A Timely Anniversary

I've always thought the simplicity of the twin beacons, shooting heavenward with a burst of light at the top, reflected from the clouds, shouting to the world "We will always be here and we shall persevere!" would be the most fitting memorial to what America had been prior to 9/11/2001.

It also , to me, represents those who were lost and the untimely journey they were forced to take - heavenward.

I listen to all the remembrances of that day.  I have my own, though hardly dramatic.  I am reminded of the heroics preformed, of which the NYFD as a group and Todd Beamer as an individual have become the iconic symbols.  As the years have passed I also add our men and women in uniform, making a trilogy.  The sacrifices they have made after the fact are still being made to this day.

But whatever happened to America?  Remember how the country pulled together?  Congress, as one, singing 'God Bless America' on the steps of the Capitol?

There was a bit of governmental arrogance that allowed 9/11 to happen.  Those owners of private flight schools who tried to report questionable students who were ignored.  Security agencies who wouldn't share information and sources.  Then all of a sudden it all came together.

Then, as time passed, the objective of justice became muddied.  We expanded our horizons beyond 9/11 and created a monster that still has us in it's clutches. Add to that totally unrelated circumstances, we've become a nation divided on just about everything.  Just look at  Congress and the administration.  They're going at one another like banshees. It's time for it to stop.

So why is this anniversary so timely?  Because it is as vivid a reminder as we can get as to just what and who Americans are.  Those fireman would still have rushed into the inferno whether or not they had been members of a union.  Those young men and women offered themselves up for combat because they believed in our country and what we're supposed to represent.

Todd Beamer and those who were with him represent the selflessness of Americans as a whole.  I see it on a daily basis in our community.  Simple things in comparison, perhaps.  Like the community coming forward to buy a new bike for a youngster who had his stolen the very day he bought it.  Small.  Yes.  But selfless.  That's who the true people American people are.

On this anniversary of 9/11 perhaps it's time for the government to be more reflective of the people it represents rather than the other way around.  Look at those beacons.  Shining brightly for the world to see.  We rose from the rubble.  We're here.  We shall persevere.  Don't ever, ever doubt it.

Watching A Presidency Crumble

I had hoped for more from the President last evening.  I think most Americans did.  He succeeded in the one thing at which he excels. The ability to scold and veil threats.

Also to leave out substance.  It doesn't take a student of politics to know that short term fixes are not the way to generate confidence.  It leaves nothing more than the uncertainty employers and lenders already have, not to mention the rest of us in dire straits.   There was no talk of eliminating crippling regulations or making changes in the taxing structure permanent, or at least long term.

An admonishment of the union thugs in Washington state cutting brake lines and ruining cargo would have been nice.  An admonishment of Jimmy Hoffa's rhetoric toward the Tea Party would have been nice too.  But no.  He just pointed his finger at Congress.  True, they are culpable, both parties, yet he refused to acknowledge his lack of leadership as part of the problem.

One thing I have to give him and his like minded cohorts credit for, if credit is the word.  They truly think their way is the right way.  Why else would they cling to an ideology that has been proven, time after time after time, not to work?

If the Republicans get their act together and actually nominate someone who can beat Mr. Obama, I will in a very sincere way, be sad.  I believed Obama to be one of the best and the brightest of his generation regardless of race.  I didn't ask enough questions nor probe more deeply.  It was a disservice to him.  We voters elevated him, in our dreams, above his level of competence.  We've gotten in return a portrait of bull headedness and naievity that has had no equal in Presidential politics in recent times.

What's even more sad is that the Republicans seem to have taken little from the lesson in front of us.  The right wing ideologues are holding the party hostage to a one sided dialog with no wiggle room.

Someone needs to break free, someone who we can have faith in because they have an actual record, someone who will tell it like it is and let the consequences fall where they may.

Actually there are those trying to do so.  The media is paying them little if any mind.  Why are we allowing them to dictate the terms?  They too are holding us hostage to their ideology.

