GERALD FORD WAS A FULCRUM to my emerging political philosophies as a teen. My paternal grandparents were staunch Democrats of the "New Deal" era. My parents were Republicans as were my mother's clan. It was the compilation of the Viet-Nam War, Watergate and the accession of Gerald Ford to President that drove my parents to vote for Jimmy Carter, and therefore out of the rank and file of the Republican Party. I was pulling for Ford that year (being six months shy of the vote) and couldn't understand why my parents were abandoning the G.O.P. Then my Dad gave me a funny look and said " That man is not the elected President of the United States". Which pretty much summed it up I guess. I think that we all had grown to respect President Ford for his straight-forward-ness and decency.

President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was nothing less than a self-less act of a true patriot. He put the best interests of the country ahead of his personal ambition. He will be missed.

His last recorded interview insured that his funeral wouldn't be a political ploy for the hacks in the White House. And as we look back upon this man's many selfless and far-sighted accomplishments, shouldn't we harken to his words?

HOWL? I AM NOW GRIPPED IN THE THROES OF A VISCOUS PRIMORDIAL SCREAM that threatens to become a roar of rage. Is there no shame? This President, who hasn't even had the common decency to attend a funeral of a fallen warrior has the gall to insist upon more troops in spite of Generals, Blue-Ribbon panels and the public. And I do mean spite. It's the saddest display of a dry-drunk that I've ever seen.

We must intervene for the lives of the troops and now for the sake of the nation. I have written my esteemed Representatives concerning this matter. We must write, fax, call once a day. I fear that our President is delusional in his quest for personal glory and that his hench-persons (the Secretary of State and the Vice President) are not far behind him, if not in fact, acting as stereo Iagos, spewing poison consul into his ear.

I have learned several things during the past 48 hours: 1) My computer ignorance is far greater than I had originally thought 2) The congressmen not of my districts cheerfully would not accept my e-mails. So now I have to pull out the Big Game Rifle, that monster computer that I have complete with the super-duper fax/copier/printer/dishwasher. It has remained off-line since I've possessed it due to my fear of crashing it. For if they will not accept my e-mail, then by G. Washington's wig they'll get the fax. 3) Here is a good site to find e-mail/fax numbers: http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html ( Hey, I did it!)

In retrospect, it crossed my mind that perhaps a delegation of Governors descending upon the White House wouldn't be a bad idea also. Sort of a two pronged attack as it were. I found this site that covers Gubernatorial addresses : http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/govemail.html.

I humbly offer the following letter to plagiarize at will :

Dear Honorable Sir:

It is with dire urgency that I send this missive concerning the state of the Union which I perceive as being in peril. The recent events of the past five days have forced me to this conclusion. Therefore as my duly elected representative, I implore you to meet as a Kansas delegation and convene on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave as soon as possible to persuade the President from the folly of sending more troops into the quagmire that is Iraq.

That the generals in both the Pentagon and Iraq all ascertain that the Army “ is broken” and the Marine Corps “ cannot respond” is scary at best.
That the President refuses to listen and insists on deploying more troops thus further weakening our Armed Forces borders on criminal.
That continuing upon such a disastrous course could, I fear, lead to a constitutional crisis.

Perhaps State delegations descending upon the White House could be persuasive. Take the lead.

Thank you for your time,

Sincerely

Now as the sun rises on this gray solstice -day of 2006 I await the opening of the electronics store for the proper hardware. I wish to thank everyone for thier kind comments and help. Oh yes, and have a bloody good Christmas!

WHEN GENERAL COLIN POWELL HOWLS IN ANGST, I listen. And if he concurs with the Pentagon that the Army and Marines are 'broken' due to the 'civil war' in Iraq then I am scared.
The President's decision to send yet more troops is a slap in the face to the troops engaged in this quagmire. As one can imagine, I rarely agree with Newt Gingerich but during his interview on Meet the Press last Sunday (Dec.17th) he had a pretty good idea.

