Paul Smith's Surprise

By J.P. Bone

Pemberville, Ohio 1910

Emma Smith was a teetotaler. She did not approve of liquor and thought it was God's most useless creation after Adam. Her husband Allen, in contrast, thought liquor served a useful purpose, primarily medicinal, if only properly dispensed. He would soak a string of rock candy in whiskey and suck on the medication whenever he had a cold, declaring its merits as a home remedy. It did not occur to him that his wife took note of how often he was afflicted with colds and flu, not to mention rheumatism and gout, all diseases which he claimed were easily cured with a little rock candy soaked in the proper medication.

Emma and Allen Smith had a son they called Paul. Emma maintained he was named after the Apostle, but Allen, who suggested the name and the pious association, secretly had an old friend in mind the day Paul was born. Though Allen hadn't seen his buddy in many years, he hoped one day they would meet up again. Just the thought brought a smile to his face. "If I ever do meet that rascal again, I better make damn sure I call him by his nickname in front of Emma," Allen thought.

Paul was an average lad; there was nothing remarkable about him except perhaps his ears, which lent him a certain dignity, giving him the appearance of a trophy. Paul was aware of his mother's views regarding alcohol having heard them recited in bits and pieces and on a daily basis over the span of his ten years on the planet. He was also aware of his father's attempts to circumvent such opinions while avoiding a direct confrontation.

Though just a child, Paul knew the Smith men--his daddy included--would never dare directly confront their wives. From birth all seemed to instinctively know women were superior to men, which in the case of the Smiths wasn't saying much. The truth is the Smith men had the character and moral fiber of an old wet dog looking for a bone.

Emma Smith used to say "Help me JESUS but the Smith men are living PROOF men descended from the apes!" Despite repeated efforts by women to "purify" the Smith men by attempting to breed the devil out of them, after five generations and thirty-two women, the Smith men remained as useless as ever.

Allen and young Paul tested Emma's faith in a way that made Satan optimistic. Poor Emma was convinced that all of her days of labor and sacrifice would be for nothing and that young Paul would grow up to be just like his papa and his papa's papa. That's the way it seemed to her until one day when they had company over for supper...

The whole thing started one winter's day when Paul spent a day in the attic.

Paul played there many an afternoon in the dead of winter when it was too cold outside to ride a sled or throw a snowball at some hapless clerk who happened by. A vast assortment of gadgets and gizmos awaited him up there in the attic; there were chests of clothes and hats and coats, busted lamps and pots and pans, big dusty bottles and broken mirrors. Young Paul and his brother Harry would play for hours on end making forts, inventing fanciful machines and discovering buried treasure.

On one such winter's day, Paul and Harry played just a little longer than they should have. Both felt the unmistakable need to relieve themselves but just did not have the time to run downstairs, across the living room and out the back door through the snow to the outhouse. Paul noticed a big dusty bottle next to a broken mirror and suddenly had the inspiration to fill it up to the brim, seeing as how it was about a cup shy. So he did what he could to right what seemed to be a wrong, filling a void so to speak. Harry, being the younger of the two, did his best to make a contribution. Then Paul carefully stuffed the cork back into the bottle. And just in the nick of time, too, since the two brothers were unexpectedly attacked by a pirate ship.

Paul didn't think much about the bottle after that: It just kinda sat up there in the attic with memories and moths, gathering dust for the longest time like some sort of an Egyptian artifact.

TIME PASSED SLOWLY as it used to back then. Summer came with its long warm days spent fishing in the lake, swimming in the river, chasing dogs and playing baseball. Another winter passed as well. A blizzard rocked Ohio that year, and Paul's Aunt Nell froze to death when her carriage broke down on the way home from church. Still, for the most part, except for school, Paul was pretty much content; he played with his brother and his friends and ate his mother's cookin' and listened to his father's stories. And though from time to time he had to put up with some quarreling--mostly about the Bible and drinkin'--Paul Smith lived a damn good life. He was probably too happy to even realize it. He had enough food in his belly, a warm bed at night and lots of time on his hands.

Then one day Paul's father had an unexpected visitor--an old army buddy he hadn't seen for twenty-some odd years. Allen Smith's long lost pal wore a big furry overcoat, a waxed moustache and a sly grin which seemed to spell trouble to Emma, who looked him up and down like he was a traveling salesman. The reunion called for a celebration, and Allen knew just how to welcome his long lost friend. He scampered up the stairs to the attic and reemerged with a smile and a big bottle of a very special wine he had been saving for just such an occasion.

