Impunity

This from the Denver Post yesterday with regard to the Bush Administration's valiant efforts to control AIDS worldwide, reminded me of this from Alternet which speaks about that good word impunity. The Alternet article reads, in part:

Impunity – the perception of being outside the law – has long been the hallmark of the Bush regime. What is alarming is that it appears to have deepened since the election, ushering in what can only be described as an orgy of impunity. In Iraq, U.S. forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone – doctors, clerics, journalists – who dares to count the bodies. At home, impunity has been made official policy with Bush's appointment of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, the man who personally advised the President in his infamous "torture memo" that the Geneva Conventions are "obsolete."

This kind of defiance cannot simply be explained by Bush's win. There has to be something in how he won, in how the election was fought, that gave this administration the distinct impression that it had been handed a "get out of the Geneva Conventions free" card. That's because the administration was handed precisely such a gift – by John Kerry.

In the name of "electability," the Kerry campaign gave Bush five months on the campaign trail without ever facing serious questions about violations of international law. Fearing that he would be seen as soft on terror and disloyal to U.S. troops, Kerry stayed scandalously silent about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. When it became painfully clear that fury would rain down on Fallujah as soon as the polls closed, Kerry never spoke out against the plan, or against the other illegal bombings of civilian areas that took place throughout the campaign. When the Lancet published its landmark study estimating that 100,000 Iraqis had died as result of the invasion and occupation, Kerry just repeated his outrageous (and frankly racist) claim that Americans "are 90 percent of the casualties in Iraq."

There was a message sent by all of this silence, and the message was that these deaths don't count. By buying the highly questionable logic that Americans are incapable of caring about anyone's lives but their own, the Kerry campaign and its supporters became complicit in the dehumanization of Iraqis, reinforcing the idea that some lives are expendable, insufficiently important to risk losing votes over. And it is this morally bankrupt logic, more than the election of any single candidate, that allows these crimes to continue unchecked.

It is, I believe, this last paragraph that seems to dovetail the Bush Administration's pathetic lip service with regard to supporting worldwide AIDS efforts -- which Dubya touted during the campaign with such impunity -- along with the observation that the Democrats, John Kerry and company, allowed Dubya and his minions to get away with it. Yes, I know, the article is about Iraq, but I do believe it is equally applicable to the pitiful, misdirected efforts of the Bush Administration with regard to AIDS.

Finally, this from Alternet, noting that half the worldwide cases of HIV infections are women. The article notes, in part:

We deplore patterns of sexual violence against women – violence that transmits the virus – but the malevolent patterns continue. We lament the use of rape as an instrument of war, but in eastern Congo and western Sudan, possibly the worst-known episodes of sexual cruelty and mutilation are occurring, and the world barely notices. We see Rwanda's women survivors, now suffering full-blown AIDS, demonstrating how such stories end.

Nearly half of the HIV cases in the world are women. In Africa, it's more than half, and young women bear the brunt of the pandemic.

And, in order for countries to qualify for American dollars to fight AIDS, Dubya -- according to the above Denver Post piece -- "...requires that target nations open their economies to international trade and take other actions that have nothing to do with fighting AIDS."

Impunity. Good word. How long are we going to let him get away with it? How long?

The Boxwoods and dwarf Spruce this morning. And, it's still snowing! 

I'd guess maybe five or six inches of snow from the base of the outdoor table.  

No picnics today. 

Snow today. 

Gulls Hunkered Down in the Lake this morning. Twenty-four degrees.  

Fire in the Sky (Friday) 

They Didn't Hate Anybody

This from the Denver Post this morning reports that the killers of Matthew Shepard will be featured tonight on ABC's, "20/20."

The story in the Post and what will appear on the teevee tonight seems to be a rehash of the painful facts of the case presented at trial. Once again, the killers are projecting their innocent drug-induced defense while arguing that their killing of Shepard had nothing to do with being "...against gays or any of that."

The ABC interview will, apparently, provide a forum for McKinney to argue that their "...gay-panic defense..." was all contrived by their attorneys at the time. Henderson, we are told, "...hopes to file a federal appeal, claiming he was never fully advised of his rights."