The upshot of his statement was this: That if there was enough hue and cry against his decision, then carloads " of men in gray suits" would visit the White House to dissuade him from this perilous course of action. All yesterday I felt helpless, watching the deja'-vue enactment of the Veit Nam war being played out in the sands of Iraq. Then it struck me that it was time to trot out the strength of the World-Wide-Web and support General Powell and the troops.

By inviting your honorable Senators and the Representatives to the White House for Christmas. And not just the ones you like or agree with but the entire crew. It is, technically, our House and our elected and legally bound Representatives. We have the right to invite them to the check up on the place upon our behalf, and place our justified concerns to the Renter.

I was going to spend the day here, installing banners, links and the other stuff I don't understand about blogging but the Security of the Nation and Constitution must take precedence. I am now going to engage in a blitzkrieg tactic of composing invitations to afore mentioned Representatives. 2) Creating form letter for those to busy to to compose 3)Trying to con a video director in assisting me with this project 3) posting or linking said invitation to this blog.
We must mobilize quickly. Our Armed Forces are in harms way. Now to the keyboards........

THIS IS A BOOK REVIEW OF SORTS, of two books that I've recently stumbled upon. " A FEW BLOODY NOSES" by Robert Harvey ( found mine in the half-price bin of one of those CD/DVD/Game/Coffeehouse-chic boos\stores) is a fascinating study of the American Revolution from a British perspective. His prose is lively and his research appears to be concrete. I was reading it during that last wild week-end of the mid-term elections and the comparison Mr. Harvey draws between The Revolution and Viet-Nam was a surrealistic deja'-vue.
There was no doubt in my mind that I was stuck in that horror of watching history repeat itself like some blood-crazed Golem run amok in Iraq.

The next was a novel discarded by the local high school library and snagged by my daughter. "Give Me Liberty" by Noel B Gerson is a splendid even-handed jewel-of-a-book. Written in 1966, the author notes " Only a few books have been written about Patrick Henry through the centuries." A true pity. I admit that prior to reading this book I thought I had a fair understanding of Patrick Henry. It seems my ignorance knows no bounds. I was reading this just at about the time that Newt & Co. began their brazen campaign to censure free speech.

As I read both these books, I noticed that usually I could be distracted by a new story from the radio or web cast except for certain passages of writing that riveted my eyes to the page. And as I pondered this Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair once again began their spins to the press , the 'New Way Forward'. A live news feed; but the utter genius that is the prose of George Washington captivated me instead.
It dawned on me the great juxtaposition of honest simple communication and greed-driven mass communication. These simple-minded men that can't even read their Orwellian-hack speeches have the audacity to dismantle the Constitution and Magna Carta in the name of security?

"Give me liberty, or give me death," -Patrick Henry, March 1775

"WELCOME TO MY HOUSE," OUR ESTEEMED SENATOR FROM KANSAS BROWNBACK shot at Senator Barack Obama, at the recent AIDS conference at Saddleback Church in Orange County California.

"It's my house too," rejoined the junior Senator from Illinois. And thus am I reminded of one of my grandfather's favourite adages; 'Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.' Which to me is primary fascination I have with the Senator from Illinois, his intellect. I happened to catch his speech at the Democratic Convention, and was amazed at his elegance of speech. I enjoy watching his
agile mind logically explain his middle- of -the- road positions and convictions in concise and concrete English.

And if you missed these blurbs about the conference look'em up. It is a fascinating story about what religion could do in the political world. Congratulations to all involved.

I ALMOST CALLED THIS BLOG DEMOCRAT WITH A GUN......but I didn't coin the phrase so therefore I went with HOWLS FROM KANSAS. However it pretty much sums up part of my political ideology. That and Don't Tread On Me from the American revolution......


Now as the Democrats begin to hire interior designers for their new offices on The Hill I'm beginning to hear murmurs from the conservative news-mouths about 'gun control' Democrats. Which was a topic avoided during the last election as far as I could ascertain. We should keep it so. Obviously Katrina proved that government can't provide security in a disaster natural or otherwise. The National Guard for all real purposes, is either in Iraq or building a long armadillo fence in Texas-New Mexico-Arizona. Gen. John Abizaid is asking for more troops as Iraq spirals into the civil war of the Bush Administration's creation. Estimations of desertions of the New Orleans Police Force during Katrina range as high as 30%.