If it works we'll be seen as a nation of sheep without a shepard.  Talk about the fleecing of America!

A Case Against Big Government

It's too hot to do much of anything today.  So I'm thinking 'out loud' as I sit here browsing through headlines. Here's one that caught my eye.  The  U.S.  has fallen to 5th in global competitiveness.  We were number one as recently as 2008.

Why?  The Global Economic Forum, who did the rating, says it's because of our huge deficits and declining public faith in government. Well, yes.  It has become painfully obvious over the past several years.  Yet, if the Democrats had their way they would continue to borrow more, spend more, tax more and regulate more until government would be all there is.

Why is it that they don't realize their way doesn't work?  Does anyone really expect Obama's speech on jobs to be anything other than a continuation of current policy?  Or lack of it?

The way I see it, government doesn't do much of anything well.  This goes beyond party.  It goes to the lack of expertise by those who write the legislation and regulations and pass the laws.  Take Obamacare as an example.  Remember when Nancy Pelosi jubilantly cheered it's passing by saying it was then time to read it and find out what was in it?  Doesn't that say everything needed to be said about big and in this case one sided government?

We elect congress but we don't make the committee assignments.  We don't choose the cabinet. How many people in the cabinet are experts in their field of assignment rather than political cronies or big time supporters of the President?  What did Janet Napolitano know of the intracacies of homeland security? Does being from a border state suffice?

The two party system is a saving grace of sorts.  When we finally have our fill of one we boot them out and install the other.  Then they try to undo what the previous had done.  It's a wonder anything gets done.  I think it may be better that way.  When one party controls both houses and the Presidency we get frighteningly close to a dictatorship.

In this administration we elected a blank slate to the Presidency and wrote on it what each of us wanted to see.  We had best not make that mistake again.  We escaped this time with an ineffectual leader with an ideology that would ruin this country beyond repair had he had any skills.  He and his have done enough damage as is.  This we got thanks to war fatigue, a weak opponent with an even weaker choice as a backup.  At least McCain had a history that could be traced and verified.

If government would shrink back within the lines and quit trying to do what they want instead of what we want, things would be much better.  Shoot.  Outlaw regulations!  Outlaw unfunded mandates!  Keep our military strong and our infrastructure sound and we, the people, will take care of the rest.

What do we gain by closing down a kid's lemonade stand?  A youngster soured on entrepreneurship.  Instead of learning how to make money and fend for themselves, they'll ask Dad for more allowance.  I wonder if that's how welfare states get started.  Just leave them, and the rest of us alone.  If their lemonade isn't any good the competition from the kids on the next block will make it known.  They'll either fix it or fail.  My bet is, given the chance, they'll fix it.  It's the American way.  Not the government's.

Morality Can't Be Legislated

Old Mother Hubbard.  I wonder if she was a single mother.  She certainly wasn't gay.

I get concerned every time our political candidates pander to a special interest group.  Like the unions.  Or the christian conservatives.  I don't want either dictating the laws of the land.

The unions are a whole different ball game than the christian conservatives, however.  I just don't think social issues are the most important agenda item at this point in time and  holding a politician's feet to the fire by threatening to withhold votes is as unjust as government mandates.  It is, in a sense, a voter mandate but not necessarily a mandate from the majority of voters.

I think their concerns regarding abortion and gay marriage belong in an entirely different arena.  Especially, as with some of the previous candidates for national office, keeping their own families in check hasn't worked out particularly well. Isn't that where morality should begin?  In the home within the family?

Of course that only holds if there is a family, which goes to the same point.  Morality.  Almost every hard luck story I heard on the news over the weekend involved a single mother.  It led me to wonder why so many were single.  It wasn't race.  Has having kids out of wedlock now become an entitlement rather than a disgrace?

One story in particular struck me for its absurdity.  It was about the couponing phenomenon.  It told of a young woman who was so into it she stole papers from vending machines to get the extra coupon inserts. "Hey," she said,  "I'm a single mom.  I do what I have to do to support my kids."  Does being a single parent now excuse stealing?  I don't care if it's a newspaper, it's stealing.  Where's the morality in that?

