Ceremonial Slicing of the Turkey

This is posted mainly for the benefit of those who don't have a chance to see my facebook profile picture (which my son Curt said was "the single most amazing profile picture ever") though I suppose it fits here just as well...

My Thanksgiving Playlist

From my stupendously eclectic iTunes collection, here are the songs that I loaded into my iPod for this special occasion...

Abba - Thank You For The Music
Alannis Morrissette - Thank U
Alicia Meyers - I Want To Thank You
Andrew Gold - Thank You For Being A Friend (Golden Girls Theme)
Angie Stone ft. Snoop Dogg - I Wanna Thank Ya
Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Thank You For The Feeling
The Beatles - Thank You Girl
Bob Hope & Shirley Ross - Thanks For The Memories
Bob Marley - Thank You Lord
Bob Marley - Give Thanks And Praise
Chris Cornell - Thank You (Led Zeppelin cover)
Christina Aguilera - Thank You (Dedication to Fans)
Deee-Lite - Thank You Everyday (original and five different remix versions)
Devo - Thanks To You
Dido - Thank You
Duran Duran - Thank You (another Led Zep cover)
Filter - Thanks Bro
George Harrison - Thanks For The Pepperoni
Harry Richman - Thank You Father
Jane's Addiction - Thank You Boys
John Denver - Thank God I'm A Country Boy (three different versions)
John Mellencamp - Thank You
Kaiser Chiefs - Thank You Very Much
Kris Kristofferson - Thank You For A Life
Led Zeppelin - Thank You (the original!)
Mariah Carey ft. Joe & 98 Degrees (yech, but still...) - Thank God I Found You
Massive Attack - Be Thankful For What You've Got
Neil Diamond - Thank The Lord For The Night Time
Neko Case - Thanks A Lot
New Buffalo - Cheer Me Up Thank You
Oasis - Thank You For The Good Times
Page & Plant - Thank You (covering their own song)
Paul McCartney - Robbie's Bit (Thanks Chet)
Queen - Thank God It's Christmas (well not quite yet...)
Ralph Rainger/Leo Robin - Thanks For The Memories (1950 Bob Hope Show Theme)
Ray Davies - Thanksgiving Day
Rita Marley - Thank You Jah
Saint Etienne - Thank You
Sam & Dave - I Thank You
Simply Red - Thank You
Sly and the Family Stone - Thank You (Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin)
Talking Heads - Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
ZZ Top - I Thank You

Anything that I ought to include to make this list truly comprehensive in expressing thankfulness?

Alyssa's Senior Show!

This past Thursday evening marked a pretty significant milestone for our family. The occasion was Lys' Bachelor of Fine Arts show - she's just a month or so away from graduation and one of the final things art students need to do is set up a gallery featuring works created especially for the event, unified by theme and medium, basically set up to show off the artists' strengths.

Since Lys is clearly focused on becming a children's book illustrator (and already has two books in print and more on the way in the months ahead,) it made sense that her Senior Project would be something along those lines. She told us several months ago that her plan was to illustrate a poem by the famous poet, illustrator and Victorian eccentric Edward Lear. I was pleased with the notion, having been a fan of Lear's whimsical, absurd style since I was nine years old, when I happened to watch a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon called "Tomfoolery," which was largely based on his writings. Lear is best known as a writer of limericks, and his most famous poem is almost certainly "The Owl and the Pussycat." But I was happy to see that Lys had dug deeper into the Lear canon, choosing instead "The Quangle Wangle's Hat."

But though I knew her subject matter, I was truly amazed to see, for the first time at any stage of the creative process, just how captivating and delightful her work turned out to be. My emotions, walking through the exhibit, ranged from pride to awe to astonishment as I considered the path that life had taken me on, from first discovering Lear's silly nonsense, incorporating his skewed outlook on the world into my own, growing up, getting married, starting a family and passing my appreciation of Lear on to my own children, and now seeing the profound impact that it had in inspiring my daughter's own education and creative expressions.

So needless to say, we had a very pleasant night. Julie took the day off to prepare snacks for the reception (along with the mother of Lys' friend Kendra whose works also comprised half of the overall show.) We saw a lot of friends and relatives and everyone was quite impressed with the accomplishments of these two gifted and charming young artists! So without further ado, let me allow you to join us in seeing (alas, only snapshot quality) reproductions of the originals, along with the accompanying verse, of...