Young Paul's heart dropped and he felt the temperature in the room soar. He glanced at his brother Harry and right away noticed he was having trouble breathing. They did not know what to do: if they confessed their crimes, most certainly the would get a whippin' from a stick of their pickin', if they remained silent, their dear old dad and his friend would surely discover their mischief and their punishment would be all the greater.

Being Smiths, Paul and his brother were not so much troubled by the moral ramifications of their situation as they were disturbed by the likely practical implications of their predicament. Moreover, they knew if they didn't act quickly, in all likelihood they would be sent to bed, their father telling them the only supper they would receive that night would be the "food for thought" he etched into their backsides.

They did the only thing they could under the circumstances, being Smith men in training: They sheepishly begged a woman for help.

"Ma!" the boys cried, tugging at their mother's apron. Emma watched her husband and his long lost friend wipe the dust off the big old bottle of wine. She shook her head in disgust.

"Ma, please! Don't let Pa drink that wine!" Paul pleaded, still tugging at his mother's apron.

"I can't help it if you're father is weak," Emma said as she tended to some errand which in her mind was far more important than the foolishness of her husband and his "long lost" friend.

"No, Momma, please!" Paul insisted, gripped as he was by fear and trepidation and the prospect of no supper.

Emma, who watched her husband with great attention to detail as he sat at the table and poured two glasses of wine, suddenly sensed that her son--despite his Smithness--might actually have something significant to say.

"What's wrong, son?"

Paul swallowed hard. "It's just that . . ."

Emma's eyes began to glow with anticipation.

"Yes Paul, what IS it?"

Paul clasped his hands behind his back and bowed his head. "It's just that--it's just..." Emma began to tap her right foot as if she was markin' time to a march, and Paul KNEW he had to face the music. "Well…it's just that…well, me and Harry, we peed in that bottle…"

Emma raised her eyebrows, turned and watched as her husband and his friend raised their glasses in the air. "I'd like to propose a toast to my old army buddy Pa… I mean STONEwall," Allen said. Emma stood up straight as if the Lord had called her. "Yes that's right… a toast to my buddy STONEwall. What a guy! It's great to see you again after all these years!"

The two old friends smiled and clinked their glasses together. They looked into each other's eyes and laughed, sharing some secret memory. This aggravated Emma all the more since she KNEW it had to be something EVIL they were remembering. Emma watched as her husband and his long lost friend tilted their glasses back against their lips. Her eyes were burning, though young Paul thought he sensed some pleasure in his mother's otherwise grim expression.

Paul waited for his mother to say something. But she just stood there and nodded her head with satisfaction as her husband and his long lost friend gulped their wine down. Young Paul was properly mortified, which brought his mother untold gratification.

"But Mama!"

"Hush, child!" Emma said, her eyes aglow, bathed in the light of glory. "It serves em right..." And that night it seemed to young Paul that his mother enjoyed the wine more than the menfolk...

Paul could do little else but watch his old man and his long lost friend as they finished off that big old bottle of wine. After they had a couple of drinks, Paul figured his old man was getting kinda confused and possibly even intoxicated since he kept calling Stonewall Paul. But he didn't attach too much importance to such things, though it did seem to agitate his mother.

Well the two men told stories and drank and slapped each other on the back, their discussions lasting late into the night. It seemed to young Paul that on most things, though both men had supposedly been at the same place at the same time, one would have never known it: they didn't agree as to the facts of the stories, the time of day nor even the years that certain events transpired. But there was one subject upon which they happily reached a consensus: both Paul's daddy and his long lost friend Stonewall agreed the bottle of wine they drank that night was the finest either had ever consumed.

Defending Hillary (and Bill)

By Bob Schildgen

When are the right-wing bloggers and their fans gonna get over the Clintons? They just don't let up spewing out the nastiest hatred of the Clintons and zinging it around cyberspace. Really vicious stuff, a lot of taunts about sex.

Imagine 100 years from now. Alien beings attack Earth, poised to take over the planet. The descendants of these right wing idiots no longer have to use Fox or other such primitive technology to make their deranged attacks, they can actually holler directly into your brain through electrodes embedded there. These sons and daughters of the counter-revolution would scream, "It's the goddam Clintons' fault! That damn Hillary, that brazen crypto-lesbo liberal bitch. She sold us out to these alien beings! She’s Satan’s whore I tell you, she made a pact with the Devil, Bill was her pimp and that’s why we’re being attacked!"