And gay marriage.  Or civil unions.  Never mind.  I've beaten this one to death on many previous occasions.  What I do know is I have a cousin living in Iowa who is gay.  He and his partner were about the fifth couple in the state to marry when it became legal.  The sky didn't fall.  They both still have productive happy lives.  They are loved by one another, family and friends.  And, oh, yes.  They were together thirty years before it was legal for them to marry.  So what's to the issue?  They were together anyway!  What's wrong with wanting a legal bond?

I'm encouraged that the Republicans have candidates that are trying to bring an air of reason to the race.   Of those Romney and Huntsman thus far seem to be the only ones speaking to the middle.  Cain and Gingrich have a lot to add to the debate but I don't see their overall chances improving.

There is a time and place for the morality sought after by the christian conservatives, to be sure.  I wonder, however, if abortion would be the issue it is if basic morality was taught to the young at home during their most impressionable years.  Certainly unwed motherhood could once again bear the pall it had when I was a teen and young adult.  Boy, talk about the generation gap!

And back to the gays.  You cannot legislate a person's sexual orientation.  Unlike what Ms. Bachmann and her husband would have us believe,  you are what you are.  At least that is my belief. As my cousin said when asked if he was sure he was "gay" he incredulously wondered, "Why would anyone put themselves through what a gay goes through if they weren't?"

Let's look at the economy, jobs, war and maybe even peace, what we need to do to make this country what it once was.  If we return to prosperity perhaps we'll have something other to occupy our brains and bodies than busybodying and breeding.

I'm No Pigeon!

Yesterday morning I was looking out the window toward our pond garden when I saw what appeared to be a rather large bird.

Due to hawks in the area, our song birds are non-existent this summer so I was wondering if our neighborhood Cooper's Hawk was getting exceedingly bold.

My eyes, even with my glasses, aren't quite what they used to be so I got a small pair of binoculars and had a look.  Good heavens, it was a pigeon!

I went on about my chores for a time then looked again.  It was still there.  My supposition was that it was injured and I so informed Hub.  "Just let him be for awhile and see what happens," said he.

Lunch time and it was still there. I called a local vet that I had heard has a person on staff with experience with birds.  Sixty dollars to look at it I was told.  I wasn't even sure I could corral it so I let things be.

 After I had come home from an appointment Hub informed me my bird was gone.  I looked around quite thoroughly and figured it had regained its senses or whatever had been bothering it and had indeed moved on.

Noon today I went out to feed the pond fish and there was my pigeon.  Quite tame, it never spooked as I approached. There were bands on both its legs.

I remembered our friend who had the kennel where we boarded Bacchus raised racing pigeons so I called him and told him about the bands.  "It could be one of mine", he said and within the hour was at our door with net and crate.  Of course pigeon was long gone.

Leaving crate and net just in case he returned home and we went about our business.  Later I went to re-pot some plants and heard a cooing.  Where was he?  Sitting on the rolled up window shade on our deck which it had well decorated.  We played tag for a bit and finally I managed to get the net over it  long enough to gather it into my hands and into the crate.

Off to the kennel I went.  It wasn't his bird.  It was a sorely depleted racing bird from perhaps as far away as Boise, the information was on the bands.  "Don't you want to keep him?" my friend asked.  "They usually don't want an errant bird back."

We figured it might have gotten off course during a trial run in a wind storm we had a few nights before and it ended up in our yard.  Lots of seeds from the grasses and trees and lots of water from the pond and a pigeon for a sad story living at the address.

Sorry, I just can't take on a pigeon even though I rather liked this guy. It was sweet tempered, it's feathers soft and silky and it's cooing infectious.

My friend has promised to try to find where it belonged or, if healthy, perhaps keep it.  I hope.  I miss the song birds of summer but I'd not like the pigeon to suffer the same fate even though it's just a pigeon.

I know hawks have to eat too, but not in my yard  - and not my pigeon!