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Stakes Not Performance; Principles Not Practice

Some claim we are in the midst of an Imperial Presidency in the United States where entitlement, privilege, birthright and non-accountability for actions creates a royal purview that leads to a “no discussion” and “What I say goes” attitude in the office that was built to lead us all. There are some that claim the Bush family see themselves as landed American Royalty where the right to rule us is an innate and inborn power that must, and shall, continue for generations to come.

The Royal Family

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Call of Duty 2 Review

I am not a big Gamer, but when I saw Call of Duty 2 was available as a Universal Application for the Mac I had to pony up the $50.00 for the game to see how well it would play on my MacBook Pro.
Call of Duty 2 is an outstanding game and I can run it in full 1680×1050 mode. 

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Entitlement and the Ten Thousand Dollar Cellular Bill

There was an interesting story on the news the other day concerning Iraq and a woman and her husband and their cell phone bill and it proves to be an interesting tale on the riches of entitlement. The husband was being shipped off to Iraq. The wife, lonely and alone without him, wanted to stay in touch with him every day so she would feel “safe.” Together they purchased an International cellular phone plan from Cingular.

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Pink on the President or the President Gets Pinked

The protest song in America has a rich and vibrant history. The musicians — Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash, Peter, Paul and Mary and especially Bob Dylan — felt a responsibility to bring the voice of the ordinary person in song to the national spotlight in the 1960’s.

Today, we still have Neil Young protesting in verse and Bruce Springsteen’s latest folk record also stings the concept of democracy — and the Dixie Chicks and Green Day have taken their hammers to the overwrought state of national affairs against international interests — but it is P!nk and her new song Dear Mr. President that most effectively confronts the current office sitter on the hypocrisy of his politics and turns his policies directly against the reality of his own life and the lives of those who encircle him. Color me tickled as you watch and listen to P!nk’s poetically piercing political anthem in a live performance — backed by the Indigo Girls — of Dear Mr. President.

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The Frailty of Bones

Bones are hardy and can testify throughout antiquity to the state of the person who earned those bones in their body. However, the dreams and wishes of others embedded in those bones are frail and fleeting because memory is convenient and, as humans, we run from pain instead of searching out suffering.
With the recent discovery of 74 more bone fragments mixed with gravel that had been shoveled to the sides of the roof of the former Deutsche Bank building in the ongoing open wound that is the World Trade Center disaster on 9/11, we are forced to reconcile the way we choose to memorialize people beyond bones and flesh. Deutsche Bank — the building below shrouded in black netting and holding the American flag — will be demolished floor-by-floor in June.

Deutsche Bank

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The Fiddle in the Field and the Drum of War

The great Canadian singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell wrote a powerful song in 1969 when she was 26 years old called The Fiddle and the Drum. Joni wrote the song as a concerned friend of the United States and now, nearly forty years later, her words still ring and sting with a righteous vengeance as exampled in this pointed excerpt:

You say I have turned
Like the enemies you’ve earned

But I can remember

All the good things you are

And so I ask you please

Can I help you find the peace and the star

Oh, my friend
What time is this

To trade the handshake for the fist

And so once again

Oh, America my friend

And so once again

You are fighting us all

And when we ask you why

You raise your sticks and cry and we fall

Oh, my friend

How did you come

To trade the fiddle for the drum

The magic of Mitchell’s music is how it can bend time and force remembrance.
And so once again we are all transfixed as she pulls the lessons of 1969 forward under our noses in 2006.
And so once again we are all left wondering how we came to give up our love of the sound of the fiddle after harvest in exchange for the booming drum of war beating across nations far from our fields at home.

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Sgt. Martha Writes from Iraq

Sgt. Martha is a former student of mine and I now call her a friend. Martha and I are closer now thousands of miles apart than we ever were when we stood next to each other in the same classroom for a semester. I guess war does that to people: It binds you nearer to those you care about because every day there is the danger you will never see them alive again. Martha is somewhere in Iraq serving their country, and ours, in the effort to help build a Democracy in the Middle East.

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