the grief, the pain the sorrow created  by the death and maiming of so many of our sons and daughters?

Add in the parents and grandparents, the mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters and friends of those you erase. Their children Tony. Their children.

Listen to their keening sobs, the somber intonations at grave sides, the sad steady wailing of those who mourn.

The number grows doesn’t it Tony?  If you count the pain and sorrow, the number grows. If you count the tears of loss, the hopes and dreams shattered, the children orphaned.

The grief that has been visited upon these families will forever be a central part of their lives. I don’t know what multiple or factor to use to find the number of people harmed by the deaths of our children.

Do you have a calculator Tony? Does it do exponents? You will need them as the number grows.

You and your smirking little Master are immune from the grief and suffering of course, as the criminal architects of war always are.

While you play your pathetic games of power, using the lives of our children like tokens in a board game all that matters is the score. It’s a number Tony.

You risk nothing, you set up the game and take a piece of every hand that is dealt, You and your criminal friends reap the profits and you play without risk.

American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500. Is there any response or reaction from the President on that?

Tony Snow: It’s a number, and every time there’s one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.

Was he told about the benchmark, the President?

Tony Snow: I don’t know. I’m sure he will hear about it.

I’m sure too Tony, some one will trouble the grinning little ass with this pesky milestone and I’m sure that when this life is over, you and he and the entire criminal gang for whom you now speak will hear about it forever.

I believe in a merciful and just God and I believe that he hears ever scream of anguish, feels the wetness of every tear, the loneliness of every orphaned child, and because God is just I’m sure that he will ask you to share in listening to these screams of pain and rage, to feel the terrible loss and suffer the endless sorrow of  the mournful symphony of human misery which you have helped to write and conduct.

It’s a number Tony but only God has a calculator that can handle the infinite, the eternal.

That is how long you will be required to listen to your magnum opus Tony.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. Omar Khayyam

Enjoy the music.

Bob Higgins

Worldwide Sawdust

White House Bilgemeister Tony Snow while appearing on one of Sunday’s talk shows on CNN and trying to goose the Presidents ratings, compared the Battle of the Bulge to Iraq.

“The president understands people’s impatience — not impatience but how a war can wear on a nation,” said Snowjob “He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, ‘Wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?’ But you cannot conduct a war based on polls.”

The German counter offensive in the Ardennes in World War ll was among the largest battles in the history of warfare. Three German armies, nearly thirty divisions counter attacked allied forces in the middle of December during the coldest winter in European history.

The struggle for life, death and supremacy over the ensuing six weeks was beyond epic, the carnage and suffering of the combatants was enormous, their valor and intrepidity was awe inspiring.

The facts, and any comparisons to be based on them would be better taken from John Kline of the 106 Infantry Division, a participant in one of the most epic battles in the history of war not some blow dried Chickenhawk like Tony Snow.

· The coldest, snowiest weather “in memory” in the Ardennes Forest on the German/Belgium border.
· Over a million men, 500,000 Germans, 600,000 Americans (more than fought at Gettysburg) and 55,000 British.
· 3 German armies, 10 corps, the equivalent of 29 divisions.
· 3 American armies, 6 corps, the equivalent of 31 divisions.
· The equivalent of 3 British divisions as well as contingents of Belgian, Canadian and French troops.
· 100,000 German casualties, killed, wounded or captured.
· 81,000 American casualties, including 23,554 captured and 19,000 killed.
· 1,400 British casualties 200 killed.
· 800 tanks lost on each side, 1,000 German aircraft.
· The Malmedy Massacre, where 86 American soldiers were murdered, was the worst atrocity committed against American troops during the course of the war in Europe.
· My division, the 106th Infantry Division, average age of 22 years, suffered 564 killed in action, 1,246 wounded and 7,001 missing in action at the end of the offensive. Most of these casualties occurred within the first three days of battle, when two of the division’s three regiments was forced to surrender.
· In it’s entirety, the “Battle of the Bulge,” was the worst battle- in terms of losses – for the American Forces in WWII.

I have a close friend named Steve who lives a few blocks from me with whom I share an occasional beer. Steve is eighty six now and fought his way from the beaches of Normandy through the frozen forests of the Ardennes until he had his second tank shot out from under him and spent the next year in military hospitals.

I have a picture of Steve receiving a Silver Star for valor from Lt General Walt Gerow.

