Vacation Beckons!

Sometime in the next few days we're actually going to get some vacation time! Where are we going? Who knows. When will we back? Oh, it might be a week, it might be two. Who knows.

For the first time in years we're foot loose and fancy free to do just what we please. We'll do some shun piking and real piking to get from place to place. We'll wine and dine well some nights and cafe it others. Our days will be filled. We'll visit a museum one day or hit our favorite galleries or scour the Indian trading posts. I'm going to bring back some cottonwood root for my carving.

Fall. Crisp air. Warm days and chilly nights. Everything from heels to cowboy boots. Vacation. No television. No phones. No Facebook and no blogging. I'm going to have a crack at being a real person interacting with real people again. The thought intrigues me.

I'll let you know how I do. It might be a week ~ or two...

Another Apology?

Yep, we've done it again. This time to Pakistan, a questionable ally, for inadvertently killing two paramilitary troops in an air strike. So what do the Pakistanis do? Close the border on the only route to get supplies to our troops in Afghanistan which made the convoys vulnerable to strikes in return.

This is of course by design . We know both al Qaeda and Taliban are hiding out in Pakistan. Guess who shelled the stalled convoy? Apology accepted. Mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Caveland, Karzai continues to hold meetings with war lords feigning they are peace talks. Peace bought with American dollars or until the other side offers a better deal. The people are wondering why things continue to get worse since we've been there for ten years and billions of dollars of aid money has supposedly come their way. Has no one told them of the corruption within their supposed government? Maybe not. Communication in Afghanistan lacks computers, iPods and such. It's hard to get it out to the hinterlands where our troops are trying to hang on for dear life.

To make matters worse, those mid-level Taliban leaders who might be willing to deal for their betterment, not necessarily their people's, are being encouraged by the Pakistani intelligence agency to resist. Some ally. Actually they're just another rotten egg.

It seems reasonable to assume the bad guys are doing just enough to appease us while awaiting our departure. This is my scenario. While Israel waits for the opportune time to take out Iran's nuclear ability, so India will await opportunity to take out Pakistan's nuclear stockpile to prevent it from falling into the hands of al Qaeda and or the Taliban.

Rosy, isn't it?

Social Media Is Not The "News"!

Have you noticed lately how little news you really get on TV these days? We usually flip between channels when the weather comes on to get a broad spectrum of forecasts. Three stations in Spokane and you'd swear more often than not they reside on different planets. The weather, however, is the most complete example of reporting you get.

The evening broadcasts have been deteriorating for some time now. I often wonder how people get their news if they aren't armed to the teeth with computers and all the variations thereof. I don't have any of those fancy gadgets, just my computer and I do have to rely on it for a lot of what I need to write a post. That's because the papers, all two of them, are lacking.

Everything from headline news, breaking stories to sports tells you to go to the station's web site to read more. That's what's coming. The anchors are pretty much interchangeable except for the attractiveness scale. Most of the women have voices that make me think of nails on a chalk board. Irritating. So why not just have a robot? Certainly we have the technology to program one with headlines and the referral to the website. The voice could be programmed to be soothing or edgy or whatever the headline may require. Think of the money the channels would save on high priced anchors. There's the morning crew, the noon crew, the dinner time crews. Sometimes they differ from five to six. And the late night crew! Even if the people double up on some of the shifts, a robot would still save money! You'd only need one! If you like the male/female mix ~ program the voice to switch with each story!

Besides, the anchors are getting lazy. The current fad is reading a headline then going to Facebook to read the comments from their page. Hello out there! Reading comments from Facebook IS NOT NEWS! I'd wager even a robot could figure that out!

Who's Wearing Sheep's Clothing?

More and more often we who live here find publications discovering this pretty little town by the lake. It makes the people swell with community pride, never mind the local controversies I no longer write about.

We have our local celebrity element. Dennis Franz from NYPD Blue, Patty Duke, Ellen Travolta and husband Jack Bannon. They seem to keep pretty much to themselves other than making the local theater scene vibrant.

We have a hamburger joint that keeps getting accolades and Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive Ins and Dives has discovered the area.

That's the good part.

We had another good guy in town last night for a speaking engagement. The infamous sheriff from Phoenix, Joe Arpaio. Though extremely controversial, I admire his no nonsense approach to law and order ~ and illegal immigration. Why here? Idaho is a long way from the Mexican border but some of our southern cities are part of the drug pipeline coming out of Mexico and there are a lot of migrant workers in the agricultural area who may or may not have their green cards. So what happens in Arizona has an effect on what happens here. This man I welcome.

On the other hand, another group is going to pay us a visit. Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church. I have trouble writing pastor and church when speaking about this man and his following of hate mongers.

Most noted for disrupting military funerals, he's here on another mission. To go after gays.

The local community college is staging The Laramie Project which depicts how the brutal beating and consequent death of student Matthew Shepard has affected the community of Laramie, Wyoming. They intend to protest at one of the performances.

What's even worse is they intend to pay a visit to some local high schools which happen to have organizations that support gay students. How foul can you get? Kids. Kids of high school age have enough trouble searching for their identities. Those who are gay have another set of issues piled on top. The last thing they need to sort out is why these "men of God" are calling them the most hateful things imaginable! Free speech don't you know!

The community will be ready from the teachers to the peace keepers. Hopefully the students will be too. The media should ignore them, no air time at all. No air time, no impact. But I doubt that will happen. The powers that be will consider it news.

Such hate from supposed God fearing people. You know, if there is a God , they well should fear Him!

There is no community pride in having been discovered by these people. They are as predatory as wolves. No. I should give the wolves a break. These people are worse. They prey on children.

Political Courage Or Lack Thereof?

One of the things that irritates me most about politicians is how they dance around simple questions. Direct answers are not in their mindset. Heaven knows they wouldn't want to have any convictions that voters might disagree with. But what if they do agree? The candidates will never know!

This wouldn't be why they are so ineffectual and we are so frustrated would it?

In this morning's paper there was an article about just that. An organization known as Project Vote Smart has for years prepared a questionnaire called the Political Courage Test . Started in 1992, it is a non-partisan research organization designed to give voters straight forward answers, yes or no, to the major issues of the day. You can't get much more straight forward than yes or no!

Over the years fewer and fewer candidates, even after cajoling and repeated reminders, answer. They are told by all their "advisers" that the opposition could use it against them. Well, if they believe in it so what? Isn't that the problem?

In our state, Idaho, neither candidate for the House took the test. Answers as to why are lame. For instance, a candidate spokesman described the questionnaire as no more than a series of pledges and the candidate does not sign pledges.

Of course that raised my curiosity so I went to the website and found the questions. As I said before, they require yes and no answers. The candidate is one who I had up to this point supported. Now I'm wondering. Follow the link and read the questions. They don't strike me as being pledges. Opinions, yes. Beliefs, yes, but pledges no.

If the politicians look at the questions as such, however, perhaps it's time they actually take the "pledge" and answer the questions!