The Quangle Wangle's Hat

On the top of the Crumpetty Tree

The Quangle Wangle sat,

But his face you could not see,
On account of his Beaver Hat.

For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide,
With ribbons and bibbons on every side
And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace,
So that nobody ever could see the face
Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.

The Quangle Wangle said
To himself on the Crumpetty Tree, -
'Jam, and jelly, and bread,
'Are the best of food for me!
'But the longer I live on this Crumpetty Tree
'The plainer than ever it seems to me
'That very few people come this way
'And that life, on the whole, is far from gay!'
Said the Quangle Wangle Quee.

But there came to the Crumpetty Tree,
Mr and Mrs Canary;
And they said, - 'Did you ever see
'Any spot so charmingly airy?

'May we build a nest on your lovely hat?
'Mr Quangle Wangle, grant us that!
'O please let us come and build a nest
'Of whatever material suits you best,
Mr Quangle Wangle Quee!'

And besides, to the Crumpetty Tree,
Came the Stork, the Duck, and the Owl;
The Snail, and the Bumble-Bee,
The Frog, and the Fimble Fowl;
(The Fimble Fowl, with a Corkscrew leg;)

And all of them said, - 'We humbly beg,
'We may build our homes on your lovely Hat, -
'Mr Quangle Wangle, grant us that!
Mr Quangle Wangle Quee!'

And the Golden Grouse came there,
And the Pobble who has no toes, -

And the small Olympian bear, -
And the Dong with a luminous nose.

And the Blue Baboon, who played the flute, -
And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute, -
And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat, -
All came and built on the lovely Hat
Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.

And the Quangle Wangle said
To himself on the Crumpetty Tree, -
'When all these creatures move
'What a wonderful noise there'll be!'

And at night by the light of the Mulberry moon
They danced to the flute of the Blue Baboon,
On the broad green leaves of the Crumpetty Tree,
And all were as happy as happy could be,
With the Quangle Wangle Quee.

It's getting weirder still

OK, nobody wants to get into discussing the foreign policy recommendations of Jimmy Cash, so let's move on. (I understand, that email was about as inviting to handle as a radioactive nugget of ambiguous provenance.)

Here are just a few random observations from recent days...

Pat Robertson, the guy who said that the 9/11 attacks were God's way of chastening America for our tolerance of gay rights, feminism and other bugaboos, has now endorsed Rudy Giuliani, the socially-permissive, morally-compromised ex-mayor who's made 9/11 the central pillar of his candidacy? What the-?!?!

Ron Paul, the little Libertarian who could, has set an internet fundraising record by raising over $4.2 million in a single day (Guy Fawkes Day, amusingly enough.) And he just won the New York state Republican straw poll. (Do I need to point out that he beat Giuliani in Rudy's home state?)

Finally, for now anyway, last night I heard this interview with Ahmed Raza Kusuri, an advisor to Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf. He uses the example of what's happened in the USA after 9/11 as justificiation for what's happening in Pakistan today. So what does that tell you about how American's reputation has been "enhanced" over these past seven years of Bush Rule?

A "drumbeat to war" worthy of John Bonham...

... not that I want to imply that the late Led Zeppelin drummer was in any way a warmonger. He just pounded the skins harder than any other drummer I can think of at the moment.

This is going to be a long post. I received this email from my Mom today... basically, a call from a former general (and as far as I can tell, this message is legitimate, the writer does have a valid military biography, though I shudder to think that he rose to the rank of General!) to achieve "total victory" in a war with Iran.

I have my own regrets about furthering the spread of this particular meme, but it alarms me enough to realize that this message is probably circulating widely already so perhaps this could be considered a kind of inoculation...

Here's the message. I will make my response to Mom the first comment if you want to pursue it. But let me know if you've seen this or other similar battle-cries coming through your Inbox.

Middle East Imperative

BY: JIM CASH, Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret.

I wrote recently about the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical Islam, eliciting a number of responses. Let me try and put this conflict in proper perspective. Understand, the current battle we are engaged in is much bigger than just Iraq. What happens in the next year will affect this country and how our kids and grandkids live throughout their lifetime, and beyond. Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the seventh century. They have been defeated in the past and decimated to the point of taking hundreds of years to recover. But they can never be totally defeated. Their birth rates are so far beyond civilized world rates that in time they recover and attempt to dominate again. There are eight terror-sponsoring countries that make up the grand threat to the West. Two, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, just need firm pressure from the West to make major reforms. They need to decide who they are really going to support and commit to that support. That answer is simple. They both will support who they think will hang in there until the end, and win.