When this so called President and his ass kissing minions say that they understand anything about war they insult my friend Steve and every one of us who served and are serving under arms. They know nothing of war and they exhibit their ignorance, arrogance, incompetence and complete lack of leadership on a daily basis.

Comparing this battle to Iraq is beyond ridiculous, the only valid comparison which could be made by any reasonable person would be the valor and sacrifice of our forces in both struggles. Of course we know that reasonable people have been lacking in the White House and around the President these last several years.

Comparing the support or lack of it by the people at home is equally absurd and flies in the face of historical fact. The efforts of our forces in World War ll were supported with near unanimity by Americans at home, as was our entry into the war itself. The reasons for going to war were clear to nearly everyone as they were based on facts and dire necessity and not a pack of neo con lies.

Support for American efforts in the war by other nations was also profound and our struggle won the respect of our allies and eventually our foes alike.  Again, no comparison, as Bush and his band of dilettante hacks have squandered that respect on an ash heap of conceit and hubris.

There is absolutely nothing to compare the Ardennes campaign with anything about the war in Iraq, well perhaps two things, the gunfire and the screams of the wounded and dying sound much the same and the discordant clanging of the outrageous lies of Josef Goebbels and Tony Snow are in perfect harmony.

Now there’s a valid comparison.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

They took a pay raise this week while ignoring the flames of two wars in the middle east, and the decline in respect, indeed, the growing distrust for America all over the world.

They accepted a pay raise of over three thousand dollars a year per do nothing congressperson while ignoring the joblessness, the stagnant wages and the economic deprivation of their constituents.

They used a cheap trick to put a few grand in their already overstuffed pockets while ignoring millions Americans without health care.

While they were stuffing thirty additional hundred dollar bills in their Louis Vuitton wallets, Americans who have waited over six years for this cynical and corrupt administration to come up with a coherent energy policy were canceling vacations due to high fuel prices.

Gay marriage and flag burning, phony expressions of support for our armed forces and bribery, greed and graft, this is what occupies the herd of criminal swine in Congress, and reelection, always reelection.

They work fewer days than professional athletes and are already paid much more than an overwhelming majority of the people they purport to “serve” but in order to prove to us that “Public Service” is “Self Service” they just added another $3300 bucks to their personal budgets while telling Americans that belts must be tightened and budgets cut for such things as education and health care for veterans.

This raise comes during a time of record low approval ratings for members of this Parliament of Sloth and Avarice, when almost everyone that I come in contact with has long ago lost all respect for these blow dried frauds.

They pull this trick year after year, making their own lives more comfortable at public expense while wages for average Americans steadily decline. Over thirty five million Americans currently live below the federal poverty level while they enrich themselves at the public trough, sell America to the highest corporate bidder and give us sanctimonious speeches about values.

The median family income in this country has been in decline for years and now hovers somewhere around $40,000 for a family… a family. Our Congress just raised it’s pay to $168,500 or over four times what his average constituents family currently lives on. This is without accounting for the fact that they have the best health care and retirement systems that the public can provide them, innumerable perks and goodies and the aforementioned proceeds from whatever illegal scams they can cook up with their corporate cronies.

Our collection of elected civic whores really have it good and looking at them makes me want to run for something myself….. the door perhaps, or a barf bag.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

My America, at least the America of my birth, does not resort to the use of torture. We were taught that fact in public schools, American public schools, schools in which we learned old fashioned American values about family and fairness, values like the presumption of innocence, due process, respect for the law and the rights of man.

Others might resort to using torture, Hitler and his evil Nazi worshipers, Stalin, with his Gulags and purges, Mao and the People’s reeducation camps. Torture, in those days, was for others, the Pinochets, the Batistas, the Perons, the Idi Amins of the world, torture was not an American thing.

Torture was a tool used by our primitive and unenlightened forbears, to extract information, or to punish their enemies, information, which more often than not, was useless, as the information extracted was contrived in the desperate mind of someone whose only thought was to stop the pain, to say anything, confess to any crime, implicate any person, even those he loved to make the pain stop.

We were taught of the Nuremberg Tribunals at the close of World War Two and of the unbelievably bestial behavior of the Nazis in their death camps, of the brutalization of an entire generation of human beings, of wholesale torture and the wanton slaughter of millions that followed.