Now the former Speaker of the House is calling for an abolishment of the First Amendment to the Constitution. ( There will be some that say I misinterpret his speech in New Hampshire but to me a civil war is a civil war and censorship is censorship.) The Second Amendment is the cornerstone that supports the Constitution for it lends to the powers -that- be that tangible belief that we will not be cowered like the peoples of Germany in the 1930's by tyrants like Newt & Company. It is therefore an internal defense mechanism to give would-be depots and power mongers reason to pause before they willy-nilly suspend the Constitution in the name of Homeland Security. The specter of Korean, Viet-Nam and Iraqi vets rising up to defend their rights is surely in the back of their twisted-minds.

And the point? As I've said before it's often the silence that screams the loudest. The Democratic party should stand for all civil liberties. Therefore it should view the gun-control debate as a sure way to drive many one-issue voters unwittingly back to the folds of the fascists.

WE ACTUALLY SHOULD HAVE A STATEWIDE THANKSGIVING this year thanks to I'm -going-to-take-the-money-and-run Education Commissioner Bob Corkins. A sign that a semblance of sanity was returning to that institution. I understand that the Board was planning to reinstate the Copernican Universe to the curriculum also.....now maybe my sundial will function again.

But Bob Corkins saw the writing on the wall. (Biblical pun intended.) Unlike Senator Sam Brownback whose cat is out of his cellophane bag. It only took two weeks for this nugget of news to make CNN on Tuesday. I like the catchy mumblings out of that camp, something to the effect of 'It's time for a real conservative leader.....the last election proved it'. Salvador Dali-esque logic at its finest. Sort of like bringing in Hank Kissinger to run a war. Now the hard question must be asked....Should we really send this man back to the Senate to represent us?

And with the good news and the belly laughs came this chilling gem: The Commandant of the Marine Corps says that the Corps is stretched to it's limit.

Chew on that. I plan to as I travel east to the feast in the glacier hills.

REMEMBER THE BILL OF RIGHTS? That small attachment to the Constitution of the United States? I watched in horror this weekend as a student in a library was tasared by Kampus Kops. Not a gang member with an outstanding search warrant trying to elude officers and struggling whilst being restrained as seen earlier in the week. The bile rose in my throat as I watched the clip over and over again.

How many such incidents happen each week unreported? I had always been of the inclination that 'camera-phones' were a novelty item, cool... but of little practical use. I stand corrected by the gods of technology once again. I awaited for the roar of indignant campus students but wasn't really surprised when I finally saw a small blurb showing a small force of students protesting the event. For I knew where the balance of the student body was...I'd already had seen them, awaiting the arrival of this year's newest and bestest game machines. Mobs in the streets, police with batons, robberies. Good television, thus good press for the greedy hucksters of said machines. The youth were there en masse.

I commend the quick-thinking student that caught the Kop abuse in the act. Thugs in uniform need to be exposed, and eliminated. Tyranny has many forms and can be found in all levels of government.

To those of you who stood in corporate-sponsored lines and mobs I have this:

Baaaaaa.............

ANIMALS HAVE BEEN ON my mind the last few days. Deer, wounded pachyderms,pheasant, braying donkeys and that most ponderous of critters the lame duck. The Boss hit a deer the other morning doing the 70 m.p.h. speed limit on I-70. Due to her Mario Andriette driving skills she managed to clip it with the fender and maintain control as she drove into the median.We hit one in the exact same spot almost to the day a year ago with the same vehicle. The proliferation of big game animals in this state has become a menace to motorists and a bane to farmers.

Simultaneously the demise of the pheasant and quail population ( mainly due to the drought conditions) continues unabated. Yet this year the pheasant season was extended by a week. But these are not my greatest animal concerns today, though I will reexamine these issues at a later date.