One wonders if the current climate in America -- the God, Guns and Guts America of George W., James Dobson, Bobby Jones and Denver's own Archbishop Charles Chaput -- will look kindly on the McKinney and Henderson boys after tonight's airing of their interview?

I still wonder how many times the boys said "...fuckin' faggot..." as they beat Matthew senseless and tied him to that old fence out on that lonely Wyoming prairie?

I still wonder about that...

Matthew Shepard's Killers - McKinney & Henderson

Matthew Shepard

Denver Cop Kills Dalmatian

What a wonderful Thanksgiving day story...

So, here's the deal: Denver cops get a report of a gun that the owner or posseser of which has fired somewhere in the vicinity of Larry Griego's house in North Denver.

If the Denver cops acted typically -- and I have personal experience with this typical behavior -- they came out in force with the report of a weapon being fired. And, force for Denver cops is usually six to eight officers, or more, according to their perception of the seriousness of the alleged offense. And, the adrenalin gushes like lava from Krakatoa.

So, a cop apparently enters Griego's back yard which is where Bobo -- a nine-year-old Dalmatian -- lives, calls home and defends as his territory. Allegedly, the dog bites the cop on his wrist (and, the bite wasn't even on his wrist, but on his watch which, I bet, really pissed off the cop. And, AND the dog was on a chain!)

What does the cop do? Go get Bobo's owner or caretaker and ask that the animal be restrained while he takes a look around? No, that's not what happens. The cop fires what was probably a nine millimeter slug into the dog.

What does the dog do? Well, since the first shot didn't kill him, Bobo reacts as any animal would: He defends himself and, as a result, the cop puts four more slugs into the Dalmatian.

Now, I'm the kid of a cop and I've never been shy about reporting, explaining, understanding the dynamic of a cop's life; the complex, difficult, dangerous existence most cops (and their families) live. (See my June post, "Cops and Politicians.")

The story in the Denver Post this morning reported that Denver Police spokesman John White said, "The dog bit the officer on his wristwatch, likely saving the officer from serious injury ... The officer fired once, striking the dog ... but it returned and attacked a second time. That's when the dog was put down." (Five slugs total in what was probably a forty to fifty pound dog!)

Well, no shit Sherlock! A Chihuhua could cause serious injury if backed against the wall; if it's territory had been invaded and if it had already been wounded.

This cowboy mentality on the part of Denver police officers; this absurd state-of-mind fed by some notion that if it's police business anything is justified; anything goes; any damned violence or humiliation or -- for Christ's sake! -- the outright murder of a family pet is just okeydokey, no problem, just one of those unfortunate things that happens when the cowboys ride, has just got to be reined in.

Mayor Hickenlooper, Manager of Safety LaCabe and Police Chief Gerry Whitman were recently handed a mandate by the people of Denver via the ballot box to get a handle on police behavior; to restructure and certainly reexamine police policy in cases similar to this; most of which have involved the deaths of human beings.

The Mayor and his minions had best get moving on this one. 'Cause, Denver may be known as a fanatical sports town, but don't even try to get us started on how we feel about our animals; our dogs!

And, this is in no way meant to belittle the horrible, horrible killings of human beings by Denver Police officers which, to a one, have been deemed justified by currently applicable law, policy and procedure.

And, what a hell of a post to have to write on Thanksgiving...

America - Banana Rebublic

In a prior post, I made the observation that, "...What might even be a little more scary is that China and Japan own $1.8 Trillion of our national debt. Think about it: the tax cuts ol' Dumbya came up with -- most of which went to the wealthiest 1% of Americans -- are being financed by us borrowing the money from China and Japan to, yes, pay for the tax cuts. That make sense to you?"

This from Bloomberg reports, among other things, that: "...Bush's comments [on restoring America's economy] `don't amount to anything more than political posturing,' said Monica Fan, global head of currency strategy at RBC Capital Markets in London. The remarks are `ironic,' she said, considering that Bush signed an $800 billion increase in the U.S. federal debt limit to $8.18 trillion yesterday, she said.

``Bush's strong dollar policy is, in practical terms, to maintain a pool of fools to buy it all the way down,'' said Paul McCulley, a managing director at Pacific Investment Management Co.