We were taught that “following orders” was no excuse for participating in, or ignoring the use of methods like torture or reprisal killings, as some orders were unlawful and it was our responsibility to know the difference. We executed many in Germany and Japan who were found to have violated conventions that we and other like thinking nations had established as fundamental rules of human conduct. We imprisoned many more than we executed.

I reached adulthood believing that America had evolved to a point of ethical leadership in a world that had been horribly scarred by those who used torture and terror, who used fear and death as instruments of State policy. I took pride in my belief that we, America, as a nation had risen above such inhuman behavior and had learned to operate on an elevated plateau of conduct. In short I grew to believe that my country could claim to be among the most civilized of nations.

At the age of twenty my youthful naiveté was tested by an all expenses paid trip to Vietnam. I discovered in the process of that experience that much of the negativity being reported about my country was true, the reports of Phoenix programs and other secret and not so secret efforts of my government turned my youthful naiveté into full blown distrust of the American government and it’s intelligence and military apparatus.

After Vietnam we went from one fiasco to another for the same fraudulent reasons, in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and on through Grenada and Panama misspending the flower of our youth, aiding in the brutalization of the poor and politically disenfranchised of other nations and trashing American integrity on remote and largely secret battlefields, in an effort to prop up corrupt dictatorships supported by even more corrupt American corporations.

By the time that George Bush the younger was appointed to serve as regent by the judicial minions of corporate America our government was fully in the control of the plutocrats and oiligarchs, for whom conscience, compassion and national honor had become nothing more than pathetically sad, liberal, loser jokes.

Enough.

America is not about torture.

Not my America. Not this land of my birth. Not the country that I volunteered to serve when called to service by an idealistic young President.

I have friends who have said to me recently and a government that has told me repeatedly that we can no longer follow the rules because our enemies do not follow the rules, and I say to them all: Bullshit!

I have friends who have said to me recently and a government that has told me repeatedly that everything changed after 9/11, and I say to them all: Bullshit!

One terrorist act or a thousand does not change fifty thousand years of human development, of philosophy and religion, of right and wrong of love and beauty and art.

There is only one America and it is the one that was held up to me by my Parents and Grandparents, by my teachers and my government as a beacon of freedom and justice, honor and integrity, honesty, compassion and justice.

I will permit no other America to exist on this Earth, nor should you.

Repeat after me:

America does not torture.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

Help Wanted:

If you are an American citizen with skills and expertise in any field relevant to the operation of the legislative, judicial or executive branches of the American government Uncle Sam wants you.

The People are currently seeking men and women with talent and competence in any area who are willing to work forty eight weeks a year at the People’s business, keep their hands out of the cookie jar and themselves out of the beds of those who would corrupt the government to serve their own interests.
If you have a belief in the ability of the American people to govern themselves effectively under the Constitution of the United States without the corrosive and corruptive involvement of corporate criminals, opportunistic religious maniacs, sycophantic bureaucrats and military industrial complex madmen you may fit the bill.

If you can make it your goal while in the People’s employment to work diligently toward the material betterment of the lives, living conditions and general welfare of all of the people of the United States while insisting on the respectful and helpful treatment of those who reside elsewhere you will be headed in the right direction.

Successful applicants may come from any background or trade whether soldier, sailor, plumber or beautician, driver, mason, barber, artist or carpenter. They will be reasonably presentable in appearance, possess good communications skills, be possessed of an innate good humor and an ability to work well with others of sometimes differing backgrounds and viewpoints. They will be serious about the People’s work but never too serious about themselves.

Lack of education and the price of your clothing will not be an impediment to employment, a lack dignity, honesty, integrity, common sense, and respect for the inalienable rights of other human beings will.

Charlatans, bunko men, liars, lobbyists, racketeers and most lawyers, MBAs, CEOs and other criminals need not apply. (We are currently overstaffed at those positions.)

All interested parties please apply to the American people in November.

Incumbency will not be considered an asset.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

Oh the toil, the drudgery. It’s a difficult, demanding, grueling and thankless lot that falls on the shoulders of our poor overworked Senators, Congressmen and their diligent staffers. Travel here, junket there, cramped seats in corporate jets, expensive booze, four star hotels, an endless grinding cycle of golf and spas, dinner and massages, speeches and shopping and hookers, oh weariness, the hookers.