We are not sending very good signals in that direction right now, thanks to the Democrats. The other six, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria , North Korea and Libya will require regime change or a major policy shift. Now, let's look more closely. Afghanistan and Iraq have both had regime changes, but are being fueled by outsiders from Syria and Iran. We have scared Gaddafi's pants off, and he has given up his quest for nuclear weapons, so I don't think Libya is now a threat. North Korea (the non-Islamic threat) can be handled diplomatically by buying them off. They are starving. That leaves Syria and Iran. Syria is like a frightened puppy. Without the support of Iran they will join the stronger side. So where does that leave us? Sooner, or later, we are going to be forced to confront Iran , and it better be before they gain nuclear capability.

In 1989 I served as a Command Director inside the Cheyenne Mountain complex located in Colorado Springs , Colorado for almost three years. My job there was to observe (through classified means) every missile shot anywhere in the world and assess if it was a threat to the US or Canada. If any shot was threatening to either nation I had only minutes to advise the President, as he had only minutes to respond. I watched Iran and Iraq shoot missiles at each other every day, and all day long, for months. They killed hundreds of thousand of their people. They were fighting for control of the Middle East and that enormous oil supply. At that time, they were preoccupied with their internal problems and couldn't care less about toppling the west. Oil prices were fairly stable and we could not see an immediate threat. Well, the worst part of what we have done as a nation in Iraq is to do away with the military capability of one of those nations.

Now, Iran has a clear field to dominate the Middle East, since Iraq is no longer a threat to them. They have turned their attention to the only other threat to their dominance, they are convinced they will win, because the US is so divided, and the Democrats (who now control Congress and may control the Presidency in 2008) have openly said we are pulling out. Do you have any idea what will happen if the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran , which they will obviously do if we pull out? It is not the price of oil we will have to worry about. Oil WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to this country at any price. I personally would vote for any presidential candidate who did what JFK did with the space program---declare a goal to bring this country to total energy independence in a decade.

Yes, it is about oil. The economy in this country will totally die if that Middle East supply is cut off right now. It will not be a recession. It will be a depression that will make 1929 look like the "good-old- days". The bottom line here is simple. If Iran is forced to fall in line, the fighting in Iraq will end over night, and the nightmare will be over. One way or another, Iran must be forced to join modern times and the global community. It may mean a real war---if so, now is the time, before we face a nuclear Iran with the capacity to destroy Israel and begin a new ice age.

I urge you to read the book "END GAME" by two of our best Middle East experts, true American patriots and retired military generals, Paul Vallely and Tom McInerney. They are our finest, and totally honest in their assessment of why victory in the Middle East is so important, and how it can be won. Proceeds for the book go directly to memorial fund for our fallen soldiers who served the country during the war on terror. You can find that book by going to the internet through Stand-up America at [links deleted.]

On the other hand, we have several very angry retired generals today, who evidently have not achieved their lofty goals, and insist on ranting and raving about the war. They are wrong, and doing the country great harm by giving a certain political party reason to use them as experts to back their anti-war claims.You may be one of those who believe nothing could ever be terrible enough to support our going to war. If that is the case I should stop here, as that level of thinking approaches mental disability in this day and age. It is right up there with alien abductions and high altitude seeding through government aircraft contrails. I helped produced those contrails for almost 30 years, and I can assure you we were not seeding the atmosphere. The human race is a war-like population, and if a country is not willing to protect itself, it deserves the consequences. Nuff-said!!!

Now, my last comments will get to the nerve. They will be on politics. I am not a Republican. And, George Bush has made enough mistakes as President to insure my feelings about that for the rest of my life. However, the Democratic Party has moved so far left, they have made me support those farther to the right. I am a conservative who totally supports the Constitution of this country. The only difference between the United States and the South American, third world, dictator infested and ever-changing South American governments, is our US Constitution.This Republic (note I did not say Democracy) is the longest standing the world has ever known, but it is vulnerable. It would take so little to change it through economic upheaval. There was a time when politicians could disagree, but still work together. We are past that time, and that is the initial step toward the downfall of our form of government.

