Democracy for New Mexico

Sound Off: Time for Outrage at Emperor Bush

This Soundoff is from Tom Solomon:

My friends,

It is time to be outraged.

By ordering the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens without a judicial warrant, Bush has gone too far. He is clearly violating the law. He believes his authority is unconstrained by the Constitution he swore to uphold, and like Napoleon, he has crowned himself King. Well he is not our king, he is not our emperor and he is not above the law.

This is the time, if no other, when we must make our outraged voices heard. This is a democracy, damn it, with a Constitution that places checks and balances on our government. The people rule here, not Emperor Bush.

Our Senators and Representatives must exercise their oversight authority and demand that this illegal behavior be stopped and stopped immediately. We should flood their phone lines and email in-boxes with our outrage at this illegal violation of American's civil rights.

I urge you to take a few minutes today to call our NM Senators and Representatives and tell them in no uncertain terms what you feel. Please make it clear that they should require President Bush to:

a. immediately reverse this directive on domestic spying
b. promise to desist in the future from warrantless spying on Americans
c. cooperate fully with a bi-partisan investigation of the policy
d. release the texts of the directives along with the legal opinions they were based on
e. identify to the Senate all residents of the US who were targets of unconstitutional spying

Here are the phone numbers to call:
Representative Heather Wilson   DC: (202) 225-6316  or ABQ: (505) 346-6781
Senator Pete Domenici   DC:  (202) 224-6621 or ABQ  (505) 346-6791
Senator Jeff Bingaman  DC: (202) 224-5521 or ABQ (505) 988-6647
And in Sandoval County and points north,
Representative Tom Udall   DC: (202) 225-6190 or ABQ (505) 984-8950

It is also easy to send them emails by using Congress.org.

Please let's raise an enormous stink about this. Bush has placed himself above the law, and above the people. It is time to remind him who he works for.

Good background information, if you want to know more: Raw Story article; LA Times editorial.

Editor's Note: According to another article on Raw Story, Sen. Barbara Boxer Boxer said she's asked "four presidential scholars" for their opinion on impeachment after former White Housel counsel John Dean -- made famous by his role in revealing the Watergate tapes -- asserted that President Bush had 'admitted' to an 'impeachable offense.' Also Senator Robert Byrd has released a scathing statement about the administration's intelligence abuses. And the LA Times reports the NY Times had the info on this story BEFORE the 2004 presidential election.

High Tech Explosives Stolen in NM

ABC News reports that ATF agents are investigating the theft of 400 pounds of powerful explosives and 2500 detonators from Cherry Enginering, a company owned by Chris Cherry, for decades the senior explosives scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. Not good news.

UPDATES: Here's a 12/20/05 update on this story by ABC News. This story states the explosives theft was one of the largest in recent history, that the buildings where it took place just Southwest of Albuquerque did not have surveillance cameras or security guards in place and that the robbery was the second over the past two years at the location. The thieves apparently used blowtorches to access the storage trailers. The amount of stolen explosives would be enough to match the bomb that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building. The Santa Fe New Mexican also provides additional details on the crime.

Here's a 12/21/05 update in the Albuquerque Tribune that describes hightened security in Albuquerque as a result of the theft.

Republican Horrors for the Holidays

This Washington Post article details the horrors contained in the "defense spending bill" and a budget bill filled with stealth attacks on ordinary people and wildlife. The bills were passed during an all-night House pressure session by Republicans still enamored with voodoo economics and drilling the hell out of one of the last pristine wildlife refuges in the nation. Quote:

"I don't know what the poor, the elderly, the disabled or our foster children have done to Republicans to deserve this. And I don't know why the Republicans would wait until the pre-dawn hours of the morning, just a few days before Christmas, to show just how mean-spirited they can be, but they've given us a clear view of Republican economics at work," fumed Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