Aspen and Paris, London and Hawaii the responsibilities of their high powered servitude carry our poor beleaguered Reps and Sens and their harried minions to the four corners of the Earth in their tireless efforts on our behalf.

Off to Sidney to sell the wares of a defense contractor who donated to the last election campaign or the Bahamas on behalf of a software giant whose contributions are especially impressive.

A half hour of speaking and an interminable twenty minute meeting with boring cabinet ministers before playing one of the most challenging eighteen holes of ones political career.

The public asks much of the valiant men and women who serve in the halls of power and they deliver. So much graft, so little time.

In a study released this week by the Center for Public Integrity Jim Morris reports:

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2006 — Over a 5½-year period ending in 2005, members of Congress and their aides took at least 23,000 trips — valued at almost $50 million — financed by private sponsors, many of them corporations, trade associations and nonprofit groups with business on Capitol Hill

While some of these trips might qualify as legitimate fact-finding missions, the purpose of others is less clear.

A nine-month analysis of congressional disclosure forms for travel from January 2000 through June 2005 done by the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and Northwestern University’s Medill News Service turned up thousands of costly excursions — at least 200 trips to Paris, 150 to Hawaii and 140 to Italy.

Congressional travelers gave speeches in Scotland, attended meetings in Australia and toured nuclear facilities in Spain. They pondered welfare reform in Scottsdale, Ariz., and the future of Social Security at a Colorado ski resort, according to the forms.

Some trips seem to have been little more than pricey vacations — often taken in the company of spouses or other relatives — wrapped around speeches or seminars.

Twenty three thousand trips in five years at a cost of fifty million bucks comes to something like 380 trips per month at an average cost of $2175. These people are incredible, they spend more time packing and unpacking than the comics and strippers of vaudeville. Heroic is the word that springs to mind, and selfless, yes definitely selfless.

Mr. Morris continues:

The analysis found many apparent violations of ethics rules. Disclosure forms show, for example, that at least 90 trips, valued at about $145,000, were sponsored or co-sponsored by firms registered to lobby the federal government. Ethics rules do not allow lobbyists to pay for congressional travel.

The forms show that about 2,300 trips cost $5,000 or more. At least 500 cost $10,000 or more, 16 cost $25,000 or more, and the cost of one exceeded $30,000. There were $500-a-night hotel rooms, $25,000 corporate jet rides and other extravagant perks. Almost three-quarters of all trips were taken by aides, who often influence how their bosses vote, negotiate in committee and interact with other government officials. All told, the travelers were away from Washington for a minimum of 81,000 days — a combined 222 years.

According to the forms, every bit of this travel was necessary.

Shame on those who call this a “Do Nothing Congress,” shame.

While the performance of Congress as a group is unarguably impressive there are individual heroics that stand out, take Tom DeLay.

In terms of private travel dollars spent, the office of Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who resigned as House majority leader in January after being indicted on charges of violating campaign finance laws, appears to have eclipsed all others. Records reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity show that DeLay and his staffers accepted about a half-million dollars in trips during the 5½-year study period, although the office of Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, was only about $8,000 behind.

These men stand out like shining beacons of public service and selfless effort who have placed the bar so high that all lesser mortals must stand in awe, they truly have set an example for the next generation of public servants that will be difficult to match.

Their effort over this long five years of dangerous climbs to the highest peaks in Aspen and tortuous treks through the perils and pitfalls of the Champs Elysees have been admirably non partisan with Democrats and Republicans each shouldering their share of the enormous travel burden placed upon them by an ever demanding public.

There have been some misguided “reformers” who have called for an end to what they have termed “excessive and unethical travel on behalf of private interests” but well meaning though they may be their efforts have failed. Even Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert called for a ban on privately sponsored travel, as he said back in January:

“I know fact-finding trips are important,” the speaker said. “This body considers legislation that affects people that cannot always travel to Washington to petition their government. Private travel has been abused by some, and I believe we need to put an end to it.”

In it’s report the Center for Public Integrity stated that

“Hastert’s staff took the most trips and had the highest tab of any congressional office,” taking over 200 trips worth more than $350,000 over a five-year period. The groups looked at U.S. senators and their staffs as well, but indicated that House members were far more inclined to use the privately-funded travel.