No the Lame Duck 100-work-days-per-year Congress has my attention as it should. For there are few things on the planet as dangerous as a wounded elephant. And the Fundamental Right has been issued its timetable by the voters. But the response I'm zeroing in on is Denial. I've heard several known neocons babbling about how they've won the election. We must be proactive in watching this Congressional session, for these swine are the masters of the slight-of-hand and diversion.

Today I'm going to get my duck stamp.

THE COLD WIND BLOWS FROM THE EAST as the silver-tipped clouds waft across the half-moon portending a change from our summer-like days. With the final tallies of both Montana and Virginia a collective sigh was breathed and the nation seemed to recollect it's thoughts of this last election.

Rumsfeld at last is relieved of duty. I can still picture the shocked looks on the faces of the newscasters. Then the quick looks and a clipped discussion almost amongst themselves to this effect: that George Bush had decided 'by himself' to accept Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. Vice President Cheney was upset about not being 'in the loop'..'Cheney is consulted on all decisions'...'Gates his Dad's friend'...and a pensioning pause as the panel looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi-truck before recovering to their esteemed analysis. (Tell me that one of you, the computer- elite, has that somewhere. I'll be looking tonight.)

Yes to me that was the real news. A long overdue definitive rift in the admixture. In my simple minds eye, I see Mr. Rumsfeld as a solder following his orders, even up to his resignation photo-of. Loyalty is an admired trait out here on the plains, but it can also be a fault, especially in high-end politics as Mr Bush is maybe painfully learning.

But he can't fire a Vice President.

And we can't rest, basking in the Indian Summer sun awaiting 'a business as usual Congress'. We are now now engaged in a real crossroads of how we conduct our business with our Represenatives and communicate between ourselves in conducting that business. Now is the time to turn up the heat.

THE HUM OF THE COMPUTER and the flashing of the screensaver greeted me as I awoke from my slumber this morning. It was 6:30 a.m. But before I drug my bloodshot eyes out of the Cave and into the shop for a smoke and to see the sunrise, I pulled up the fine Kansas Secretary of State web site and checked the carnage. The stifling grip of the fundamentalists had been broken. Hobbling out to the shop with my first mug of three-hour-old coffee I listened to news old-school-way, on the radio. And I marveled.

See, this was my first 21st Century Web election. I had garnered lots of my information and news from the web in addition to my usual sources. I had wrestled with the updates, firewalls, browsers and other assorted computer ailments until on the eve of the election, I could get a live news feed. Bliss o joy and manna for a unrepentant political junkie. Never mind that the Boss and Co. decided to come in to chat with me just when Madame Speaker of the House to-be Nancy Pelosi emerged to claim her new job. It was about the only highlight I missed until the wee hours of the morning whenmy strained eyes could take no more...

As the talking heads droned on in the later morning between the Presidential Press Conferences it occurred to me that perhaps the biggest story of this election has been either grossly overlooked or downplayed. And that is the story of the Web/Internet/Blogger. This election seemed, well, more streamlined. For so many politicians to get the 'message of moderation' that is the New National Mantra can only mean lots of communication. To me this was the Web Election, much like the JFK/Nixon election of 1960.

Except this time the role of the media is reversed: we send the messages instead of some slick-oiled ad hacks hired by the Party Elders.

THIS IS IT, THE DAY ALL POLITICAL JUNKIES anticipate and dread. Election day. The all day long marathon of news surfing, gnashing of teeth, trying to catch the latest blurb or Advertisement. Lots of caffeine and sugar ingested already in preparation of this grueling event. This year's campaigns have not been dull due to the undercurrent beneath the ocean of slogans, ads, name-calling, lying and posturing that is American politics.

The unexplored issue as it were.....the Validity of the Constitution and whether the party in power can circumnavigate it in order to achieve its agenda of the elite and powerful.

So go VOTE.

A big orange moon glowed through the thin midnight-blue clouds on the eastern horizon this Election Eve. It was a rare day of little wind here in
Kansas........well atmospheric speaking.