To help pay for the continuing massive tax cuts for the richest segments of the investor class, as well as out-of-control, no-bid military spending, Republicans pushed through a budget that cuts Medicare, Medicaid, student loans, foster care aid, child support enforcement and other positive, human needs-based programs to the tune of almost $40 billion. Merry Christmas ordinary Americans, as Bill O'Reilly is so fond of spinning. According to the WP article:

Tens of thousands of low-income Americans are likely to lose health coverage under the measure, and many millions will face premiums, deductibles and co-payments for the first time, said Jocelyn Guyer, senior program director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

And by jamming an inappropriate measure into the so-called defense spending bill, Republican oil company shills gained approval for opening the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

I can't wait to see how the rightwingnut pseudo-religious types will sell these moves as supportive of "family values" and "biblical morality." When in doubt, trash the environment and gouge our poorest and most at-risk citizens to maximize your butt kissing of rich elites. Does the bible recommend this kind of selfish, corrupt brutality, or is it just God talking directly to Hastert and Dubya?

Of course it could have been worse:

In late-night budget negotiations, the total savings from the budget bill fell by nearly $1 billion after Republican leaders -- at the insistence of Ohio lawmakers -- dropped a measure that would have lowered subsidies for medical oxygen tanks delivered under Medicaid.

Negotiations on these travesties now move to the Senate. If this isn't a place and time for Democrats to take an unrelenting stand against the Republican Party's morally bankrupt actions and unfair tactics, I don't know what is. Repubs are banking on the expectation that Dems won't dare to hold up the defense spending bill because it includes war spending, bird flu funds and hurricane relief measures. I'd say it's time to call their bluff and spend the Congressional recess explaining in no uncertain terms why it had to be done. Dems Senators, including our own Senator Jeff Bingman, took a strong stance by holding up the extension of the Patriot Act the other day. Let's hope they take a similar tack with these horrors.

Best of the Best

Once again it's that time of year when all those 'best of the year' lists appear. Here's a source that brings hundreds of the best of them together in one place. There are categories for words, books, films, DVDs, toys, gadgets, art, online, people, ideas, music, photos and more, and entries will be updated with additional suggestions from site visitors.

And what year-end summary would be complete without the latest animation from Jib-Jab?

Shameless Shopping

Time to offer a few suggestions for holiday gifts with a positive spin. Unlike shopping at the usual corporate culprits, these choices support our friends or our causes.

First up, Buffalo Lights, a new book by John Farr -- writer, web designer, blogger, artist, musician and vibrant Taoseno -- who generously provides our luscious daily FotoFeed at the top right of this page:

If it's snowing in the sunshine, the devil is beating his wife." That's what the locals say, and after six years of struggle and adventure in the terrible beauty of northern New Mexico, writer John H. Farr is ready to believe in anything except complacency.

The eagle screams just before the new millennium, when John and his wife leave everything they know in Maryland to make a living via modem in what turns out to be the frontier, before the dot.com boom goes bust. Mud, fire, drought, and freezing cold are nothing compared to the inner landscape of the soul. Careening from perilous insight to joy and back again, he finds his own soul laid bare against the mountains and the clear blue skies.

Click for Buffalo Lights order info.

Tom and Meredith Hughes, creators of the infamous Food Museum and Potato Museum whom many of you know from their days as Foodies for Dean, have a new book out tracing the history of French food. Gastronomie! Food Museums and Heritage Sites of France is the first extensive exploration ever of French food historic sites:

No one else delivers you this kind of book, food-lovers, packed with colorful photos from our trek and from The FOOD Museum's collections. We traveled over 10,000 kilometers around France ( someone had to do it) to bring you the backstory of French food.

France, the mother country of Western cuisine, is the home of more museums about food, and more initiatives to preserve food heritage traditions and sites, than any other.