John Boehner of Ohio, travels frequently and during the five year period of the study was on the road for over five months carrying his share of the workload to the tune of $160,000 worth of privately sponsored trips. He was brought in as majority leader as a reformer but he recognizes the critical need for congressional junkets and for our congresspeople to educate themselves thoroughly about such places as Belaggios in Las Vegas.

This report was a real eye opener for me and until I read it I was terribly unaware of the sacrifices being made on our behalf by these intrepid Senators and Congress Persons. The services they render, whether performed in the steaming jungles of the Cayman Islands or on the primitive paths of Rome or London are something that every American can take pride in.

Now that the realities have been made clear to me I urge everyone to take pen or keyboard in hand and contact your Senator or Congressman and offer your profound and heartfelt thanks for the their undying devotion to the people’s business.

We need to let them know how we feel.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

I am personally concerned and enraged about the reports coming out of Haditha and Ishaqi regarding massacres by US troops.

What is being reported, if true, is absolutely reprehensible and heads should roll. Those responsible should face Courts Martial and, if convicted, serve appropriate prison sentences.

I have no idea of the facts of what actually transpired in the incidents being reported and my reading of the US and International press has brought me no closer to any conclusion, so like everyone else I will have to await the outcome of the official investigations by both the US Navy and the Iraqi Government.

Having said that I must point out that the members of our armed forces look very much like the rest of the population of this country and whatever percentage of Americans are idiots or criminals is probably about the same in the military.

It should surprise absolutely no one that we have some psychopaths in uniform as it should be no shock to learn that there are idiots, liars and thieves at the top of many of our public and private institutions.

If we take a moment to recall we may remember that our smirking little so called Commander in Chief sent these young troops to fight a war based on a series of distortions, misrepresentations and outright goddam lies, so when they start passing out prison time to der Volk at the bottom of the military food chain let’s not forget the Gorings and Rumsfelds, the Himmlers and Wolfowitzes, the Heydrichs and the Cheneys, right up to and including the Great Cowboy Decider himself.

Don’t forget the filthy bastards who sent these kids to war.

A sizable number of the fat, venal, ass kissing Gauleiters in the Congress should be required to face the tribunals of justice as well as the spiritual descendants of Albert Speer who run our war industry and profit so hugely from it.

These criminals are directly to blame for the death, maiming, and dislocation of every human being involved in this hideous fiasco and they should all be held accountable right along with the private soldiers alleged to be involved in these incidents.

This government, this ugly, arrogant, self righteous,neocon,chicken hawk nightmare is the worst embarrassment in American history and should be removed from office.

I urge everyone to pay close attention to these events and loudly demand that accountability for war crimes go right to the top where illegal preemptive wars based on criminal lies and motivated by a lust for power, oil and money have become American foreign policy.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

Can you find the hidden clues in this famous painting and uncover the infamous Waldo?

I’ve always been a voracious reader, as far back as I can remember I felt a powerful need to read. My Mom was a tireless reader of popular novels and mysteries and my Dad was a “Great Books” reader so I grew up in the presence of books and their availability probably had a lot to do with my love of reading.

When I was five and six years old I lived half a city block from a branch library and my grandfather would take me in hand to check out a book every week or so. I remember reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at the age of nine and devouring everything I found interesting in my elementary school library. I read everything, books, newspapers, cereal boxes, reading became my escape, reading became almost obsessive.

By the midpoint in High School my reading habits actually had a negative affect on my academic life as I would skip school quite often and spend the day at the Main Library in downtown Dayton lost in whatever I could find in the stacks. School bored me to tears but every book was a new adventure and the library became my refuge from school.

I point this out not to blow my intellectual horn or to lay claim to some vast storehouse of knowledge because I doubt that I’ve retained even a small percentage of what appeared on the pages that I’ve had my nose stuck in all these years. No, I point this out to assure the public that although I’ve been a lifelong unsupervised addictive reader I’ve miraculously come through the experience relatively unscathed.

I have somehow been left unharmed by the written word, although I’ve consumed works by tyrants like Hitler and Mao, Saints like Augustine and Francis, and inveterate scoundrels, poltroons as well as a few self proclaimed geniuses. I’ve read dime novels and thirty dollar best sellers, Bibles and weighty tomes, history and biography, science and pornography and through it all I have managed to avoid insanity, incarceration and the loss of my immortal soul, or so I believed until recently.

