37 Voices

I saw two pictures on the Internet last Friday that framed the Israeli / Hezbollah conflict. One showed a bloodied and crying Lebanese boy from Tyre being comforted by his wounded mother, who was slumped against a wall as she reached out and gently touched his cheek. The van they were riding in was hit by an Israeli rocket.

The other picture showed the funeral of an Israeli soldier, killed the day before in fighting with Hezbollah. His wife sat with her head turned away from the casket, a searing pain etched deeply in her face. The soldier’s young daughter sat on her mother’s lap with a forlorn look that defies description, and with her open hand extended toward the casket in a frozen plea.

As I looked at these pictures I wondered what would unfold in their wake, particularly in the hearts and minds of the two children. What I pictured was two children who would grow up to hate their avowed enemy; two children who would become future combatants in a war between Jews and Muslims in the Middle East that seemingly has no end; two children who may one day become the instruments that create a similar scene for other mothers and for children yet to be born.

It’s possible that my impression is completely wrong. Perhaps these two youngsters will grow up remembering the day captured in these photos and will become voices for peace and instruments for reconciliation. That would be remarkable in a place that seems bereft of both. Under the weight of history, I’m doubtful.

Those pictures speak to my anger, which may be what I’m projecting into the future of these children and their mothers. I’m angry that Hezbollah and Hamas and all other extremist Islamist organizations of similar ilk can’t come into the 21st century and get beyond the idiotic “Israel must be destroyed” mantra. I’m angry that Lebanon, Iran, Syria, or Jordan continues to be a staging area for groups and incursions that violate Israeli sovereignty. I’m angry about the perpetual and senseless terrorist violence inflicted on Israel and I understand Israel’s need and its right to defend itself and its citizens.

But I’m also angry at Israel’s intransigence in resolving the Palestinian crisis and for the scope of its retaliatory responses to provocations such as the kidnapping of three of its soldiers, one by Hamas in Gaza and two by Hezbollah in northern Israel. In response, Gaza and southern Lebanon are being pummeled, perhaps indiscriminately, with far more civilians than combatants being killed day after day – yesterday, 37 children were killed in one attack inside Lebanon. At some point the response becomes as senseless as the provocation.

As I said, at one level I understand the use if not the scope of military action and reaction that is being repeatedly employed. But, after more than 60 years of almost ceaseless conflict in this corner of the world one must seriously challenge the means being used by both sides in pursuit of their respective ends. As one commentator said, “If military force was an effective way to end terrorism, then Israel should be the safest country in the world.” But, terrorism persists in spite of, and may be strengthened by, the military responses; and Israel is anything but safe.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world watches almost helpless, expressing sympathy or dismay for one or both sides. The rest of the world also awaits the spark that ignites a massive regional conflict that impacts all of us in untold ways. But the rest of us cannot continue to just watch or wait – we must act in a united and decisive manner that declares to both sides, “Enough is enough. You are threatening the well being of all of us and we’re not going to allow that to continue.” Unfortunately, it may be a fool’s errand to ask for the rest of the world to be united and decisive on any serious international conflict or issue, especially one that has religious and sectarian roots as deep as the conflicts in the Middle East. But, we have to ask; we have to act; we have to make it clear that the status quo on both sides of this perpetual confrontation is not acceptable.

If we listen carefully, we will hear the voices of 37 children telling us what to do.

A Spark of Positive Exposure

When I fire up my PC at home each day it opens to the USA Today homepage. The supposedly “important” news of the moment is highlighted in a string of titles in bold font. This morning I was greeted by the following choices for my reading enjoyment and personal enhancement:

§ Israel strike kills 56; at least 34 children
§ UN calls emergency meeting
§ Secretary Rice postpones peacekeeping trip
§ Car bomb explodes near Kirkuk consulate
§ More troops to Baghdad
§ Colorado mass killer case
§ Drought and heat plagues Midwest
§ Cruise passenger missing
§ Homes destroyed in Nebraska
§ Six gunned down in New Orleans
§ Seattle on edge after shootings
§ Phoenix residents seek killers
§ Maryland man sets girlfriend on fire

Ah, yes, learning opportunities abound in that list of offerings from my world on this 30th day of July, 2006. Dropping down on the USA Today homepage, I was allowed to pick from lighter fare from the world of entertainment and sports. Those choices were:

§ Mel Gibson arrested for DUI
§ Lindsay Lohan slammed for unprofessional acts
§ Too much ‘Vice’ and not enough ‘Miami’
§ Justin Gatlin fails drug test
§ Floyd Landis asserts innocence
§ Reggie Bush signs deal with Saints

Only the last item on that list seemed relatively benign. Of course, when you discover that it’s a deal for somewhere between $50 and 60 million, for one man to play football for a few years for a woe-begotten team, then you know that it, too, is filled with its own special brand of insanity. That kind of money could help more than a few big boatloads of woeful people in New Orleans.

Sensing the need for an immediate antidote for the infusion of poison that had been dumped in my head and heart by nothing more than the headlines, I turned to a counterculture source that rarely disappoints – Spirituality & Health, a monthly magazine I’ve been getting for a few years. I opened the June issue randomly to an article entitled, “See Beauty Everywhere”, which is great way to balance a news day that offers the exact opposite – “Beauty Nowhere to be Found”. Immediately, there’s a flash of light, a spark of hope in a story about fashion photographer, Rick Guidotti. “Huh,” you say? Stick with me on this one.

In 1997 Guidotti happened upon a 12-year old girl waiting for a bus and what he felt at first glance he describes as “the elation of pure beauty.” His second thought immediately took the air out of that elation as he realized, “This glorious girl is never going to be included in our culture’s definition of beauty.” He believes his life changed in that moment of realization.

The girl in his glance has no pigmentation in her hair, skin or eyes, and yet he found her “stunning”. He decided to do something about the gap between how he experienced this girl and how he believed others in our culture were likely to experience her, and countless others like her. The result is the Positive Exposure organization and the related photography project that can be found and enjoyed at http://www.positiveexposure.org/. I invite everyone who reads this to take a few minutes to discover the beauty captured by Guidotti’s redirected lens.

Over the years I’ve reiterated one of my principle beliefs – we are all more alike than we are different. That belief is captured in this project. While the external differences in people seen in this project are obvious, the underlying and much deeper commonality we all share is also captured – it’s in the eyes; it’s in the laughter and the smiles; it’s in the hand gestures – it’s in the spirit that emanates from the array of fellow sojourners who are introduced to us through this project. Once that commonality is grasped, then a door opens to a much-needed celebration of our differences and a redefining of beauty in people. We can come to a point where uniqueness becomes a hallmark of beauty and the idea of a stigmatic appearance becomes unthinkable.

Put down the newspaper; turn off the news shows; close the Internet offerings of gloom and doom, and take some time to enjoy a few other people who share far more with us than we might assume at first glance at a bus stop. One of them may change your life, or at least redirect your lens.

Napolen "Paul" Garcia, Sr.

Last weekend my wife and I took a leisurely drive through Georgia O’Keefe country between Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico. We enjoy O’Keefe’s art and when we visited the O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe we were told about her homes in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. We headed first to Abiquiu, thinking we would find a small, quaint town befitting the reclusive O’Keefe’s nature. What we found was neither small nor quaint. Abiquiu would have to grow to become small, and quaint is pretty much out of the question. But, given O’Keefe’s nature, it may have been a perfect fit nonetheless.

We entered Abiquiu on a narrow dirt road and pulled into a “town” that consists of a church, post office, library and volunteer fire house surrounding an area of about 1500 square yards of dirt. Around this center point there is a dirt road that loops among a few scattered homes, a cemetery and an older adobe morada (church). We wanted to ask someone where O’Keefe’s home is located, but we saw not a single soul sitting, standing or walking outside. We were about to leave when my wife spotted a sign in front of a small home near the “town square”. It said “Private Tourist Information” with another sign that said “Local Tours” on the front gate. I was not interested in stopping, but my wife was, especially when she saw someone emerge from this home and get into a car with people waiting outside. That suggested this place was open for some kind of business.

My wife went in to ask for directions (I, of course, didn’t need any damn directions; I could have found stuff on my own!). After being in the home for almost 10 minutes she came back out to the gate and waived me in. When I approached the yard she said, with a big smile, “I want you to meet this man.” I walked into an enclosed porch area and there sat an elderly gentleman by the name of Señor Napolen “Paul” Garcia, Sr. On the far end of the room, over an old barber chair, there was a wood sign engraved with his name and his title – Poet & Storyteller. He rose with the aid of a cane and introduced himself with a firm handshake and a smile that matched the one on my wife’s face. It was obvious that in his younger days Señor Garcia had been a strong and imposing man. The strength of his personality had not diminished in the least.

In less than a minute, the stories began. The shortest version of what happened is that Señor Garcia not only made our day but probably made our entire trip to New Mexico worthwhile. He told us about “Miss Georgia O’Keefe”, as he called her in every reference to her. He said she was “nice enough”; strong willed but quiet; said what needed to be said and no more; and preferred to be alone much of the time. Señor Garcia had served as her part-time chauffer in her latter years. He pointed out several pictures of her on his wall, a couple of which were with men he identified as boyfriends. Using his cane to point at three successive pictures with men, he said, “Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend”. One of the men was Andy Warhol. We suspect that’s one instance where Señor Garcia drifted from history into storytelling. Coming back to history, we suppose, he said he had never been her boyfriend.

Señor Garcia then proceeded to act as our tour guide. He produced two homemade maps, one of the local area and one of the surrounding region. He used a nearly dried-out blue felt pen to draw a course for us to follow on each map, with plentiful explanations of what we could see along the way. We didn’t tell him that we were leaving the next morning, or that his detailed guidance was eating up much of the remaining afternoon we had left. We weren’t being polite, however; we were enjoying ourselves listening to everything he had to say.

We were about to leave when Señor Garcia made reference to an organization called the Brothers of Light, a fraternal religious organization that he likened to a group of Catholic deacons. Their purpose is to serve the needs of the community members whatever they may be. Apparently, the Brothers love to chant. He displayed a book of chants, all in Spanish. Señor Garcia told us how much Miss Georgia O’Keefe loved to hear the Brothers chant, and how much they loved to show off for her as they walked past her home on the way from the morada to some place of service in the community. He then sang one of her favorite chants for us, a rather mournful piece intended for use at a funeral.

When the chant was completed we bid Señor Garcia adios. It was a wonderful visit and it called to mind the John Steinbeck classic, Travels with Charlie, in which he recounts traveling around America in a pickup camper with his poodle, Charlie. Steinbeck deliberately stayed on the byways and back roads of the country for the purpose of finding people like Señor Garcia. Last week’s encounter in Abiquiu points out the wisdom of that search. There are undoubtedly countless men and women in small towns and out-of-the-way places that can not only make our day, but can probably make our entire trip to the place of our choice.

As it turned out, we were less than 200 feet from the home of Miss Georgia O’Keefe, which is open to the public but only by appointment. We peered over the surrounding wall at a spot designated by Señor Garcia. From there we went to the morada and the cemetery, and then completed the small loop around Abiquiu.

The trip to Ghost Ranch took us through beautiful country filled with dark red and pale yellow sandstone. O’Keefe’s former home there is in private hands and not accessible to the public. Ghost Ranch itself is now a Presbyterian retreat and conference center but visitors are welcome. It sits at the end of a large box canyon surrounded by beautiful mountains with the open end of the canyon looking out to the Pedernal, a distant and distinctive mountain with an elevated mesa on top of it. This mountain was a favorite of O’Keefe’s. She said that God told her that if she painted it often enough He would give it to her. From Ghost Ranch, it looks like an altar befitting the God of Sinai.

On the way back to Santa Fe we passed through a genuine, 24-karat summer thunderstorm in the desert. Dark, foreboding clouds produced cloud-to-ground lightning strikes and booming claps of rolling thunder. Having been raised in the Texas and Arizona deserts, respectively, my wife and I loved it. When the heavens opened and the deluge began I told my wife that my Grandpa would have said, “It’s raining like a cow pissing on flat rock!” She was unfamiliar with that saying but the word picture arrived in about a second.

Great trip – thank you, Napolen “Paul” Garcia, Sr.

Approve It or Veto It

The emerging debate about the presidential use of “signing statements” is one that should be followed closely because it could represent a turning point in our democratic and constitutional process. Washington and Washington watchers love to talk about “power grabs”, but this highly debatable practice has serious implications that need to be resolved sooner rather than later. Someone has said that I paint President Bush as a dictator. That’s a strong word that hasn’t entered my mind, but the attempted consolidation of power under his administration invites a discussion about any president who tries to combine all three branches of our government into one – becoming judge, jury and executioner, as the saying goes. Usurpation is a word that does come to mind.

Signing statements are tag lines attached to a newly enacted piece of legislation when it’s being signed by the president. Such statements have been around since James Monroe, but only 75 were issued before the Reagan administration. In days gone by, they were merely pieces of political rhetoric that expressed support or concern about the bill or some element in the bill. They first became a strategic tool under Reagan and since then they’ve morphed into essentially reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard certain provisions of law based on the president’s views on national security or on his interpretation of the Constitution. That is not the form of checks and balances or separation of powers set forth in the Constitution. This practice purports to combine legislative and judicial power with the executive power. Some might regard that as somewhat dictatorial. But I’ll stick with usurpation.

President Bush, in particular, is a study in contrasts. He has issued only one veto in six years in office. Since the Civil War the only president with a single-digit veto record is Warren Harding, and no president wants to be on any list that includes Warren Harding. You have to go back to the 1880s to find another president with less than 20 vetoes (Chester Arthur). Ronald Reagan issued 78, even with the Senate having been controlled by his party for most of his presidency.

On the other hand, this president has issued more signing statements than all other presidents combined, about 800 from No. 43 versus about 600 from Nos. 1 – 42. The burgeoning use of this tool has caused an ABA task force, which includes heavy-hitting Republicans, to declare the practice to be unconstitutional and the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to introduce a bill allowing Congress to sue the president in federal court in an effort to curtail the practice.

Under the Constitution, the president can sign a bill, veto a bill, or take no action on a bill. Under the Constitution, any bill that is signed into law or that becomes law without a signature, must be “faithfully executed” by the president and the executive branch. The president cannot legislate or adjudicate. If the president believes that a bill is a threat to national security or is unconstitutional, then his constitutional remedy is to veto the bill. The president cannot “cherry pick” a new law by, in effect, exercising a line-item veto. The Supreme Court has declared that practice to be unconstitutional.

Notwithstanding the fairly clear directives in Articles I and II of the Constitution, legal memos out of the Reagan and Clinton Departments of Justice (the Reagan memo being authored by Samuel Alito, the newest member of the Supreme Court), have crafted a theory, sometimes referred to as the “unitary executive theory”, that purports to support the use of conditional or limitation-laden signing statements. Those memos are not very persuasive and their expansive assessments and circular logic are not likely to withstand close judicial scrutiny, though we may assume they would be supported by Justice Alito, who may also persuade Justices Thomas and Scalia.

An example is the signing statement attached to the new law that prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. It reads:

The Executive Branch shall construe [the torture ban] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary Executive Branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power.

It’s not difficult to see the executive branch exercising legislative and judicial functions in statements of this nature.

Why has this practice become more pronounced under the current administration? One reason is because the White House and Congress are controlled by the same party and any presidential veto is a direct confrontation with the congressional leadership of his own party. That spells “a house divided” and in politics that’s a bad thing because the lack of partisan unity on one side of the aisle gets exploited by the partisan gang on the other side of the aisle.

It’s time to return to some fundamentals in American government and one of those fundamentals provides that when a newly enacted law comes the to president’s desk, s/he should sign it and then faithfully execute it or s/he should veto it. A veto is the exercise of the constitutional power to check and balance. Signing statements, as they have evolved in the last 25 years, are a threat to the constitutional separation of powers.

The Stem of the Problem

Our vacation trip to Santa Fe was punctuated by an historical moment in Washington, DC when the president issued his first veto in six years in office. After signing countless pieces of legislation sent to him from a Reb congress and after issuing almost 150 veto threats that sent the White House and the Hill in search of compromise, the president finally found a bill that was so bad for the country that it couldn’t be negotiated with his own party leadership. The ominous evil that he struck down was increased funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Of all the issues that could have come to this end it is hard to believe that medical research intended to dramatically improve the lives and relieve the suffering of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans, not to mention their family members, and not to mention what that research could deliver to the rest of the world, could fall victim to a presidential veto. But, we should have expected no less from a man who has made and almost assuredly will continue to make a number of infamous entries in the historical ledger.

This wasn’t just another garden-variety veto. This one overrode a significant bipartisan vote in both houses of congress at a time when bipartisanship gets spotted in the nation’s capitol about as often as a bald eagle is found perched on Abe’s shoulder in the Lincoln Memorial. Almost two-thirds of the Senate approved this bill. More importantly, the most recent polls reveal that no less than 72% of Americans, people of all political stripes, favor this legislation. That support arises from the fact that there are precious few families in the country who don’t have a family member whose life could be saved by results of this research.

But, this isn’t just another garden-variety president. This is a president who recently declared in a Larry King interview that the opinion of the American people doesn’t matter to him; that he pays no attention to it; that he must lead as he and he alone sees fit. We’ll see how that works out for his Reb colleagues come the first Tuesday in November when those slighted Americans get a chance to express their opinion in a way that can’t be ignored by anyone in politics. I doubt that the other members of the Reb leadership would be as dismissive of public opinion in a government that styles itself as a representative democracy.

The bill in question provided that the embryos that could be used for stem cell research must be those that would otherwise be unused and discarded. Said another way, not a single one of these embryos would become an infant in the womb; not a single one would be born into this world; not a single one would receive a name and live a life. Said another way, every one of these embryos will be tossed in the trash or sent to the incinerator as medical waste. The president spoke of not being able to support any bill that would “take” a human life, ignoring the fact that, accepting for the moment that an embryo is a human life, every one of these human lives will be taken one way or the other. The question is about the waste of those human lives.

Given the choice of discarding an embryo and using it to hopefully save or dramatically improve another human life, it is beyond me how someone can choose to throw it away. What is being saved or protected by that waste? How can an opponent of this research claim to support a culture of life when they turn a cold shoulder to the lives of those already living with diseases and crippling disabilities that could be relieved through this research? What is it that staunch conservatives like Bill Fritch, Orrin Hatch, and Nancy Reagan can see that another conservative like George Bush cannot see? They see people with Parkinson’s disease; people with Alzheimer’s; people with spinal-cord injuries; and young people with juvenile diabetes. The president doesn’t see these people; the president ignores these people with the same dismissive attitude that he has about American public opinion. He claims to be pro-life; but pro-whose-life?
Unfortunately, this ignorance is being dressed up, once again, in the “family values” garb when it is far more a matter of pandering to the Religious Right in an election year. The president and his advisors fear that they are about to preside over the kind of power shift that was presided over by Bill Clinton when the Rebs took control of the Hill in 1994. To protect against the possibility of this ignoble entry in the historical record they are doing everything possible to shore of the uber-conservatives by playing again and again to the drum-beating, pulse-raising issues of gay marriage, flag burning, abortion and stem cell research. This time, the panicked bow to the far right may cause the GOP to tip over.

This veto doesn’t have anything to do with honoring, respecting or saving innocent human lives. In fact, this veto stands for dishonoring, disrespecting and failing to try to save millions of innocent human lives as it blithely turns away from watching the lab techs who will now dispose of leftover embryos that will never live to serve humanity in any way. That’s a shameful waste.

Good Fortune

On Friday, I had lunch with my oldest grandson, who is a good boy.

On Saturday, I went to a birthday party for my son-in-law, who is a good man who has become a great husband to my daughter and stepfather to my grandsons.

On Sunday morning, I played golf with my son and his best friend, both of whom are good young men. I shot an 84, which tied my personal best.

On Sunday afternoon, I had a relaxing brunch with my wife and stepson, who is also a good young man. We laughed about his brother, who was a good young man who taught us invaluable lessons about living and dying.

At some point over the weekend, I spoke with each of my children, who have all grown to become good people who are trying to make a difference in their world.

At several points over the weekend, I enjoyed deep and satisfying conversations with my best friend, who is a truly good woman.

On Monday evening, I had a nice dinner with a fine glass of Zinfandel and spent a relaxing evening with that same best friend, who is not just a good woman but a fine woman as well.

On Tuesday morning I awoke after a great night’s sleep and a felt an abiding sense of peace and well being thanks in part to these encounters and a few other simple things involving good friends and family.

Today, I’m going to Santa Fe for five days, where I will enjoy great art with a fine, emerging artist (http://barbart.dannyklancher.com/).

Happiness, it seems, may be a matter of surrounding oneself with good people who help us find the peace that awaits us in the present moment.

At this moment, I’m a fortunate man. And, fortunately, this moment is the only moment I have.

Raindrops Aren't Falling on My Head

All is takes is a little rain on a hot and cloudy July morning to send me into a flashback that isn’t necessarily my most cherished trip down memory lane.

When I was a freshman in high school my parents bought a cattle ranch in the Gisela Valley about 12 – 15 miles SSW of Payson, Arizona. It consisted of about 150 acres of fee land and 13,000 acres of land leased from the BLM. The fee acreage was on two levels, a lower level that ran along the Tonto River and an upper level on an elevated mesa. On the lower level, we grazed horses, milk cows, a fee sheep, and a steer or two that were destined for the freezer. We also grew alfalfa for hay in a couple of fields on that level. The top level was undeveloped when we bought the ranch. Little did I know at the time that it would become the source of a flashback in July 2006 in Bakersfield, CA.

One of my jobs on the ranch was to help with the irrigation of the fields on the lower level. Our water entitlement was subject to a strict schedule that could have us “letting in the water” at any time of the day or night. Getting up for water duty at 3:00AM was not unusual. We weren’t exactly a high-tech operation, either; in fact, we weren’t even low-tech irrigators. We had a few concrete “gates” with metal slides that we lifted or lowered to allow water into this or that field. But we also donned our rubber boots and used a good old No. 2 shovel to cut the ditch banks open to get the water where we needed it, and then to fill those hole back up to stop the flow.

I liked working in the lower fields. I felt like this was honest work that Randolph Scott, Gary Cooper or Alan Ladd might have performed in some classic Western movie. I did this work with my dad, grandpa or some other adult hired hand, so it seemed like a “man’s job”. What I ended up doing on the upper level lacked any such redeeming value.

On the upper level of our fee property we built a new home, barn and corral. Then my dad added two artificial water retention ponds, a pump system and several fields for growing various forms of cattle feed other than alfalfa. These fields were watered by water pumped from the ponds into rows of movable sprinkler pipe. The astute reader now knows where this posting is going. Someone had to move those rows of sprinkler pipe from section to section and field to field. During the summer months “someone” was me. My dad spent untold sums on this money pit, but he wouldn’t buy enough pipe to eliminate the need to move it.

Moving sprinkler pipe isn’t the hardest job in the world, but to a teenager it’s a hard-enough mix of long, frustrating and unbelievably boring work. This was not the kind of work that Randolph, Gary or Alan would have touched. I didn’t do this work with my dad, grandpa or any adult hired hand. I did this work by myself most of the time. Occasionally, I got a rudimentary form of “help” from my little brother, although I use that word in the loosest possible sense. It was actually pre-rudimentary assistance that bordered on being anti-help. In other words, he was a normal 11-year old. More times than not, we ended up in a rock or dirt-clod throwing fight, at which time my brother would walk off the job, an option that I didn’t have.

Sprinkler pipe and sprinkler heads are tools of the devil. I’d think I had them all in place and properly hooked up only to watch pipe link “blow out” as soon as the water pressure hit the joints. By the time I got the pumps turned off small ponds would have formed around the breaks. That meant getting into rubber boots and heading into mud holes, mud that was more than capable of pulling the boots off my feet.

Even if the pipe joints held in place, there was another challenge to overcome – having the sprinkler heads get clogged with wasp bodies. Somehow, dumb-as-dirt wasps that landed on the pond would get sucked into the pumps and then shot through the pipes only to come to a complete halt at the tip of a sprinkler head. It was never a bee or another bug; it was always a wasp. I can’t count the number of wasps that met their untimely end in this manner; at least a couple of them every time I fired up the system. While that’s a fitting end for a nasty insect favored by the devil, it was a constant problem for “someone” in charge of the pipe system. I would not shut down the pumps to solve this one. I’d just don the boots and trudge out to the problem spots with a piece of baling wire to jab the critters loose, which put me in a rather waspish mood.

Another odd memory is that I don’t recall the crops in those field ever getting over six inches tall, or ever being harvested. I’m sure they grew and I’m sure they were harvested. But, all I can recall is the dirt, the pipe, the mud, the wasps, the sun, the sweat, and how much I wanted school to start again.

So, what’s the flashback? Every morning when there was a pipe move scheduled anywhere in next 48 hours I would scan the sky for promising clouds. If it rained, I might get a pipe-moving reprieve. If it rained enough, I might not have to go out there for three or four days. I would pray for rain. If I knew how, I would have danced for rain. If I had not been afraid of the punishment, I would have sacrificed small animals in order to appease the rain gods. I would delay the pipe move as long as I could if the sky looked like there was any reasonable chance of rain. Unfortunately, with the devil involved as he was, I suffered a lot of disappointment.

On countless days, the dark and promising clouds would form on the horizon as if on cue, only to literally split at the head of the river canyon and go on both sides of, but not over, our land. Or, it would rain, but only enough to make the pipe move twice as hard; not enough to equal a sprinkling.

As a result of this deeply scarring experience, when I step out into a summer morning and see a little rain or the mocking clouds that promise a little rain I am to this day immediately thrust back to the upper mesa not far from the end of the Gisela Valley. An involuntary reflex comes over me as I utter the prayer of the nearly hopeless, “Dear God, I hope I don’t have to move the pipe today.” Inasmuch as the devil is so directly involved in that work, you’d think that God would be more responsive. But, as I said, I’ve suffered a lot of disappointment waiting on a little rain from promising clouds.

HPV Vaccination

In my last blog entry on the practice of breast ironing in Africa I said, "It’s hard for us to understand the mix of fear and ignorance that leads to practices like this." A posted comment agreed and added: “But I found it stunning that in our country not everyone is embracing the new vaccine for cervical cancer. Apparently some religious conservatives fought approval of the vaccine because they felt it would encourage young women to become sexually active … I find that to be a ‘mix of fear and ignorance’ too.”

There is indeed an array of conservative Christian organizations who have spoken out against the use of this vaccine. They include the influential Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, the Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership, the Physician’s Consortium, the American Family Association, the Culture and Family Institute, Concerned Women for America, and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations.

The opposition campaign has taken a fairly subtle tact on the issue. While some of these groups opposed the approval of the vaccine, most of them have issued statements that purport to support the development and availability of the vaccine while also saying that they 1) strongly oppose the vaccine being mandatory, and 2) urge parents not to have their daughters vaccinated because doing so sends them the wrong message about abstinence and encourages promiscuity. So, they’re glad we have the vaccine but they don’t think young women should receive it.

My first reaction is that I’m not sure that “fear and ignorance” are a sufficient explanation for why anyone would oppose the use of a vaccine that is intended to help prevent cancer. Any parent who would willingly expose their daughter to the human papilloma viruses that are the primary cause of cervical cancer and genital warts because they believe that such protection will encourage her to engage in the sexual activity that transfers those viruses is more than ignorant. Ignorance means that someone is unaware or uninformed. These people are neither. Their problem is more perverse than ignorance. They’re ensnared in a toxic belief system that values sexual abstinence more than life. That isn’t just a fearful response; it’s a fanatical response.

The twisted irony is that these religious conservatives are staunchly “pro life”, yet they’re willing to risk the life of their daughters in order to guard against the possibility that they might be less inhibited sexually because they've been vaccinated for certain HPVs. There are more than a few flaws in that conclusion, not the least of which is that young women aren’t likely to think about their vaccination history in their “decisions” about sexual activity. To refuse to protect a young girl against a virus that can cause a very deadly form of cancer is just nuts.

How can groups like this take a position like this? The answer may lie in the fact that their abstinence campaigns rely heavily on the threat of HPV and cervical cancer as a means to frighten young women into avoiding sexual activity. So, in an odd sort of way, these groups need HPV as a weapon. Apparently, the threat of other sexually transmitted diseases doesn’t provide them enough firepower because they don’t come equipped with the attendant threat of cancer and death. Take away HPV and all you have left is one hand clapping, so to speak. Sadly, it also suggests that just teaching kids conduct based on certain moral principles and religious values isn’t enough. There must be threats available, preferably deadly ones.

Parents obviously have a right to be concerned about adolescent sexual activity and every adolescent should be taught the obvious benefits of abstinence. But they should also be taught that any sexual activity must be safe and protected in order to avoid the threat of STDs and unwanted pregnancy. In a perfect world, parents would also have the choice about whether their sons and daughters receive any vaccinations. But this isn’t a perfect world and we don’t allow parents to make that choice when the health and well being of others kids is directly impacted by that choice – thus the list of required vaccinations for attending public schools. Unless there are compelling medical reasons suggesting otherwise, the HPV vaccine should be added to that list.

Breast Ironing

Countries in the industrialized “Western world” have their problems and are far, far from perfect, but one need not look too far and long each day to find reasons to be grateful to live where we do. Today I read a report on the use of “breast ironing” in West and Central Africa, a practice that is intended to hide or reduce the sexuality of young women in order to protect them from rape or other sexual abuse.

"Breast ironing" typically involves pressing a heated object, such as a grinding stone, against a young girl’s breasts to try to stunt their growth. Recent studies show it’s widespread in Cameroon, where one in four young girls is subjected to the traumatic process at the hands of relatives who are trying to lessen their sexual attractiveness. It’s estimated that four million women in Cameroon have suffered through this process, which is also a long-time practice in Chad, Togo, Benin, and Guinea-Conakry. Both the relatives and the victims believe that the procedure is a good thing.

Although counterintuitive, the practice has become more common in urban areas that in rural villages because the threat is seen to be greater in the cities and towns. Interestingly, in Cameroon it’s more common in the Christian-dominated south than in the Muslim-dominated north.

It comes as no surprise that this process has harmful side-effects, including severe pain and abscesses, infections, breast cancer, and the disappearance of one or both breasts. Cameroon has launched a nationwide educational program to advise people of the impacts and eradicate the practice, an effort similar to the campaign that dramatically reduced the equally horrific practice of female genital mutilation in that country.

It’s hard for us to understand the mix of fear and ignorance that leads to practices like this. They shock our conscience. Hopefully, once the stunned reaction passes, we realize anew the need for continual education and international outreach in third-world countries. Hearing about children being subjected to almost unspeakable "traditional" practices reminds us that countries like the U.S. can and should help support such educational and outreach programs.

When I think about “foreign aid” I tend to think about the pressing need for food, water, clothing, shelter and medicines, all of which are obviously essential for survival and minimal well being. But, when I think about female genital mutilation and breast ironing it doesn’t take long to realize the list of absolute essentials is longer.

Over the last few years, my wife and I have committed to including reputable international aid groups in our list of charitable donations. Money won’t solve everything but it’s something we can do now and it feels better than reading shocking news stories and then doing nothing about them. Unfortunately, there are a half dozen shocking news stories every day, which can quickly deplete all manner of resources. In the face of that problem, our default focal point has become children and the improvement of their health and well being.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. Onward.

Declaring Independence

The Fourth of July is the most uniquely American holiday on the calendar. If you don’t like “the Fourth”, then I’m not sure we can be friends. It’s a day of celebration – flag-waiving parades, community festivals, family picnics, backyard barbeques, camping trips, swimming parties and, of course, fireworks. It’s a day to eat fried chicken or chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and country gravy, or hamburgers or hot dogs with the works! Buttermilk biscuits and corn-on-the-cob are almost required today. Then it’s apple pie time, baby, with a slab of vanilla ice cream alongside, if you please! And, if there’s no watermelon on the table, then you can only conclude that it’s either July 3rd or July 5th; it’s not the Fourth.

This is the one day of the year when you can listen to John Phillip Souza marches and no one will think it’s a quirky taste. Red, white and blue are on display everywhere and they never look better together. If there’s ever a day to park the Toyota and fire up the old Chevy, this is it. Today, the dogs should be let off the leash and allowed to run free in city parks.

The Fourth is a celebration of independence. As everyone knows, it marks the ratification of the Declaration of Independence and there is great significance in that. The event being celebrated was only a declaration – those who declared themselves independent of the British crown hadn’t won anything, yet, except self-respect. The lion’s share of the fight lay ahead of them. Actual independence still had to be secured through great sacrifice.

One could argue that we should celebrate on September 3rd, the day the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, or January 14th, the day that treaty was ratified in 1784 by the new U.S. Congress, thereby ending the American Revolution. Or, we could celebrate June 21st, the day in 1788 when the United States Constitution was ratified, or March 4th, the day in 1798 when the government began to operate under its new Constitution. It was on these days that the final stamp was placed on a uniquely American form of government that would stand the test of time and serve as the basis for the United States to become the recognized leader of the free world.

But, instead, we choose to celebrate the act of declaring ourselves free. Perhaps that’s because without that first step nothing would happen thereafter. Perhaps that’s because it’s the declaration that really makes us free, even if there’s a fight to follow. Perhaps that’s because even if the fight is unsuccessful it’s the effort that ennobles us and makes us free in spirit if not in deed.

In that spirit, each of us should look for those things in our life that bind us; that keep us in unnatural captivity of some kind; that inhibit our freedom in unacceptable ways – things that rob us of independence or the opportunity for healthy interdependence. Then each of us should author our own Declaration of Independence and engage in the struggle to make it real to whatever extent is necessary. The end result is worth the sacrifice. I’ve made a couple such declarations in my life and then engaged in the battle that ensued. In each instance my life took a leap forward in quality – significantly greater peace and happiness was the reward.

Interestingly, many of the cords us that bind us will fall away in the face of nothing other than the declaration. That’s because many of them hold us down without us even being aware that they’re there. Once we become aware of them and boldly declare ourselves free and independent of them, these cords simply fall limp and loose at our sides. We are far more free and independent at any given time than we realize.

May my family and friends and anyone else who happens to read this find the voice necessary to declare their independence from whatever may be holding them back from the peace and happiness that awaits them.

Time to go – John Phillip Souza and the watermelon are calling me!

It's Hard Out There For A Pimp

Alert – Congress has taken action!

After watching them flounder on Iraq, Iran, North Korea, immigration, global warming, healthcare, AIDS, education, trade issues, energy policy, aid to the poor, tax reform, tort reform and nearly countless other fairly important issues, the United States Senate has stepped up to the firing line and targeted its howitzers on pimps! This time it didn’t fire blanks as it did on flag burning and gay marriage; this time it nailed its target right where it hurts – in their Form 1040! On Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill sponsored by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, authorizing at least $2 million to establish an IRS criminal investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers who violate the tax laws.

Apparently, when the senators saw “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” win the Academy Award for best song, they sniffed, “Oh, yeah; well we can make it a lot harder out there!” and took this righteously decisive action. After all, “hustle and flow” pretty well describes the action-oriented U.S. Congress.

Grassley pointed to the use of the tax code to finally snare Al Capone, the gangster extraordinaire. While I find that a less than compelling comparison, as the sponsor of this bill he had to hang it on some hook. At least he didn’t try to tie it to al-Qaeda or Saddam Hussein or claim that pimps are cultural WMDs. Sensing that his arguments weren’t persuading the skeptics, Grassley decided to shift to hyperbole, which is always an indication that there’s nothing else to say. "It's a no-brainer to have the IRS go after sex traffickers," Grassley said. I have to agree. No brains appear to have been involved. But then, as the saying goes, those guys on the Hill don’t think with their brains.

Let me be clear: any number of things connected with sex trafficking should be considered criminal and anything that involves underage girls or boys in the sex trade should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Similarly, kidnapping, forced labor or any violent behavior should be prosecuted under existing criminal laws. But, deciding to jail some dumb-ass pimp for failing to provide a W-2 or a Form 1099 to his adult prostitutes, or jail under-dressed and over-made-up ladies of the night for failing to file a tax return, is an indication that the Senate has simply lost the will and the ability to attend to the most meaningful issues facing the country (see the first paragraph above).

Someday, in the next millennium perhaps, I hope that this tax problem has become public issue number one and that all the other more important challenges have been overcome. When that day comes, we will all be much more willing to have our leaders take actions that require no brains.

A Convenient Time

Earlier this week my wife and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary on global warming and its impacts, present and future. The film is produced by and features Al Gore, who humorously describes himself as “the man who used to be the next president of the United States”. It’s basically the filming of a slide presentation that Gore has given all around the world. Roger Ebert, the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave it “four stars” and for the first time in his career told his readers, “You owe it to yourself to see this movie.” He went on to envision a day when our grandchildren would ask us if we saw this movie and if we hadn’t, they would ask why; and if we had, they would ask what we did about it.

The facts presented are compelling. They paint a clear picture of the status of global temperature and its impacts today in relation to what we’ve seen throughout recorded history. The conclusion is simple: global warming is a fact; it is a serious threat to all of us; and it’s not merely another in a long history of natural warming and cooling cycles. We’re left to conclude that we’ve blown through the statistical ceiling and there’s no end in sight, given current trends.

Al Gore’s involvement with the film makes it a political lightning rod. Two camps polarize quickly: the hardcore Democrats and liberals rally around their former flag-bearer and embrace the message without hesitation or condition, while the equally hardcore Republicans and conservatives dismiss both the message and the messenger as borderline fanatical. The rest of us wandering in the middle can rest relatively assured that the answer is with us – somewhere in the middle. That middle ground, however, still presents a compelling case for informed and timely action lest we go past the tipping point. I’m not sure if that’s a point of no return, as Gore would have us believe; but it’s a point beyond which the remedies become increasingly harder if not impossible to define and implement.

The challenges related to this issue seem to fall into two buckets: 1) is global warming caused primarily by human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, or are natural causes the primary source of what we’re measuring; and 2) what remedies can we implement now without suffering very serious economic impacts?

It’s hard for me to conclude that human activity isn’t the primary driver for the global warming being measured. Correlated data showing increased population, increased industrialization, particularly in China and India, and the increased burning of hydrocarbon-based fuels seem to point in one direction – the dramatically higher levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere come from us. We are the problem.

As for remedies, there almost assuredly will be economic impacts related to those remedies with the greatest promise to first arrest and then reduce the problem. But that just begs the question: what is cost of failing to implement those remedies? That brings us to the question, just how dire is the situation? Gore and his allies would have us believe that we must act within the next ten years or the damage will be irreversible and cataclysmic impacts will naturally follow. I don’t know enough to accept or reject that prediction, but I know enough to conclude that the issue has to be elevated from the partisan morass into which it has fallen in America and that the U.S. has to engage the rest of the world in an urgent and focused assessment around which some consensus can be formed.

I look to the scientific community to lead the way. It seems to me that scientists should be able to come to essentially the same conclusion given the same data and means of inquiry into that data. That comment assumes that the leading scientists can remain unsullied by political agenda so they can speak in an unfettered way, guided only by their objective findings and their subjective interpretations of those findings as independent scientists. At this point, I’m hearing far, far more scientific concurrence with the content of An Inconvenient Truth than I’m hearing dissent.

If that concurrence not only holds up but swells to a crescendo then the burden shifts squarely to the policy makers in national capitols around the world. If they remain paralyzed by partisanship or discredited dogmas, then the burden rests on us. We will have to convey a clear message that the politicians must act in a responsible way and that we will hold them immediately accountable for failing to do so. If we’re the problem; then we’re also the solution. Unfortunately, our legislators hate to conclude that we’re the cause of our own problems; they’re equally averse to concluding that we’re also the solution to our own problems. Those conclusions require them to speak and act in a responsible and timely manner, which they’re loath to do until they have no other choice.

Our legislators also tend to act like parents who know best for all the little kids in the country, meaning all of us. They speak and act as if they’re watching out for the best interests of children and wards of the state who are incapable of assessing and prioritizing their own needs. The highest levels of the Bush administration, for example, have recently said that public opinion is not relevant in determining what to do next in Iraq. I suspect they’re equally dismissive of public opinion on issues like global warming – at least until it reaches a critical mass that represents winning or losing at the polls. Science may not matter in the halls of Congress and the West Wing, but votes do.

Oh, yeah, money matters, too. Right now the primary reason for not doing much of anything in the U.S. regarding global warming appears to be that “it will cost too much.” Well, money matters to all us – but it’s not the only thing that matters and it often isn’t what matters the most. We voters are not nearly as self-centered as we’re made out to be, and when we are self-centered it’s often about the health and well being of our children and grandchildren.

It behooves all of us to pay close and careful attention to global warming and its impacts so that we quickly become an informed electorate who can speak loud and clear enough for the denizens of Foggy Bottom in Washington, DC to hear a messenger and a message that cannot be dismissed. Go see the movie, or read the book – it’s a convenient time to learn, speak up and take action. After all, we need to be ready to answer the tough questions that will be posed by our grandkids.