The current day neo-fascists are sexual deviants, that much is obvious. But the latest Clinton bash e-mailed by my favorite right-wing informant is kind of a relief, being about death instead of sex. It's a list of 47 people associated with the Clintons all of whom died by gunshot wound, suicide, stabbing, or in some other violent manner, e.g.,

1-James McDougal - Clinton's convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation.

2 -Mary Mahoney - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown. The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House.

3- Vince Foster - Former White House councilor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock's Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.

Well, ALMOST all of them. After number 35, who got killed in a "set-up robbery," the compiler runs out of steam, and merely lists a dozen Clinton bodyguards who are dead, without explaining how they checked out. But they are dead, and any dead person who knew the Clintons could've been their victim, or the victim of a friend of Clinton's who the Clintons haven't yet killed but probably will to cover up the earlier hit that they authorized.
The message concludes ominously, in big letters and color, "Pass this on. Let the public become aware of what happens to friends of the Clinton's!

HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT? SURELY YOU JEST!!

Are you sure YOU'RE safe, or do you qualify as a friend of "the Clinton's." You never know. You might not be safe just declaring your non-friend statues. To keep their hitmen from whacking you, you must go read "Preempting Hillary," my mean-spirited attack on Hillary that details her real crime story--her vote for a pointless, evil, and expensive war that killed over 3,000 U.S. and coalition soldiers and maybe 100,000 ordinary Iraqi men, women, and children. Then forward this piece to everybody you know. That should keep you safe.

Just to put things in perspective, I mentioned this sobering data, and referred him to the article. I also included a list of the first 47 troops killed in Iraq, to drive home the point.

(You can find a complete list of the dead soldiers at www.icasualties.org/oif/Civ.aspx But be careful. It can bring you to tears to read through it and see how young most of them and how many came from small towns, and how the only chance they had to see the world was go to boot camp and Iraq.)

Then I got all worried about his security. Since he seems to like war and admires all things military, maybe when he reads this he'll start to love Hillary like a fellow warrior, and turn around and become a FRIEND OF THE CLINTONS and put himself in harm's way. But to my great relief, I realized he'll soon get another right-wing e-mail to set him straight, saying, "Yeah, sure, Hillary's a warrior all right, but she's one of those ancient man-hating lesbo warriors like the Amazons, that ruthless tribe of brassy ballbusters that'd slice off a breast so it wouldn't get in the way when they pulled the arrow to cock the bow"--and he'll be safe and sound, back on the list of non-friends of the Clintons, fuming about self-inflicted mastectomies and heartless feminist agendas.

After putting my mind at ease, I got to poking and pestering some numbers and discovered that the original right-wing Clinton statistic DON'T MEAN JACK DOODLY anyhow if you actually do the math. Every year in the USA there are about 6,000 killed on the job, 16,000 murders, 32,000 suicides, 42,000 car-accident fatalities, and 120,000 deaths from botched surgeries or misuse of medications. That adds up to 216,000 deaths a year that you COULD blame on evil-doers—and that's not even counting assorted suspicious fatalities, like home and playground accidents, unclassified freak accidents, and the fatal results of broken hips, which are always blamed on old age and osteoporosis, etc., when they might emanate from sinister political forces. OK. With a population that averages out to about 250,000,000 over the past 40 years (200 million in 1970 almost 300 million today) that's about one "mysterious" death per year for every 1157 people you know. So if you knew just 1157 folks over a 40-year period YOU TOO could be hooked up to almost 40 "mysterious" deaths! Of course the Clintons know and have known way MORE people than you do (Good Lord, they've probably hugged more babies than your total), so the Clintons' 47 possibly-strange-and mysterious-death-toll is actually WAY LOWER than average, and the REST OF US are the truly murderous ones!!

On top of playing with these numbers, I launched into some gory rememberings: Over the past 40 years, I've known about 20 people who were murdered, and a lot more who committed suicide, so I too could be responsible for whacking even more people than the Clintons. But I swear, I DIDN'T ORDER A SINGLE ONE OF THESE EXECUTIONS! Honest!!! Please, please, please, don't jump to conclusions and spam your e-pals with a report of these crimes!

Oh, I'm not going to send my informant these mathematical items, because they could lure him back to Clinton friendship and possible mysterious death.

Patriotism Betrayed: Reflections of a Military Parent

By Rob Ham

In many ways, my son is the “All American Kid”. He played little league and soccer. He was a Boy Scout and a Sea Scout and, from the time he was small, it was his stated intention to join the military.