For the verbal blustering continued unabated on all political levels. Christmas will be good in the domiciles of the hack speech writers this year if they get paid by the slur. In a rare chance to watch the TV today, I was agog as I watched the beating of the Republican Drum. Joeseph Goebbles was a rank amateur compared to these propagandists. Somebody jump-started the machine and it rolled into action.

I espeically resent the Rube-publican card. Out here in the center we never see Presidents or Presidential candidates unless the race is close. Id est the ruling party is in trouble they show-up on a tarmac, interpret the local cafe; anything fot the just-plain-folks-sound bite. The old 'raise yer taxes n gay marries' plays well out here where wages are far below the national norm and the populace heterosexual. I'll bet whole congregations drove to Topeka yesterday to watch the medicine show in person....Which leads me to believe that their snake-venom isn't selling too well in the Big City.

And speaking of churches......What has become of Phill Kline's Church Memo Investigation? And he has the audacity to scream about " Selling the Vote?" He likes plain honesty? Good. You sirrah, are an embarrassment to the state. A simple lackey of those who would impose their minority fondling religious beliefs on others by using any means possible. Including shootings,bombings,intimidating.....hey aren't those terrorist actions?

As for the State Board of Education I am actually kind of impressed that members of the Flat Earth Society infiltrate that august body. I can hardly wait for their version of the Spanish Inquisition...

I LIVE IN A NOISY STATE where the wind is wont to blow at gale force from any compass point of the globe. One learns to live with the wind and look for the subtle signs of shifting conditions. Often these signs are missed in the constant roar but they are they there, those tiny pockets of silence. Mute sounds of nothing before the next onslaught of wind from another direction.

Such is the nature of that bluster we in Kansas call politics. I found it highly amusing when one of the national -news-media-conglomerates put out a blurb concerning 'the curious defection of Republicans' within the state. I know said blurb was aired late in the summer of 2006. Paul Morrison (former Republican big-wig) threw his hat in the ring as a Democrat on October 25th, 2005 to challenge incumbent Phill Kline (R) in the attorney General's race. The Kansas GOP's spin was that many lesser candidates would switch party affiliation to win. Some TV and less radio play with some short articles but not much at all in the editorials and coffeeshops.


Another interesting sidenote was when Senator Sam Brownback, a loyal Bush Republican, began a thinly veiled Presidential bid by questioning the President's choice of Supreme Court Justice Nominee, Harriet Myers. Sure, there were a few blurbs on local and national news but the local newspapers and commentary were strangely quiet. Not quite the rallying of the troops that one would of suspected. This quiet caught my attention as I pondered his motives...A)That he had deduced the public growing concern about the Quagmire called Iraq and was trying to distance himself from the President or... B) the good Senator had been far long in Washington D.C. For in a state where quadruped far outnumber bipeds one cannot help but meet/work/coexist with a "Born Again Christian,"And thus understand the almost scary zeal that these people can posses. Harreit Miles is a former Democrat-born-again-Christian-turned- Republican. The upshot was , some moderate Republicans saw Mr. Bush' as capitulation to the Christian right, the Christian right felt betrayed by the nomination(s) and Senator Brownback distanced himself from both the republican Presidential Machine and the moderate Republicans in the state. The fabric of the Republican party was obviously strained.


Then came the U General Assembly when President Chavez of Venuzuala called President Bush 'el Diablo.' There was just a general bi-partisan criticism of the despsot, but not the thundering roar from the trenches of the right that I was in fact expecting. The silence was deafening, like that of a hot spring day in the late afternoon. That eerie stillness that usually precedes our famous tornadic thunderstorms.

Then this lazy mid-term election began to crank. The wind had shifted, come to gale force and now here at the eve of the election true weirdness surrounds me. A sitting President is stumping
in Kansas, where I think that they actually believe that the moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats will, in a surge of 'star idolization', vote Rube- publican. As proud as we are of our state, we all know Kansas is a low priority state in the world of Politics.

Too many Kansans have died. Our educational system is in jeopardy. Our civil liberties are ignored by our own attorney General. Our State school board harkens to the flat earth society. The storm clouds gather for a failed Republican government.