Explore the Saffron Museum in Boynes, the world food museum at Agropolis in Montpellier, the ruins of a huge Roman mill outside Arles, the Olive Museum in Nyons, the fig orchards of Sollies-Pont, the oyster beds of Ile d'Oleron, the turkey parade and festival in Licques, the village ovens of Bugey, the Chocolate Museum in Biarritz, the Newfoundland Fishing Museum in Fecamp, the Honey Museum in Gramont, the melon statue in Cavaillon, the truffle market in Lalbenque, and more. And sample a few choice recipes, as well.

Click for ordering information and more.

Another excellent choice is the latest CD from my good friend Liz Melendez, born and raised in Albuquerque and now one of the top blues and rock musicians in Atlanta:

Her guitar playing has been compared to everyone from Carlos Santana to Stevie Ray Vaughan and her voice has been compared to everyone from Bonnie Raitt to Janis Joplin.

A prolific songwriter and dynamic performer, Melendez has garnered a sizeable following touring the southeast and beyond. She has headlined major festivals such as Riverbend Music Festival's Bessie Smith Strut in Chattanooga (the only female headliner in Riverbend history besides Koko Taylor), and co-headlined major festivals such as the Cape Fear Blues Festival in Wilmington, N.C. and the Blues 2003 Festival in New York and been invited to open for artists like the Nappy Roots. She has performed on stage with such notables as Bob Margolin, Henry Butler, Francine Reed, E.G. Kight, and former Freddie King keyboardist, Dave Maxwell.

Her tasty electric guitar and vocals can be found on Sweet Southern Soul. She also burns up the tracks on her earlier CD, Mercy. Check out her website at www.lizmelendez.com and click for ordering info.

A few folks from New Orleans and beyond put together a website to help New Orleans help itself after the devastating hurricane.  They believe the surest way to rebuild the city, attract residents and bring back visitors is to rebuild the economy one store and business at a time. Shop New Orleans is geared to helping provide jobs for NOLA residents and tax revenue for the city and state. A couple favorites of mine from their site: photos of New Orleans musicians to benefit hurricane relief for New Orleans musicians; and Christmas in New Orleans ornaments and more at The Nostalgic New Orleans Collection Shop.

Other choices: gifts or memberships from the links under the heading Responsible Shopping. Scroll down and check out the right-hand sidebar on this page. And of course, shopping at locally owned shops in Nob Hill, Old Town or other locations in Albuquerque or other locally owned merchants around the state helps New Mexican small business owners and those they employ. Why support those who work against our causes when you can provide a few bucks to those who do?

Join Call on Alito's America Today

From Alito's America and the Center for American Progress:
President Bush has nominated Samuel Alito, a judge with a long record of judicial extremism, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been the crucial moderate voice and swing vote on the Supreme Court. The Alito’ s America campaign is bringing CNN commentator Paul Begala together with other experts and writers to discuss the dangers of Judge Alito and his right-wing ideology to the future of all Americans.

Joining Begala will be prominent progressive bloggers Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft and Judd Legum of ThinkProgress, as well as David Halperin, the director of Campus Progress and a senior VP at the Center for American Progress.

Our guests will discuss Samuel Alito’s long history of judicial extremism, the implications his nomination holds for the rights of Americans, and strategies for progressives.

Alito’s America Conference Call
Wednesday, Dec 14
1:00 PM MST
Call Number: (888) 665-1701
Conference ID: 3461465

The Alito’s America campaign is a project of Campus Progress (www.campusprogress.org/) and the American Progress Action Fund (www.AmericanProgressAction.org). The campaign includes a website, www.AlitosAmerica.org, with information about Judge Alito’s record and a 90-second video unlike anything else produced in Washington, DC. The campaign also includes a Photo Petition, campus speaking events, and other grassroots activities.

Callers are encouraged to ask questions following brief remarks by:

• Paul Begala, the “voice from the left” on CNN’s The Situation Room
• Jeralyn Merritt, Creator and Principal Author, TalkLeft
• David Halperin, Director, Campus Progress, and Senior Vice President, Center for American Progress
• Judd Legum, Editor, ThinkProgress, and Research Director, Center for American Progress

We will also discuss developments in the Alito’s America campaign. Please take a look at the site, watch the ad, and join the call.

Sign Petition to Support Rep. Holt's Fair Elections Bill

There's alot of work going on within New Mexico and nationwide to try to ensure fair elections where our votes are counted accurately. If we can't feel confident about this, is our democracy actually working? We know the answer.

That's why HR 550 is important. There's a petition on Rep. Rush Holt's web site to support this election reform bill, which he sponsored. The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550) would:

• *Mandate a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast in every federal election, nationwide; because the voter verified paper record is the only one verified by the voters themselves, rather than by the machines, it will serve as the vote of record in any case of inconsistency with electronic records;
• Protect the accessibility requirements of the Help America Vote Act for voters with disabilities;
• Require random, unannounced, hand-count audits of actual election results in every state, and in each county, for every Federal election;
• Prohibit the use of undisclosed software and wireless and concealed communications devices and internet connections in voting machines;
• Provide Federal funding to pay for implementation of voter verified paper balloting; and
• Require full implementation by 2006

Not unexpectedly, the bill is currently stalled in the House Administration Committee and needs a boost. Today, blogs around the nation are posting information on HR 550 and urging their readers to sign the petition and contact their Congressional reps to urge them to sign up as cosponsors of the bill. It's also a good idea to contact members of the House Administration Committee to light a fire under them about this issue. CapWiz provides an easy way to contact members of Congress. You know what to do.

Join the Citizen Petition to Preserve our National Forests

From the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance:
Join millions of Americans who've shown their support for the Roadless Rule — sign the Roadless Petition today! Help stop federal plans favoring logging and mining in the last pristine areas of our national forests, including 1.6 million acres in New Mexico!

When you sign, you'll be telling the Bush Administration to reinstate the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which it repealed in May, 2005 in spite of an earlier pledge to uphold the rule.

Your voice will help ensure that areas like the Pecos and Gila National Forest in New Mexico stay roadless, and that other wild National Forests across America also stay protected for future generations to come. SIGN the Citizen's Petition TODAY here!

What's At Stake:

More than 58.5 million acres of roadless National Forests are on the chopping block, including 1.6 million acres right here in New Mexico!

To learn more about the Roadless Rule, please visit the website of the Heritage Forest Campaign: https://www.ourforests.org/roadless/about_roadless.html

Watch "Earth to America" Comedy Benefit Sunday on TBS

From NRDC's EARTH ACTION:
NRDC board member and Stop Global Warming Virtual March founder Laurie David has created "Earth to America" -- a televised star-studded evening of comedy and music to raise environmental awareness.

Sunday, November 20th, 6:00 PM (Mountain Time)
TBS (Comcast Channel 43)

"Earth to America" will feature Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Will Ferrell, Martin Short, Ben Stiller, Ray Romano, Jack Black and Larry David. Jason Alexander, Stephen Colbert, Rob Corddry, Al Franken, Eric Idle, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kevin Nealon, Conan O'Brien, Wanda Sykes and Robin Williams are also scheduled to appear. In addition, country music superstars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill will perform.

The show will be taped this week at "The Comedy Festival" at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. In addition to the comedy and musical entertainment, "Earth to America" will honor environmental heroes, including NRDC senior attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"Earth to America" began as "Earth to LA," a bi-annual Los Angeles fundraiser produced by Laurie David to benefit NRDC; the show has raised millions of dollars over the past several years. As Laurie says, "Comedy can be a very powerful tool to entertain and to educate, and that is the goal for Earth to America."

About NRDC: The Natural Resources Defense Council is a nonprofit environmental organization
with more than one million members and online activists, and a staff of scientists, attorneys and environmental experts. Our mission is to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.

For more information about NRDC or how to become a member of NRDC, please contact us at:

Natural Resources Defense Council
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-727-4511 (voice) / 212-727-1773 (fax)
Email: nrdcaction@nrdc.org
https://www.nrdc.org

Also visit:
BioGems -- Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
https://www.savebiogems.org

Veteran's Day War Stories

Editor's Note: I've posted a rather long story about my memories of veterans in my family. If you have any you'd like to share on this Veteran's Day, post them in the comments section below.

As I was having my coffee this Veteran's Day morning, memories of family members who served in the military came bubbling up. Many of the men in my family served in the U.S Navy.

My grandfather, Max, was a Navy diver during World War I. He wore one of those unwieldy metal helmets and bulky dive suits of the era, and ended up with a severe case of the bends. According to doctors, this shortened his life considerably, and he died at 45 from liver and kidney problems. I never knew him, but always heard that he never spoke much about his service. By all accounts he returned from the war a changed man, prone to a world-weary wildness during the Roaring Twenties and beyond in a speakeasy-filled Chicago that slid into the brutal throes of the Great Depression.

My Uncle Bob served as a radar man on a Navy destroyer at the tail end of the Korean War. Although he saw some heated shelling and combat on the seas, most of his service consisted of traveling around the globe on post-war good will tours to foreign ports. He would show up back in the old immigrant neighborhood in uniform, on leave, when I was very young. I thought he was the most handsome man in the world in his Navy whites. He never spoke much about the war itself, but was full of yarns about exotic ports of call, characters he had met around the world and rowdy Navy traditions that accompanied nautical events like crossing the equator for the first time. When the winter windows would frost up, he would show off his radar man skill of writing backwards, like radar techs used to do on glass to communicate with those on the other side. He made us giggle and imagine, to lust for travel, for history, for adventure.

My Uncle Vito was a Navy cook during WW II, which instilled in him a lifelong love of cooking. The only problem was he always cooked massive quantities, as he had in the service. This irked my Aunt Esther no end. After all, she was the one left to handle the cleanup mess detail. Uncle Vito's specialities included huge pots of Italian delicacies like snails and clams and dandelion greens and spaghetti sauce made with pigs' feet or chicken necks. I never heard any battle stories out of him. He, too, died young. Of a heart attack, while tending his garden, with his tiny grandson toddling nearby. Just like Brando's Godfather in the movie.

My uncle Artie served in the WW II Army infantry in Italy. He had some fingers blown off when he grabbed a live grenade and tossed it away from himself and his fellow soldiers, no doubt saving lives. He had little feeling in that hand and was always suffering unexpected cuts and burns on it during his factory work. Looking at the mashed results of the grenade always scared me. He'd just laugh and say, "oh, it's nothing. I'm alive!"

Iwo Jima beachhead

I know the most about the military service of my late father, Bill, who joined the Navy during World War II and was quickly attached to the Marines as a medical corpsman. He was 21 years old. After a short course of rushed medical training, he eventually ended up in the truly horrific beach landing and battle for Iwo Jima in the Pacific. He, too, was very reticent to talk about his service, but over the years I managed to piece together some facts about it. Most of his fellow corpsmen didn't make it out alive. The Japanese forces had a strategy of wounding Marines in order to draw out the medics to come to their rescue. Then they'd proceed to kill the medics.

At Thanksgiving, the smell of the turkey being prepared somehow reminded my dad of the smell of flesh during the Marine's long "mop-up" of the labyrinth of caves and underground tunnels on Iwo, using flame throwers and explosives to destroy the Japanese military survivors who wouldn't surrender. He always got slightly sick with memories for a time on this day and could never stay in the kitchen for long.

On rare occasions my dad would allow us to examine some of the souvenires he brought home from the war. Wrinkled Japanese paper money and darkened coins, an ornate Japanese comb, his medals, photos from bootcamp and of servicemen playing volleyball on Hawaiian beaches and standing outside their tents on Okinawa, a Marine yearbook, a small Rising Sun flag, a thick piece of window glass from a downed plane made into a heart with a piece of metal down the center that created a rainbow effect when held up to the light. As a child these things always smelled ancient to me, with a strong undertone of ruin and mystery. My father always handled them with sad reverence rather than joy or pride. Melancholy would seem to overwhelm him, and he'd quickly put the memorabilia away and become silent.

When I was older, I'd sometimes question him about his war experiences, and once in a great while he'd speak about them quietly. About the feelings of extreme helplessness when he had been unable to do much when Marines he knew were dying in incredible pain in his arms. Of the intestines erupting from live bodies and missing, bleeding limbs and atrocious head injuries and other serious wounds he had to try and patch with only a yeoman's level of medical experience and knowledge. Of the strange fungi that latched onto Marines on Iwo, eating their flesh during the 36-day battle on hot, ashy, lava soil, with no chance to wash or change your clothes or socks. Sometimes Marines endured holes caused by fungus that went right through their torsos. My dad, himself, had a permanent case of fungus on his feet from the battle. I can still see him soaking his feet every night in a basin of hot water and epsom salts.

The only time I heard any happy war stories from him was when we once paid a visit to one of his fellow corpsmen from Iwo Jima in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Corpsman Wright was more than 6 feet tall and kept his Jack Daniels in the Frigerator and his bad memories at bay. When the adults had a few whiskey highballs on our first night there, funny stories about youthful escapades in the Marines tumbled out one after another. We were fascinated with tales of my dad being rowdy and risque, a sharp contrast to the straightlaced and responsible father we knew, loved and sometimes even feared. I remember clearly how my father blushed during the retellings.

As the night wore on, however, both my father and his Marine buddy became more and more morose and depressed. After that first night, no more war stories were shared. It became so powerfully clear to me, as a 14-year old, how many intense and conflicting emotions were connected to their war experiences. I'm sure many veterans are in the throes of similar emotional knots on any Veteran's Day, including this one. As are their families.

This conflict came to a head for many vets during the Viet Nam War. I remember so many angry and volatile discussions between my brother and I and my dad about Viet Nam and what true patriotism demanded from Americans. So much division in the nation and in its families. Yet, as the war progressed, my father changed his mind. I thought it showed alot of courage. He and my mom ended up traveling to Washington to participate in one of the huge antiwar marches in the late 60s. My father carried one of his medals when he marched. And a large American flag.

Corpsman Wright died young at 56 from chronic alcoholism. My dad died at 55 from stomach cancer. I can't help but think that their painful and profound war experiences were a primary cause of their early deaths, and of their often uncomfortable emotional lives. As my father grew closer to death, he insisted that only one person he knew would be right for the task of conducting a service when he passed. He was one of his surviving friends from the medical corps -- a man who was unable or unwilling to deal with the rough and tumble of the business world after Iwo, and who had become a missionary of sorts after the war.

The reverend and his wife served in various missions built to minister to street people, the poor, alcoholics and vets down on their luck. My father wasn't a religious man, though his spiritual and humanist tendencies were strong. He wanted his old comrade to conduct the memorial service not because of the minister's religious standing but because, even after all the intervening years, he felt closest to those who had intimately shared his service and suffering during the war.

The reverend did conduct the memorial service, and gave quite an eloquent speech about what the medics had witnessed and the confusing emotional aftermath that unfolded afterwards. It was held in one of those well-used missions filled with stories of woe and redemption. My brother and his musician friends performed George Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord' after the speech. My dad's old friends sang the Marine Hymn. Like the convoluted feelings of vets and their families, like the coexisting pain and pride of service caused by war, like the continuing conflicting views about using force or not, the memorial service was a juxtaposition of opposing elements. A jumble of contrasting traditions. A metaphor for another Veteran's Day mired in another grinding war and rememberances of the wounds gone unhealed from the ones that came before. War is over if you want it. Peace.