He was not seduced by college assistance or any of the other benefits that lure young people into the service. My son simply wanted to serve. It is a sort of tradition in my family. Many of our men served. It started with the Second World War. My fathers and uncles were drafted or joined and served in both major theaters. I had cousins in Viet Nam and another cousin who served in both Gulf Wars. I served too, but not in a very heroic way. I did my bit to stop Soviet expansion by drinking beer and eating schnitzel in Germany for three years.

When my son turned seventeen, he announced that he wanted to enter a National Guard program that allows one to receive basic training between his junior and senior year then complete advanced training after graduation. We talked about this at length, it was post 9/11 and US forces were engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. I first tried to talk him out of it. I was (and am) very much against the war in Iraq and I knew he would eventually find himself there or in Afghanistan at the very least.

My son does not share my politics and insisted he wanted to do his part. I then tried to talk him into the Navy or Coast Guard; at least it would be safer. He insisted on the Army. He invoked my and my family’s past service and declared that it was his turn.

“So there is a war on” he once said to me, “That’s my hard luck, it’s my turn”.

I signed the consent form with a heavy heart. I could have refused but I was not willing to deny my son something he felt so strongly about and he was very close to his eighteenth birthday anyway when I would be irrelevant, legally speaking. I always told him that I respected his intelligence as well as his devotion to honor so I felt bound to consent. I truly believe that to not do so would have caused irreparable harm to my relationship with him and would not have stopped him from going anyway. He would not be whole unless he served. How could I deny him that?

My son went through his training then graduated high school and went on to his advanced training. He made the decision to join the regular Army and became a medic assigned to the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York. He left in late January of 2006. My wife drove him to the airport to catch his plane to Fort Drum. On the way they stopped at my job so I could say good-bye. I shook his hand then gave him a hug and off he went. It was all I could do to hold back tears for the remainder of my shift. These were bitter tears indeed. By March, he was in Afghanistan.

When I was in the service I often wondered how my family would have felt if I was serving in Viet Nam or some other war zone. I now know, they would have been worried sick 24-7.

At first it was really hard. I became obsessed with Afghanistan. I read every article and Internet piece I could lay my hands on. I remember the first American killed after my son was “in-country”. It was agony for about a week until my son called home. During that call he told me that the Army shuts down communication with the outside world when a GI is killed so the family doesn’t hear about it on the news. He said that if I heard it on CNN instead of from an immaculately uniformed military chaplain at my door, he was OK.

For my own sanity, I scaled back my Afghan news consumption to what I come across in my normal media intake (which is considerable). I still feel every death in Iraq and Afghanistan (US and non US). Flag draped coffins and those professional photos of resolute looking kids in uniform, with the stars and stripes behind them, that are now dead still tear little bits of my heart out every time. I am appalled at the all the loss of life caused by this criminal enterprise of the Bush administration but I am forced to admit that each death of a US soldier or Marine cuts a little deeper. In the eyes of every photo of killed GIs, I see my son, every day, week after week.

It has been almost a year he has been over there. Right around the holidays (2006) he told us that his deployment would soon be coming to an end. He was going to get 18 months at Fort Drum then off to Iraq. The 82nd Airborne was already arriving to relieve the 10th. He said there was going to be a welcome home ceremony at Drum then he was going to get a pass. My wife and I decided to take some time off, fly back there and see him.

My son gave us the name of the wife of his NCOIC (supervisor) who was a civilian volunteer with the Family Readiness Group, or FRG at Fort Drum. She liaises between the army and the dependant wives in the unit. She is a strong and heroic woman who is raising her three kids alone while her husband is overseas as well holding hands and getting information for lonely and worried army wives. She is vivacious and funny and a real joy to talk to. She would relay the bits of information she could get about the boys’ arrival home. She advised us on lodgings and other travel tips as neither my wife or I had ever been to upstate New York. We had all our reservations and we were ready to go. We were very excited and she was downright giddy.

Then one morning, in late January, there was a message on my phone. In it, our contact asked us to give her a call immediately. It was obvious she was upset. I thought the worst. I thought she was going to tell me something like there had been an ambush and they were all dead. I called her as fast as I could. When she picked up, she was crying.

“You can cancel your trip,” she sobbed. “They have been extended until June”. They had apparently told the troops this the day they were supposed to fly out. I probably knew it before they did.