I think that many view Bush-hating as payback time. The Republicans hated the Clinton 's and now the Democrats hate Bush. So, both parties are putting their hate toward willingness to do anything for political dominance to include lying and always taking the opposite stand just for the sake of being opposed. JUST HOW GOOD IS THAT FOR OUR COUNTRY?In my lifetime, after serving in uniform for President's Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush I have a pretty good feel for which party supported our military, and what military life was like under each of their terms. And, let me assure you that times were best under the Republicans. Service under Jimmy Carter was devastating for all branches of the military. And, Ronald Regan was truly a salvation. You can choose to listen to enriched newscasters, and foolish people like John Murtha (he is no war hero), Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, on-and-on to include the true fools in Hollywood if you like. If you do, your conclusions will be totally wrong.

The reason that I write, appear on radio talk shows, and do everything I can to denounce those people is simple. THEY ARE PUTTING THEIR THIRST FOR POLITICAL POWER AND QUEST FOR VICTORY IN 2008 ABOVE WHAT IS BEST FOR THIS COUNTRY. I cannot abide that. Pelosi clearly defied the Logan Act by going to Syria, which should have lead to imprisonment of three years and a heavy fine. Jane Fonda did more to prolong the Vietnam war longer than any other human being (as acknowledged by Ho Chi Minh in his writing before he died). She truly should have been indicted for treason, along with her radical husband, Tom Hayden, and forced to pay the consequences.This country has started to soften by not enforcing its laws, which is another indication of a Republic about to fall. All Democrats, along with the Hollywood elite, are sending us headlong into a total defeat in the Middle East, which will finally give Iran total dominance in the region. A lack of oil in the near future will be the final straw that dooms this Republic.

However, if we refuse to let this happen and really get serious about an energy self-sufficiency program, this can be avoided. I am afraid, however, that we are going in the opposite direction. If we elect Hillary Clinton and a Democrat controlled congress, and they carry through with allowing Iran to take control of the Middle East, continue to refuse development of nuclear energy, refuse to allow drilling for new oil, and continue to do nothing but oppose everything Bush, it will be over in terms of what we view as the good life in the USA. Now, do I think that all who do not support the war are un-American --of course not. They just do not understand the importance of total victory in that region.

Another failure of George Bush is his inability to explain to the American people why we are there, and why we MUST win. By the way, it is not a war. The war was won four years ago. It is martial law that is under attack by Iranian and Syrian outside influences, and there is a difference.

So, what do I believe? What is the bottom line? I will simply say that the Democratic Party has fielded the foulest, power hungry, anti-country, self absorbed group of individuals that I have observed in my lifetime. Our educational system is partially to blame for allowing the mass of America to be taken in by this group. George Bush has done the best he can with the disabilities that he possesses. A President must communicate with the people. And, I would tell you that Desert Storm spoiled the people. Bush Senior's 100-hour war convinced the people that technology has progressed to the point that wars could be fought with no casualties and won in very short periods of time.

I remember feeling at the time, that this was a tragedy for the US military. To win wars, you must put boots on the ground. When you put boots on the ground, soldiers are going to die. A President must make the war decision wisely, and insure that the cause is right before using his last political option. However, CONTROLLING IRAN AND DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE ONLY CHOICE IF WE ARE HELL-BENT ON DEPENDING ON THEM FOR OUR FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS.

Jimmy L. Cash, Br Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret. Lakeside , Montana 59922

"I'll tell you what war is all about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting."Gen. Curtis LeMay

Prelude to Electile Dysfunction, 2008 Edition

This post is actually a first-draft of a short essay I've written for Equity, newsletter for the Institute for Global Education, a local social activist organization of which I'm a board member. - DB

The USA is now less than a year away from choosing a new president and a new administration to run the federal government. As primary season draws near, I'm recognizing some of the same nauseous symptoms that afflicted me around this time back in 1999, when the conventional wisdom predicted that either Al Gore or George W. Bush were going to be the likely nominees for their respective parties. Though I and many others at the time saw little meaningful difference between an eventual Gore and Bush (or a Bore or a Gush) presidency, we all know how that turned out. Now the same CW from the same sources indicates that we are heading toward a showdown between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. I'm holding out hope that this cycle is not quite as rigidly predestined as was the case in 2000, but it's getting hard to ignore my gut feeling that 2008 is not going to represent the dramatic break from a downward political trajectory that I began hoping for shortly after the reality of the 2004 election settled in.