This from Reuters is equally disturbing as it asks the question has America, indeed, become a Banana Republic.

I'm really going to try to concentrate on something positive for my next post. God, don't we get weary of the negativity ... albeit reflective of reality.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Bummer

There is, of course, a difference between being anti-war and being anti-this-particular-war. The realities of war, however, seem to be universal, repetitive, unchanging. In 1972, Michael Casey published a book of poems called Obscenities with regard to his service in Viet Nam. One of those poems, A Bummer is, I'm sure, something that might hit a nerve today; something that might be true, so true as our boys/girls risk their lives in the hell that is Iraq:

We were going single file
Through his rice paddies
And the farmer
Started hitting the lead track
With a rake
He wouldn't stop
The TC went to talk to him
And the farmer
Tried to hit him too
So the tracks went sideways
Side by side
Through the guy's fields
Instead of single file
Hard On, Proud Mary
Bummer, Wallace, Rosemary's Baby
The Rutgers Road Runner
And
Go Get Em -- Done Got Em
Went side by side
Through the fields
If you have a farm in Vietnam
And a house in hell
Sell the farm
And go home

track: tracked vehicle
TC: Track Commander


And, this from Thomas Hardy:

"The Breaking of Nations"

Only a man harrowing clods

In a slow silent walk,

With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch grass:

Yet this will go onward the same

Though Dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by;

War's annals will fade into night

Ere their story die.



Dubya's war is so pitiful, costly -- oh, so terribly costly -- and for what? Have we subdued the great leader of the Axis if Evil, the Evildoer himself whose resources were so potent, so omnipotent, so pervasive that his retreat, his final flight from the invasion of the infidels ended up in a hole in the front yard of some otherwise trailer trash Iraqi homestead?

Oh, the enemy, he is ourselves.

The Power of Fear and Other News

This from Alternet is an excellent read with regard to U.S. strategy in Iraq.

This from the New York Times provides a detailed recounting of what appears to be the outright murder of an unarmed man in Fallujah. Ah, war is hell and Dubya seems to grow, to become more potent in the throws if this horrific mess in Iraq.

And, this from Mark Twain's, The War Prayer:

O Lord our God,
help us
to tear thier soldiers
to bloody shreds
with our shells;

help us
to cover their smiling fields
with the pale forms of their patriot dead;

help us
to drown the thunder
of the guns
with the shrieks
of their wounded,
writhing in pain;

help us
to lay waste
their humble homes
with a hurricane of fire;

help us
to wring the hearts
of their unoffending widows
with unaviling grief;

help us
to turn them out roofless
with their little children
to wander unfriended
the wastes
of their desolated land

in rags and hunger
and thirst,
sports of the sun flames
of summer
and the icy winds
of winter...

...for our sakes
who adore Thee, Lord,

blast their hopes,
blight their lives,
protract their bitter pilgrimage,
make heavy their steps,
water their way with tears,
stain the white snow
with the blood
of their wounded feet!

We ask it,
in the spirit of love,
of Him Who is the Source of Love,

and Who is the ever-faithful
refuge and friend
of all that are sore beset

and seek His aid
with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen.

26 degrees at 7a.m. -- Our running track this morning. 

Steam on the Lake. Love and doves.

It was twenty-six degrees this morning when Melissa and I made our run of the lake. Afterwards, after I had put her back in the Explorer and given her water, I grabbed the camera and walked half-way around the lake to get a few shots of the steam rising from the water.

It wasn't until I got home and downloaded the pictures that I saw the red sign in the upper right portion of the picture: LOVE and doves.

I don't know where this sign is erected and I'm not sure how long it's been there ... wherever. But, I'm really disturbed that it made its way into my picture of the lake on this frigid morning. I think it's crude and intrusive. I think it's something that one might expect to see on the strip in Las Vegas next to one of those little chapels where Elvis can be your best man and Dolly Parton, your bridesmaid, if you're of a mind to get married -- (uh, heterosexuals only, of course.)

Tacky.

Anyway, the shot of the walking/running track (above this post) is pretty good. The track was covered -- at seven this morning -- with a layer of hard, packed ice.

By the way, it warmed up; the sun is shining and most of the two or so inches of snow that fell yesterday and overnight has already melted.

Gotta' find out about that damned sign though...

Snowing in Denver. Our Dwarf Spruce and Boxwoods today. 

And, So It Begins...

This, from the New York Times certainly provides a whisper of what's on the horizon.

Also disturbing, the Times reports that:

"While President Bush is spending the weekend here for the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, President Hu Jintao of China is here in the midst of a two-week visit to Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Cuba. In the course of it, he has announced more than $30 billion in new investments and signed long-term contracts that will guarantee China supplies of the vital materials it needs for its factories.

"The United States, preoccupied with the worsening situation in Iraq, seems to have attached little importance to China's rising profile in the region. If anything, increased trade between Latin America and China has been welcomed as a means to reduce pressure on the United States to underwrite economic reforms, with geopolitical considerations pushed to the background.
'On the diplomatic side, the Chinese are quietly but persistently and effectively operating just under the U.S. radar screen,' said Richard Feinberg, who was the chief Latin America adviser at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. 'South America is obviously drifting, and diplomatic flirtations with China would tend to underscore the potential for divergences with Washington.'

"Chinese investment and purchases are seen as vital for economies short on capital and struggling to emerge from a long slump. In Argentina earlier this week, for example, Mr. Hu announced nearly $20 billion in new investment in railways, oil and gas exploration, construction and communications satellites, a huge boost for a country whose economic vitality has been sapped since a financial collapse in December 2001.'"

And, Dubya's focus remains his hellish war in Iraq. And, oh yes, lately, he's actually begun showing signs that the nuclear potential of Iran and that nut in North Korea might, just might, be something worth taking a closer look at; besides, yes, BESIDES, of course, gay marriage and a woman's right to choose.

Why don't I have confidence in Condi Rice to understand the immensity of the geopolitical shifts that have seemed to creep up on us -- The Fog comes on little cat feet... (Carl Sandburg, The Fog). From the shadows, from the fog of Dubya's unflaggingly single-minded crusade against the evildoers, a quiet, but nonetheless realignment of the rest of the world's peoples is shifting toward something that will, most likely, leave America behind wallowing about in it's newly-sticky morass of moral value initiatives that, quite frankly, the rest of the world couldn't care a whit about.

The complexities of the emerging geopolitical realignment is as interesting as it is frightening. The inability of Dubya to understand that is downright scary.

Dallas: Another View

For what it's worth, two decades ago, I wrote a piece for our local gay rag which provided a short, but revealing snapshot of a business trip I'd taken to Dallas, Texas. Somehow, the piece seems relevant today; informative perhaps; revealing.

Dallas was hot and humid when I arrived there, three years ago, and then a day later, the city became cold and windy and there was rain which turned to sleet which coated my rental car with ice a half-inch thick.

Those Dallas days were filled with business and the nights were mine alone. And, I was alone, there in the city where John Kennedy was gunned down and where so many of the natives weren't all that upset to see the fair-haired liberal with his frenchified wife suffer the tragedy which befell them then on that November day in '63. And, I drove by the stone monolith in Dealy Plaza commemorating the death of a president and I studied it for a very long time wondering what the monolith was supposed to evoke from me. Sadness? Regret? A feel for the lines of the architecture? Pity for the conscience-suffering Dallasties who erected it? But, I felt nothing. I only remembered that I was very young when Kennedy died and that I cried watching the funeral on teevee when the coal-black, riderless horse pranced before the camera with its neck held high and it head nervously buffeting the air as if to say, "Let's get on with it." And, from those child's tears emerged a singular consciousness that life is seldom fair, that heroes pass with the blink of an eye and the sweet promises of one's Camelot end abruptly in the severe reality of places like Dallas, Texas.

Those Dallas days and nights of three years ago, when the hard, frigid wind rushed against my body and pelted my face with the sharp sting of frozen rain, are remembered as collage -- bits and pices of unfinished images; of conversations begun in mid-sentence and ending too soon for comprehension; of the search for the baths across railroad tracks going ... somewhere and under viaducts leading ... where?; of finding the baths -- two nights in a row -- and me, oh naive me, wanting to fuck with some fine-assed Texan who would whisper molasses-sweet words in my ear and finding instead some fine-assed salesman from St. Louis speaking the King's English as precisely as William F. Buckley; of the bar hopping and the rum and Cokes swizzled to the heavy beat of L.A. disco and finding the brothers looking like West Hollywood clones and acting like Studio One prima donnas; of the beautiful, brown-eyed illegal who sided up to me with a grin and ended up in my hotel room sharing a mutual fascination with the poetry of Jorje Borgas; of the business meetings accomplishing nothing and the quick glances from the male secretary in tight polyester who carried papers from his desk to the copier with the slightest, most discreet hint of a swish; of the endless meals in the finest restaurants; of the perpetual talk of the Big D this and the Big D that and Big Egos burning bright and hot and the shameless talk of niggers this and niggers that and the hopscotch maneuvers of this or that fat cat bathing in oil and flusing gold-handled toilets and eating caviar with tortilla chips; and, yes, finally, of the $20.00 cab ride to the biggest ariport past the biggest sports arena, past the biggest spread of development across that fine Texas prairie and boarding the biggest Texas International jumbo to head back to L.A.

It takes a while to get to the heart of a city; to get to the soul of a city where its vital essence is stored and meted out sparingly. In my several days in Dallas, I saw the surface only. In my several days in Dallas, I formed an impression which is unfair and superficial. I would like to go back and begin to really know the city ... if only I could transcend the deep, deep childish conviction that if Dallas had not been there in '63, the promise of John Kennedy might have been fulfilled; that if Dallas had not been there the sweet innocence of my youth might not have felt the premature passage of the wonderful possibility of dreams coming true.

Pike's Peak - Thoughts and Nonsense

This is a view of Pike's Peak from the Garden of the Gods, not far from Colorado Springs, which, incidentally, is the home of James Dobson's, Focus on the Family.

Hopefully, David and I and our friends will climb Pike's Peak in the spring which will be our second "Fourteener" at 14,109 feet above sea level. (Don't tell Dobson, though. He may push for a Constitutional Amendment to bar homa-sex-yalls from these national treasures. I mean -- as every hiker/mountain climber knows -- you gotta pee somewhere and just the thought of some sodomite soiling God's glory... )

A story in the New York Times this morning is not so much frightening for its content -- Iran's nuclear capabilities -- but, rather, that Iran is Dubya's next challenge ... Iran being, as our great leader told us some time ago, a wee little part of the Axis of Evil.

I wonder if he'll just decide to kill them all, like he's apparently decided to do in Iraq?

Oh, and did you hear that the third little notch on this Axis of Evil, North Korea, is wanting to sell weapons (probably nukes) to whomever has the bucks which, incidentally, might end up, in part, being Afghanian drug lords who, in 2004, had a pretty good year.

Yessir, Dubya's democracy in Afghanistan is pretty much being taken over by drug lords who planted 321,236 acres with poppy in 2004, a 64% increase over last year, we're told by the New York Times. The income from the trafficking of opium accounted for sixty -- that's 60 -- percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product; a third of the total economy.

And, what's Dubya going to do about it? Apparantly, we, us, the good ol' American taxpayer is going to give this insidiously corrupt country $780Million to combat the drug problem there.

Makes sense to me.

Finally, I'll let you take a look at this one yourself. This piece about Senator Arlen Specter reminded me of a line from i sing of Olaf (which I provided in total a few posts back) just popped into my head: "...Olaf (upon what were once knees) does almost ceaselessly repeat 'there is some shit I will not eat.'"

Well, Arlen is certainly on his knees and he's not only eating a whole lot of shit, he's spreading it around to appease the good Christians he sorely offended by suggesting that modifying a woman's right to choose may be difficult in Congress. He's even suggesting that the filibuster rule needs to be changed so those damned ol' Democrats can't hold-up the neo-con/Christian agenda.

Then there's House Republican leader Tom DeLay whose buddies (Republicans all) have modified their rules to allow an indicted Congressman (DeLay) to retain his leadership position. (No indictment yet, but you can never be too careful in protecting those moral values!)

Oh well... Thoughts and Nonsense. And, what a ride we're in for during Dubya's next four!