My heart broke, this strong and charming woman sobbing on the phone because the war had pushed her to the end of her tether. I was angry and sad for my son of course, but he is just a young kid. His home is where he lays his hat. I really grieved for the husbands, wives and kids, for the families that will remain asunder. It’s just so damned unfair. My son called that evening. He was disappointed but philosophical. He is a soldier and he will do his duty wherever it takes him, but that doesn’t help the families.

I hate this war. There are so many good kids over there that need to be here solving our very real problems here at home. I hate the corporate stooges in the government who are perpetuating this war for the greater profit of their Wall Street masters. I am enraged when I think of my son and all the others who serve just to serve and the memory of my father and uncles and cousins who served. I am livid to think of something so honorable as love of country and protection of our homes dragged through the mud in this filthy exercise in mass murder for corporate profit. When I think of the unspeakable things soldiers are asked to do in time of war with the knowledge that this war is only in the interests of a small and elite well moneyed group of parasites at the top of the economic ladder, it instills in me an anger that darkens my soul.

Haliburton, Blackwater, The Carlyle Group, The Saudi Royal Family, The oil companies and others as well as their faithful lap dog the Bush Administration, have made a mockery out of service and selflessness. They have disgraced those that have come before and are not fit to shine the shoes of the kids they are sending to die today. How many ways can we say it? How many ways must we show that the entire country is sick to death of Bush’s’ war? How many more failed policies and ineffective tactics do we have to watch? How many more blood baths do we have to witness in places like Baghdad, Anbar, Falujah and Kandahar? How many more lies? How many more flag draped coffins and pictures of resolute young soldiers now dead? When can I stop looking for the immaculately uniformed military chaplain knocking at my door? When do I get my son back?

Bush Milks the Surge for All It's Worth

By Bob Schildgen

Surge. Bush. Surge. Bush. Still can't get it off my mind. Is brain surgery indicated? Surge. Bush. Surge Bush. Surge Bush. Like the pumping of a machine. A milking machine.

I previously noted that for me, the word "surge" has some weird connotations when applied to war, because I'm from the Dairy State, Wisconsin, and "Surge" was the brand name of a popular milking machine.

Maybe I'm unpatriotic, but with this history, try as I might, I still can't envision war and khaki tanks and Humvees painted in camo and camo-clad troops when George Bush and other politicians argue that America needs a surge. The closest I get to combat color fashion is the spots on a tan-and-white Guernsey dairy cow, or the desert-sands hues of Brown Swiss or Jersey dairy cows.

Sorry, Commander in Chief. Surge is cowshit, milk, sucking, teats, tails, and weaning, plus pigeon shit, flies, straw, chaff, and other barn-interior features like gutters, stalls, mice, rats, and maggots.

Then there's artificial insemination. The inseminators were called "bull-cheaters," because they came out to the farm with their vials of sperm when a cow is in heat, put on their rubber gloves, and plunged an arm far up the cow's vagina to inspect the interior before depositing genetic material extracted by professional masturbation of a distant pedigreed bull. Hence, bulls that once would have had glorious careers as studs on the farm were cheated. Not only cheated, but the baby bull calf is castrated and ignominiously sold to be raised for hamburger. Instead of a long, proud career servicing his harem, a bull paces around in a feedlot before being shipped to a slaughterhouse at age two. Or, he might have an even short life as veal

My friend Johnny's dad was an early adaptor, too early, as it turned out. He couldn't make it as an inseminator in his part of the state because too many farmers thought this sperm-trafficking business was unnatural or against the Creator's design. I'm not sure it was just the farmers, though, because Johnny's dad was a bit cantankerous--not exactly your shrewdest marketer.

Did I say "professional masturbation?” In a way, that's what's going on in Iraq, isn't it? People who make weapons and sell weapons and profit off war are pleasuring themselves mightily, but not begetting anything productive. Bush is going to ask for $481 BILLION for the next military budget. Adjusted for inflation, that's almost what we were spending in World War II, a much bigger operation. Bush wants to add more for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would bring the total for this year alone to $165 BILLION. That's a over 40 times more than what we spend on conventional masturbation aids, provided by the porn industry, which Forbes magazine has estimated grosses about $3.9 billion a year. Millions of Americans pay to masturbate instead of getting paid for it. It's only the select few who get paid to masturbate. But unlike the pedigree bulls, Dick Cheney and his pals don't really appear to be an improvement on the breed.