A lot of us have understandably come to view the Bush administration as a uniquely malevolent and regressive influence on our culture. Wars in the Middle East, the mainstreaming of torture into our laws and rhetoric, the promotion of corrupt and incompetent cronies to key positions, exploitive economic and cultural practices and the simple elevation of smug, self-satisfied and fear-based ideologies that fool none except those who operate under their sway are all hallmarks that will taint my memories of this decade. Bush, Cheney and company will always serve as the chief figureheads of this dark period of American history, surrounded by a cast of lesser but no less disreputable characters who acted, enabled and dissembled on behalf of them and the military/corporate/globalist stakeholders who've reaped the biggest benefits of these calamitous years. As the constitutionally-appointed termination of their reign draws nearer, a countdown to the celebratory moment of January 20, 2009 has commenced. But what do we realistically have to look forward to at that time beyond the ability to say that "Bush no longer occupies the White House?"

I don't aspire to punditry or prophecy in writing this. Though I will most likely pay some attention, despite my better instincts, to the "horse race" aspects of the 2008 race, I don't feel ready to put much stock in the notion that everything's going to get better if/when the right person takes the next oath of office. The divisions, triviality, greed and paranoia that characterize our popular culture seem deeply entrenched and a new president will have to contend with doubters, detractors and the collective strength of big money interests who want to ensure that the status quo is maintained, however the window-dressing is rearranged.

Listening to the Democratic candidates' debate in Philadelphia the other night, I was appalled at the asinine quality of discourse offered by moderators Tim Russert and Brian Williams. Russert was self-aggrandizing in the worst way, doing whatever he thought was needed to create a trip-up or a stumbling statement from some of the "front-runners," driving complex problems into simplistic either/or sloganeering that candidates (and our society) are then expected to choose from. Williams facilitated over a "lightning round" where each person on the stage was expected to cram their answer to various problems into the confines of a 30-second statement. This game-show format quickly degenerated into a theater of the absurd where Dennis Kucinich was asked if he believes in UFOs and Barack Obama was queried on his choice for a Halloween costume. What idiocy! I would expect better lines of inquiry in a debate for positions on the Student Council at my local high school, yet this is what our leading journalists attempt to "edutain" us with. And don't even get me started with what's happening on the Republican side of the ledger - it's sad enough having to consider that there's still a substantial portion of the electorate looking to them for guidance and leadership on the issues of our times.

The temptation to assign responsibility for ensuring the prevalence of justice and peace in our lives to "the powers that be" leads to little but disappointment, even in those rare cases when the candidate we support gets elected! We each have an important role and task in being the change we want to see in the world. Politics, in the end, can become a huge distraction, or a convenient scapegoat for justifying our own apathy, cynicism and self-indulgence. (I'm preaching to myself here as I write this!) The "Bush years" have been pretty tough for a lot of us to endure as we see so many regrettable developments going on around us. We've vigiled, protested, voiced our opposition in numerous ways, only to see many of our fellow citizens get ever more deeply entrenched in mistrust, suspicion and ill-placed faith in leaders who are so clearly misguided and committed to violence. It's discouraging to have to put up with all this when the alternatives seem to make much more sense to us. What seems to be needed at this time is a resurgence of creativity, an acknowledgment of our individual and collective responsibility to build a stronger peace-focus in our community and a renewed sense of inspiration that our efforts make a positive difference in our world. That implies a need for risk-taking, exchanging honest, considerate feedback and on-going reflection.

Enough, for now, with focusing on the national political scene. I suppose we will all have more to say about it in the months ahead, though it's still unclear what kind of input Michigan voters will have on even determining who the two big-party candidates will be with all the controversy surrounding our state primary date. The wheels will turn as they will and we each have our part to play in that process. But before, during and after the transitions that will take place in Washington DC in early 2009, our lives here in West Michigan (and wherever else the Equity newsletter reaches) still require commitment, passion and the courage to shape our culture according to principles of justice, peace and sustainability. At least, that's what members and friends of IGE have committed to. Your involvement, support and life-commitment are important to us - we want to hear from you and hope you continue to draw encouragement from what the Institute stands for.