It was an article in USA today that caused me to question whether my life of undisciplined consumption of the written word has sown the seeds of eternal damnation in my soul.

To wit:
“Code” not benign
By Ted Baehr in USA Today May 18

A few pundits are arguing that Christians should read the bestselling book The Da Vinci Code and see the movie to “engage the culture” and as a tool for evangelism.
By that argument, we should encourage people to read other popular, but infamous, works: Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, or The Communist Manifesto. Or, why not Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic diatribe popular in Muslim circles?
It would be wonderful to believe Christians can argue the facts to Dan Brown’s hate-filled, fictitious attack on Jesus Christ, Christianity, the Bible, Christians and history. The truth is, however, that many people have not read a Bible or understood their faith sufficiently to counter the story’s intricacies.
Does the average person know what Gnostic Gospels are? Are people familiar with the Catholic group Opus Dei? What is the answer when Christians are asked whether Jesus married Mary Magdalene? Did they have children? Has the church hidden important facts from the faithful? These are just some of the complex issues discussed in The Da Vinci Code Although it is fiction, it contains enough references to history to make Christians question their beliefs.
The slanderous distortions and falsehoods are as dangerous as they are numerous. The movie threatens to strike another massive blow to people’s understanding and knowledge of God, Christianity and history.
Although the movie waters down the novel’s anti-Christian attacks and virulent paganism, it promotes the book and contains enough falsehoods and scurrilous conjecture to distort the truth about Jesus Christ and increase prejudice against Christians.
So, what should Christians do?
Direct churches and individuals to sound books, websites and other resources to help them understand the issues. Sign the petition on www.movieguide.org expressing concern over the movie. But, most of all, don’t see the movie, especially the first week of release. If you have to go to a movie, however, go see another one instead.
Dr. Ted Baehr is chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission and founder of Movieguide.org.

Now this has me a bit worried, not that my Christian beliefs are in danger, the sanctimony and hypocrisy of the Church and many of it’s most vocal faithful destroyed any connection I might have with them many years ago. No, I am concerned that all these dangerous words and concepts and ideas may be rattling around inside me and creating some great cancer in my soul that would cause me to question the moral authority of such learned and pious men as Mr. Baehr.

I looked up his website and found that he is tirelessly at work in his “ministry” (annual subscription $40 US) protecting us from unwholesome books and movies by reviewing them and applying a ratings system which ranges from Good, Wholesome through Extreme Caution to Abhorrent. The Da Vinci Code received the Abhorrent rating, the movie that is, the book rated no better in the review I read on the site.

I read the book myself two or three years ago and found it to be a “good read” one of those pot boilers that will keep you in an easy chair through a long afternoon and evening and wishing for one more chapter. A “good read” nothing more, an enjoyable work of fiction, nothing earthshaking, nothing that I would ever imagine would cause the controversy and hand wringing that has arisen among some in the Christian community.

As for the movie, I haven’t seen it and probably won’t until it comes out on television. The last movie that I saw in a theater was “Cape Fear” with De Niro about fifteen years ago. I don’t go to theaters because they won’t let me sit around in my underwear and drink beer. So I can’t say much about the film but old Ted Baehr thinks it’s pretty dangerous and I guess that should be good enough for me.

This flap reminds me a little of the Dan Quayle “Murphy Brown” nonsense back in the eighties. I’m not sure what it is about the “family values” people or the “Christian thought police” that enables them to spot these grave dangers to my soul long before I ever notice them but they sure are good at it.

It’s also very comforting that they have illuminated the moral pathway so brightly for us, and so carefully identified all the traps and pitfalls along the way that we can follow it without stumbling, with our eyes shut, even in fact, with our heads implanted deeply in the sand.

My life is surely enriched by those like Mr. Baehr who work so diligently to keep me safe from heresy and apostasy, from the blaspheming free thinkers and their dangerous ideas, from these writers of fictional filth and wanton historical speculation.

Fortunately I’m not a member of Baehr’s Christian flock or herd or I might take offense at what some might see as a terribly paternalistic attitude toward the faithful and a shameful disdain of their intelligence and ability to think for themselves.

What is so frightening to these folks about a work of fiction is a mystery to me unless they fear fiction because they have always been afraid that they have based their entire lives on a work of fiction. I just don’t know.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust