Grapes from Thorns

Window with a View

2009-07-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

My room's view of Africa. The sun rising over Nelson Mandela Bay (historically Algoa Bay) each and every day. Beautiful.

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

2009-07-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

Once I return to the Nati I will begin to post large numbers of photos but here is a little taste.

Port Elizabeth is a nice large city in a region called the Eastern Cape. It is on the Indian Ocean. This photo is of the beach just a couple miles west of downtown. Students are doing well. Today, we are going to a lion park. Should be fun. We've already petted cheetahs so this may be something similar to that.

Chicago III

2009-06-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

Millennium Park in downtown Chicago is an fun to visit. At top and bottom you have faces of Chicagoans filling these large screens looking like they are talking until they begin to spout water. Then there is the Egg, with skyline in background, photo with Soeren on my right, and then Soeren and our friend who works at Loyola University.

Chicago II

2009-06-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

Chicaqo I

2009-06-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

Whenever you visit Chicago and walk among the towering buildings, you can't help but remember Sandburg's poem, The City of Big Shoulders.

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Friends

2009-05-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

At a party recently, ladies sporting their stick-on body decorations; next, getting familiar; and finally a great dinner with friends.

Universal Studios

2009-05-17T06:24:00.001-07:00

I'm a bit late in posting these photos but while I was visiting my sister and her family in Palm Springs, we went into LA to tour Universal Studios. Entertaining and kinda crazy in that Southern California way. At top was an Irish pub on a set that fortunately sold real beer, next is a crowd scene (lots of people), next is a Simpson's ride featuring Krusty the Clown, next is the scene of the famous Bates Motel from the movies (where a body is being stuffed in the trunk of a car), and at bottom my brother-in-law visits with some comely young ladies.

Poplar Bluff

2009-03-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

Last year, Mary McNay, Phil and Anthony Deuster, and me took a drive to Poplar Bluff from Matthews, Missouri. We stopped for a refreshment.

Palm Springs

2009-01-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

Had a great visit in Palm Springs for the Christmas break. At top is a photo my having lunch with my sister, Lynn, and nephew Joe to her right. From left are my niece Katie and two visitors from Italy, Angelo, and Francesco. Francesco is a exchange student living with the Fontanas this year and Angelo is a friend of his who came for Christmas. Next is a beautiful flowering bush I saw on my walks around the neighborhood, bougainvillea, I believe. At bottom is beautiful Mt. San Jacinto with snow on the top.

Whisky River

2008-12-15T14:02:00.001-08:00

Another foray into the Kentucky whisky trail led to my dipping my own jug of Maker's Mark at the distillery near Bardstown. It was very difficult to hang onto that slippery bottle in the gloves they make you wear - hence the intense concentration.

The Montana Standard weighs in for Obama

2008-11-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

My home state of Montana nearly joined the rest of the progressive West in the Obama tidal wave this year. It was heartening to see that my former newspaper, The Montana Standard in Butte, weighed in with a fine endorsement of Obama. Way to go Standard Staffers, and especially my friend Roberta Stauffer, the chief author of the piece:

Obama is best choice for president

By Roberta Stauffer - 11/02/2008
Montana is a toss-up in this year's presidential election race, which makes it more important than ever to get to the polls on Tuesday, if you haven't already voted by absentee ballot.The stakes are high, with challenges looming at all levels of government, but no race is more important than the battle for the presidency. And it's been a bonafide battle, unfortunately, one that's grown more mean-spirited with each passing week.The candidate who has remained the most level-headed and diplomatic through the storms of accusations hurled is the man we at The Standard believe is best suited to lead the United States through the tough years ahead.

Time after time, Sen. Barack Obama has demonstrated his intelligence, his grasp of the issues and his sincere desire to make a break with past failed policies and move this country in a new direction.Domestically, that means pushing policies aimed at strengthening the middle class, which is the unquestioned locomotive of America's economy. For the last eight years, statistics show the rich are richer and the middle class is shrinking. From tax policy to health care, education to energy plans, Obama aims to empower Americans to help ourselves and restore some semblance of balance between corporate interests and average citizens.On the international front, Obama intends to redeem America in the eyes of a world still reeling over the fact that the United States invaded a sovereign nation six years ago based on highly questionable motives. Among other things, he has pledged to support our troops by bringing them home from Iraq as quickly as possible and to redouble efforts to track down Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, which remains alive and well in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Never before has America seen a candidate like Obama, who actually spent some of his formative childhood years overseas and is himself the product of a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya, raised mainly by maternal grandparents in Hawaii. He is an Everyman in many respects, and he got to where he is today largely because of his work ethic, his intellect and his charisma. Our country needs that combination of qualities in our president now more than ever.And we in southwest Montana have been fortunate this past year to have actually hosted Obama on two separate occasions. We heard him outline his plans and hopes in real time; many of us shook his hand, conversed with him, even sang "Happy Birthday" to his daughter on the Fourth of July.Of course visits to Butte are not reason to vote for Obama, but the fact that he felt an instant kinship with this Democratic stronghold, that he decided to visit a second time and bring along his family, created a unique tie to this candidate, the likes of which we haven't seen in a long while, if ever.Sen. John McCain's campaign seems to have assumed it had Montana all wrapped up, which may prove to be a fatal mistake.

The Republican candidate's absence has been particularly conspicuous in contrast to the intense presence of Obama and his team. Montanans are independent-minded free thinkers who don't like to be taken for granted.Most all Americans agree that McCain is a great American, but that in itself is not sufficient qualification for the presidency. McCain is not George Bush, as Obama suggests, but McCain has failed to demonstrate where he is significantly different. Also, his age is a concern, given the demanding nature of the job. And he showed poor judgment in choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. She simply is not qualified to be the vice president of the United States, let alone the president, should the need arise.Obama, on the other hand, demonstrated sound judgment in choosing Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.

The two men's backgrounds and strengths complement one another well, and Biden, himself a former candidate for the presidency, does have the background and experience to assume the lead role if duty were to call. It's that kind of thoughtful, well- considered decision-making ability that we sorely need in our next president, who will be called upon to undo the damage wrought by Bush, the self-proclaimed "Decider." Obama's well-organized campaign itself has been a tour de force, engaging and exciting voters, especially young people, like never before. In Montana alone, the Obama campaign has set up 19 offices and enlisted the help of more than 14,000 volunteers. Change is in the air, and although hard times lie ahead no matter who our next president will be, Obama has proven he has the energy and the skills to lead us.

As the Washington Post said in its endorsement, "Obama has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the past eight years, we would settle for very good." So would we.

Monsters

2008-11-05T18:01:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, wrote this today in his New York Times blog:

"What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer "therapy and understanding" to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was "shrill."

Krugman is exactly right.

Obama rally at U. of Cincinnati stadium

2008-11-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

On Sunday night, Obama came to the University of Cincinnati's Nippert football stadium. Nearly 30,000 folks turned out for him. Included me and my friends Mary Sue and Debby. It was great fun. Obama gave a great speech and had the crowd roaring its support. Ohio's Democratic Governor Ted Strickland gave a good warmup speech as did several Democratic candidates for office. Returning here to Cincinnati on the next to last night of the campaign shows how important Ohio is. Here's hoping it is enough.

"The Boss" stumps for Obama

2008-11-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

Bruce Springsteen throwing his support behind Barack:

I've spent 35 years writing about America and its people--what does it mean to be an American, what's our duties and our responsibilities, what are our reasonable expectations when we live in a free society. I really never saw myself as partisan but more as an advocate for a set of ideas: economic and social justice, America as a positive influence around the world, truth, transparency, and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and to a life filled with the dignity of work, promise and the sanctity of home. These are the things that make a life. These are the things that build and define a society. I think that these are the things we think of on the deepest level when we think about our freedoms. But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by 8 years of a thoughtless, reckless, and morally adrift administration. But we're at the crossroads today.
I've spent most of my life as a musician measuring the distance in my music between the American Dream and the American reality. I look around today and for many Americans who are losing their jobs or their homes or seeing their retirement funds disappear or their health care, or have been abandoned in their inner cities, the distance between that dream and that reality has grown greater and more painful than ever.
I believe that Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his own work. And I believe that he understands in his heart the cost of that distance in blood and in suffering in the lives of everyday Americans. And I believe as President he'll work to bring that promise back to life and into the lives of so many of our fellow Americans who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning.
Now, in my job I travel around the world and I occasionally play to big stadiums or crowds like this, just like Senator Obama does. And I continue to find out that wherever I go, America remains a repository for people's hopes, their desires; it remains a house of dreams. And a thousand George Bushes and a thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down. That's something that only we can do, and we're not going to let that happen.
This administration will be leaving office--that's the good news. The bad news is they're going to be dumping in our laps the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis. Our house of dreams has been abused, it's been looted, and it's been left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power, for influence, or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, strong hearts, strong minds. We need someone with Senator Obama's understanding, his temperateness, his deliberativeness, his maturity, his pragmatism, his toughness, and his faith.
But most of all it needs us. It needs you and it needs me, and he's gonna need us. 'Cause all that a nation has that keeps it from coming apart is the social contract between us, between its citizens. And whatever grace God has decided to impart to us, it resides in us, it resides in our connection with one another. In honoring the life and the hopes and the dreams of the man or the woman up the street or across town--that's where we make our small claim upon heaven.
Now in recent years, that social contract's been shredded. Look around today and you can see it shredding before our eyes. But tonight and today we are at the crossroads. We are at the crossroads, and it's been a long long long time coming.
I'm honored to be here on the same stage as Senator Obama. From the beginning, there's been something in Senator Obama that's called upon our better angels, and I suspect it's because he's had a life where he's had to so often call upon his better angels. And we're going to need all the angels we can get on the hard road ahead. So Senator Obama, help us rebuild our house, big enough for the dreams from all our citizens. 'Cause how well we accomplish this task will tell us just what it does mean to be an American in the new century, what the stakes are, and what it means to live in a free society.
So I don't know about you, but I know I want my country back, I want my dream back, I want my America back. Now is the time to stand with Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

The terrible twins

2008-10-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

A great review of McCain, Bush, and the movie "W."

October 10, 2008
McCain and W.By Robert Scheer
I am not a conventionally religious man, or even a very superstitious one, but I do wish George Bush would stop asking God to bless America. Every time he does, we seem to be visited with another plague, suggesting divine wrath over our president's evil ways. How else to explain the persistent calamity that has marked this administration: a pointless but very costly war over nonexistent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the devastating New Orleans flood, the betrayal of the nation by the money-changers--from Enron to Goldman Sachs--that Bush welcomed into the temple of the White House?
What's next? Pestilence, frogs, locusts or incurable boils? Dare we risk four more years of catastrophic misrule by a "W." alter ego? For those indifferent to the serious implications of that question, I recommend Oliver Stone's new bio-flick, which brilliantly captures the "banality of evil" that has controlled our political life these past eight years. This phrase from Hannah Arendt's characterization of the mundane cruelty that so marked the daily experience of European fascism has a frightening applicability to the Republican leadership that has done so much damage to this nation's reputation for democratic integrity.
Cynicism rules even as ritualistic prayer breaks, as depicted in the film W., abound. The pretense of piety earns the president and his accomplices a get-out-of-jail-free card; at no point in the film do any in the top ranks of this administration--captured so accurately and depressingly--accept one iota of accountability for how much damage they have wrought. Unrepentant, the same Republican apparatchiks are employing the familiar Rovian tactic of divide and conquer in seeking to continue their hold on power. Once again, they seek to focus attention on hot-button social issues and patriotic litmus tests to draw attention from the fact that family values are being destroyed by the loss of job and home.
Perhaps John McCain is not a perfect replica of George W. Bush, but the parallels go beyond the senator's enthusiastic support for the toxic mix of Bush's imperial foreign policy and his arrogant indifference to the travails of our domestic existence. Neither man seems to have any sense of how we actually live or what we need from government. How else to explain their common antipathy to Social Security and Medicare, which, after public education, represent the nation's most successful programs? Can you imagine the panic today if McCain and Bush had succeeded in tying Social Security to investments in the stock market? They view government as nothing more than a proud sponsor of the military-industrial complex, while ignoring the threat to homeland security from corporate pirates.
Don't say we weren't warned. Bush came into office believing fervently that what was good for Enron and its CEO, Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay, Bush's top financial sponsor, was good for the country. So, too, McCain, who chose Phil Gramm as co-chair of his presidential campaign, ignoring the huge loophole in Gramm's Commodity Futures Trading Act, which allowed Enron, where his wife, Wendy Gramm, was on the board of directors, to so shamelessly game the energy market.
Trumpeting the benefits of the legislation he tacked onto an omnibus spending bill the day before the 2000 Christmas recess, then-Senator Gramm stated: "It protects financial institutions from over-regulation. It provides legal certainty for the $60 billion market in swaps." Those swaps created the toxic investments that US taxpayers are now stuck with as the nation struggles to save those unregulated financial institutions from bankruptcy.
McCain, who should have learned the cost of radical deregulation from his own involvement in the savings and loan scandal as one of the infamous "Keating Five," totally bought Gramm's line. McCain was the chair of Gramm's 1996 presidential bid and up until major Wall Street firms collapsed continued to echo the insistence of the former-Texas-senator-turned-banker that there was no real crisis in the financial markets.
McCain evidences the underlying motivator attributed to Bush in Stone's movie: the distorted priorities of a son of privilege doing battle with the legacy of more gifted and responsible family ancestors. Both grew up as spoiled screw-ups repeatedly bailed out of trouble by their highly accomplished fathers, in McCain's case an admiral. Both assume, as a matter of legacy, that they have a right to rule. What they ignored in their legacy was a Christian's obligation to make the economic system that handsomely rewarded their kin at least minimally responsive to the needs of ordinary folk.

Obama

2008-10-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

These photos are a bit dated but when Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party nomination for president, I joined a couple thousand of my closest friends on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati to celebrate the event. Had a good time. Things are going well in the election so far. I spent a couple of hours at one of Obama's offices here making phone calls to voters. One woman I spoke with was 79. When I asked if she had decided who she was going to vote for, she said firmly "Barack Obama." I told her that was great news and was she going to try to take advantage of the early voting option. She told me she lived in a rest home and that there would be buses to take them to the polls on election day and that she wasn't going to miss her chance to vote for Obama.

I voted on Wednesday at the Butler County board of elections. Unlike Cincinnati, Butler County is pretty much Republican territory. But the polls were busy despite the efforts of the Republicans to block through legal efforts the early voting option. Fortunately, in Jennifer Brunner we have a secretary of state who actually wants people to vote.

Young scholars

2008-09-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

At top, is my WWII class in Lueneburg, Germany. A good bunch of young scholars. In the middle is program director Soeren Koeppen and former program director Iris Heine. I teashed them to keep their eyes open. At bottom is a larger group of students on a visit to Bremen. Check out the windmill in the background.

Neuengamme V

2008-09-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

The top two photos are of a large building designed as bomb shelters for the SS guards. The building is made out of concrete but in an effort to fool any allied bombers, windows were painted on the sides and you can still see the faded images of the painted windows. In the second photo, the students walk past the building. The third and four photos are of the foundation of the crematorium. While this was not a death camp, thousands of prisoners died here and something had to be done with their bodies. Hence, the crematorium. The wording on the plaque says, this was the "place of the crematorium in former concentration camp Neuengamme." The photo at the bottom is of a rail car like the ones that might have transported prisoners to Neuengamme. Click to enlarge.

Neuengamme IV

2008-09-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

At top is a canal that prisoners dug to connect the camp to the Elbe River that flows through Hamburg. In the middle was the camp commandant's house. At the bottom is a trench where clay was dug out of the ground and the little rail cars it was loaded into for transport to the brick factory.

Neuengamme III

2008-09-09T06:29:00.000-07:00

The primary work done at Neuengamme was making bricks. At the top, you can see a photo of the camp during the war. At left is a prisoner in the striped uniforms standing in front of the big building where the bricks were made. Clay was dug out of the soil nearby and loaded in little rail cars which were brought up these ramps and into the building. Next, is a photo of the building today. The next photo is of an administration building. Some of the prisoners with office skills were put to work here. At bottom are some portable housing that was built at the camp. The bricks are concrete and meant to create housing that would be bomb proof. Many of these houses were shipped to Hamburg which was bombed so severely during the war.

Neuengamme II

2008-09-09T06:22:00.001-07:00

In the memorial building at Neuengamme, there are lists of those who perished at the concentration camp. While there are over 20,000 names listed, estimates are that the death toll was actually closer to 28,000. At the base of some of the lists, flowers had been placed, apparently by family members. The death rate increased significantly during the winter months and toward the end of the war.

Neuengamme I

2008-09-09T06:01:00.001-07:00

During my WWII course in Germany, my students and I traveled to Neuengamme near Hamburg. It was a concentration camp, a work camp, not a death camp. It was the center of a network of such camps in the Hamburg area, part of the system the Nazis used to squelch dissent and eliminate their opposition.

Neuengamme had a total off 106,000 inmates over its years operation. The largest number of them (over 34,000) came from the Soviet Union. There were many POWs.

At top is a sculpture of a prisoner dying of hunger. In the memorial building are books that were kept listing the names of prisoners who died. You can view them by lifting the cloths that protect them from light. If you click on the photo, you should be able to read the names and causes of death.

Why Obama must win

2008-08-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

This piece by Weisberg outlines much of what is at stake in this election.

________________
What Will The Neighbors Think?
Obama's defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to.

Jacob Weisberg
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 5:29 PM ET Aug 23, 2008

What with the Bush legacy of reckless war and economic mismanagement, 2008 is a year that favors the generic Democratic candidate over the generic Republican one. Yet Barack Obama, with every natural and structural advantage, is running only neck and neck with John McCain, a subpar nominee with a list of liabilities longer than a Joe Biden monologue. Obama has built a crack political operation, raised record sums and inspired millions with his eloquence and vision. McCain has struggled with a fractious campaign team, deficits in clarity and discipline, and remains a stranger to charisma. Yet at the moment, the two appear to be tied. What gives?

If it makes you feel better, you can rationalize Obama's missing 10-point lead on the basis of Clintonite sulkiness, his slowness in responding to attacks or the concern that he may be too handsome, brilliant and cool to be elected. But let's be honest: the reason Obama isn't ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He lags with them for a simple reason: the color of his skin.

Much evidence points to racial prejudice as a factor that could be large enough to cost Obama the election. That warning is written all over last month's CBS/New York Times poll, which is worth studying if you want to understand white America's curious sense of racial grievance. In the poll, 26 percent of whites say they have been victims of discrimination. Twenty-seven percent say too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Twenty-four percent say that the country isn't ready to elect a black president. Five percent acknowledge that they, personally, would not vote for a black candidate.
Five percent surely understates the extent of the problem. In the Pennsylvania primary, one in six white voters told exit pollsters that race was a factor in his or her decision. Seventy-five percent of those people voted for Clinton. You can do the math: 12 percent of the white Pennsylvania primary electorate acknowledged that they didn't vote for Barack Obama in part because he is African-American. And that's what Democrats in a Northeastern(ish) state admit openly.

Such prejudice usually comes coded in distortions about Obama and his background. To the willfully ignorant, he's a secret Muslim married to a black-power radical. Or—thanks, Geraldine Ferraro—he got where he is only because of the special treatment accorded those lucky enough to be born with African blood. Some Jews assume Obama is insufficiently supportive of Israel, the way they assume other black politicians to be. To some white voters (14 percent in the CBS/New York Times poll), Obama is someone who as president would favor blacks over whites. Or he's an "elitist," who cannot understand ordinary (read: white) people because he isn't one of them. We're just not comfortable with, you know, a Hawaiian.

Then there's the overt stuff. In May, Pat Buchanan, who frets about the European-Americans losing control of their country, ranted on MSNBC in defense of white West Virginians voting on the basis of racial solidarity. The No. 1 best seller in America, "Obama Nation," by Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., leeringly notes that Obama's white mother always preferred her "mate" be "a man of color." John McCain has yet to get around to denouncing this vile book.
Many have discoursed on what an Obama victory could mean for America. We would finally be able to see our legacy of slavery, segregation and racism in the rearview mirror. Our kids would grow up thinking of prejudice as a nonfactor in their lives. The rest of the world would embrace a less fearful and more open post-post-9/11 America. But does it not follow that an Obama defeat would signify the opposite? If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world's judgment will be severe and inescapable: the United States had its day, but in the end couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.

Choosing McCain, in particular, would herald the construction of a bridge to the 20th century—and not necessarily the last part of it, either. McCain represents a cold-war style of nationalism that doesn't get the shift from geopolitics to geoeconomics, the centrality of soft power in a multipolar world or the transformative nature of digital technology. This is a matter of attitude as much as age. A lot of 71-year-olds are still learning and evolving. But in 2008, being flummoxed by that newfangled doodad, the personal computer, seems like a deal breaker. At this hinge moment in human history, McCain's approach to our gravest problems is hawkish denial. I like and respect the man, but the maverick has become an ostrich: he wants to deal with the global energy crisis by drilling, our debt crisis by cutting taxes, and he responds to threats from Georgia to Iran with Bush-like belligerence and pique.

You may or may not agree with Obama's policy prescriptions, but they are, by and large, serious attempts to deal with the biggest issues we face: a failing health-care system, oil dependency, income stagnation and climate change. To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn't just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation's historical decline.

Kerry rips McCain

2008-08-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

This was an awesome speech by Sen. John Kerry.

Remarks delivered to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.):

Thank you so much. Four years ago, you gave me the honor of fighting our fight. I was proud to stand with you then, and I am proud to stand with you now, to help elect Barack Obama as president of the United States. In 2004, we came so close to victory. We are even closer now, and let me tell you, this time we're going to win. Today, the call for change is more powerful than ever, and with more seats in Congress, with more people with more passion engaged in our politics, and with a President Obama, we stand on the brink of the greatest opportunity of our generation to move this country forward. The stakes could not be higher, because we do know what a McCain administration would look like: just like the past, just like George Bush.

And this country can't afford a third Bush term. Just think: John McCain voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time. Ninety percent of George Bush is just more than we can take. Never in modern history has an administration squandered American power so recklessly. Never has strategy been so replaced by ideology. Never has extremism so crowded out common sense and fundamental American values. Never has short-term partisan politics so depleted the strength of America's bipartisan foreign policy. George Bush, with John McCain at his side, promised to spread freedom but delivered the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. They misread the threat and misled the country. Instead of freedom, it's Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and dictators everywhere that are on the march. North Korea has more bombs, and Iran is defiantly chasing one. Our mission is to restore America's influence and position in the world. We must use all the weapons in our arsenal — above all, our values. President Obama and Vice President Biden will shut down Guantanamo, respect the Constitution, and make clear once and for all, the United States of America does not torture, not now, not ever. We must listen and lead by example because even a nation as powerful as the United States needs some friends in this world. We need a leader who understands all our security challenges, not just bombs and guns, but global warming, global terror and global AIDS.

And Barack Obama understands there is no way for America to be secure until we create clean energy here at home, not with a little more oil in five, 10 or 20 years, but with an energy revolution starting right now. I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let's compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain. Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Sen. McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you're against it. Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what's more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same "Rove" tactics and the same "Rove" staff to repeat the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008. So remember, when we choose a commander-in-chief this November, we are electing judgment and character, not years in the Senate or years on this earth.

Time and again, Barack Obama has seen farther, thought harder, and listened better. And time and again, Barack Obama has been proven right.
When John McCain stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier just three months after 9/11 and proclaimed, "Next up, Baghdad!" Barack Obama saw, even then, "an occupation of "undetermined length, undetermined cost, undetermined consequences" that would "only fan the flames of the Middle East." Well, guess what? Mission accomplished. So who can we trust to keep America safe? When Barack Obama promised to honor the best traditions of both parties and talk to our enemies, John McCain scoffed. George Bush called it "the soft comfort of appeasement." But today, Bush's diplomats are doing exactly what Obama said: talking with Iran. So who can we trust to keep America safe? When democracy rolled out of Russia, and the tanks rolled into Georgia, we saw John McCain respond immediately with the outdated thinking of the Cold War. Barack Obama responded like a statesman of the 21st century. So who can we trust to keep America safe? When we called for a timetable to make Iraqis stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home, John McCain called it "cut and run." But today, even President Bush has seen the light. He and Prime Minister Maliki agree on — guess what? — a timetable. So who can we trust to keep America safe? The McCain-Bush Republicans have been wrong again and again and again. And they know they will lose on the issues. So, the candidate who once promised a "contest of ideas" now has nothing left but personal attacks. How insulting to suggest that those who question the mission, question the troops. How pathetic to suggest that those who question a failed policy doubt America itself. How desperate to tell the son of a single mother who chose community service over money and privilege that he doesn't put America first.

No one can question Barack Obama's patriotism. Like all of us, he was taught what it means to be an American by his family: his grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line in World War II, his grandfather who marched in Patton's army, and his great uncle who enlisted in the army right out of high school at the height of the war. And on a spring day in 1945, he helped liberate one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama's uncle is here with us tonight. Please join me in saluting this American hero, Charlie Payne. Charlie, your nephew, Barack Obama, will end this politics of distortion and division. He will be a president who seeks not to perfect the lies of swift-boating, but to end them once and for all. This election is a chance for America to tell the merchants of fear and division: you don't decide who loves this country; you don't decide who is a patriot; you don't decide whose service counts and whose doesn't. Four years ago I said, and I say it again tonight, that the flag doesn't belong to any ideology. It doesn't belong to any political party. It is an enduring symbol of our nation, and it belongs to all the American people.

After all, patriotism is not love of power or some cheap trick to win votes; patriotism is love of country. Years ago when we protested a war, people would weigh in against us saying, "My country, right or wrong." Our answer? Absolutely, my country, right or wrong. When right, keep it right. When wrong, make it right. Sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power. This is one of those times, and Barack Obama is telling those truths. In closing, let me say, I will always remember how we stood together in 2004, not just in a campaign but for a cause. Now again we stand together in the ranks, ready to fight. The choice is clear; our cause is just; and now is our time to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States. Thank you.

German imperialism?

2008-08-13T06:20:00.000-07:00

Not far from the Bismarck museum and on the grounds of a nice little restaurant, was this memorial. The writing on its front has been worn away so that I could not read it. However, it appears to be a monument dedicated to the German empire in Africa. At right is a native African who seems sad and disconsolate. At left is a native African, looking confident and satisfied, who is helping the soldier at center. The message seems to be that some Africans who cooperated with the creation of German empire in Africa and those who didn't were doomed to defeat and unhappiness. Many Germans do believe that they treated the native peoples better than other Europeans while they were building their African empire. This idea is not really borne out by the facts.