Castration and hamburger? Short life? There's plenty of that in Iraq, too, and as we well know, it’s not the weapons makers or the politicians, but ordinary people, over 3,100 snuffed out in Iraq and counting.

And how many have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, that depends on how you define "wounded." Up until January 10, the number was a staggering 50,508. Then, it suddenly dropped to 21,649. Was there a huge mistake in the count? Or was there some sort of miracle healing that completely erased the disabling and painful wounds? Nope. The Pentagon decided to redefine "wounded." You see, the 50,508 total included not just soldiers who actually got hit by a bullet or a car bomb combat, but those who suffered injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 28,859 who were injured or went crazy are no longer counted as "wounded." So, if a Humvee flips over and crushes your legs and they get amputated, it's no longer a "wound," but, well, what? Just another workplace accident?

Obviously, the spinners at the Pentagon changed the numbers to make war look less horrid than it is, but what they've really done is insult the boys they tossed into that meat grinder in the first place, because those boys don't really make a big distinction. A missing hand or damaged brain are what they are, regardless of the cause.

A marvelous historical oddity is that a candy company, the Curtis Candy, makers of Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, and other fine products, was a pioneer in the artificial insemination world. Curtis’s founder and president, Otto Schnering, had grown up on a farm and took an interest in cattle breeding. Schnering purchased a large farm in Illinois where he could carry out improvements in the animals, and this king of the bull cheaters was right proud of his work. "Except for television," he told Time magazine in 1949, "artificial breeding is the fastest growing business in the U.S."

One of our premier local inseminators had a Curtis artificial breeding franchise. He was known as "Candy Man." That has to be one of the finest nicknames ever, um, conceived.

The greatest achievement of our bull cheaters and bovine masturbators has been to improve the cows' productivity, which has greatly increased their milk production over the years. The most productive cow in recorded history is Granny, a Holstein from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, who set the world record for milk production on January 13, 2004, of 441,584 pounds in her long career. I never met Granny, but have a nice Six Degrees of Separation connection to her. One of my high school girl friends is married to the Wisconsin dairy farmer who owned, tended, and milked Granny for all those years.

The Candy Man and his dairy farmers--and Granny herself--are the "real," America: inventive, practical, productive, which is why I keep coming home to its barns and smart milking machines instead of wanting stray off to war and launching smart bombs. Our country is at its best when it avoids bullying other countries, and tinkers and invents and produces. That is our genius, our gift to the world. It's our economic engine, from a better milking machine to the incredible creativity of Silicon Valley. That's why Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are such a fine models, with their inventions and agricultural innovations. And unlike today's narrow-minded, jingoistic, willfully ignorant, wannabe-cowboy president, they were cosmopolitans who spent a huge amount of time in Europe, learning about the rest of the world rather than shooting at it. How I wish, when today's mini-minded politicians invoke the Founding Fathers, that they had the slightest idea about who these guys really were.

Wonderland City Staff Manual

By Frank Henry

Every wonder why little gets done in most towns? There are rules that govern the operation of City Hall, regulations learned at the university level and beyond...

You don't need a degree to understand them: They are as simple as me, me, me.

Rule One:
No matter what the issue or circumstance, always defend incompetence. Soundly criticize those who point such things out as individuals who are "not team players," "lack patience," "do not understand the system," or "have ulterior motives";

Rule Two:
Stall any measures or proposals you oppose or that may undermine your supreme authority. Schedule a series of meetings and call for in-depth studies; suggest hiring experts and consultants to analyze such proposals, and with an air of professional detachment, recommend consultants with whom you have close personal ties;

Rule Three:
When attempting to derail discussion of an issue or proposal, use key words like "process" and "consensus";

Rule Four:
When forced to do something you do not want to do, don't do it. When asked why the task was not completed, apologize profusely, slap yourself on the side of the face, say you are "a dumbo," that you "totally forgot, boy, I am so sorry." Then suggest the matter be put on the agenda next month;

Rule Five:
When the issue is discussed the following month, present cooked-up contradictory statistics, scratch your head, and warn that the matter may have unintended economic and legal ramifications; assert that after careful study it is clear the item requires more community input than originally thought. Suggest it be thoroughly examined at the next regularly scheduled meeting;

Rule Six:
At the next meeting, place the proposal at the end of a long agenda packed with other controversial items requiring extensive community input;

Rule Seven:
When members of the public come forward with complaints, deny the problems exist or claim it is the first you've heard about them. Ask for proof that the ceiling fell at the community center, that the streets are teaming with rats, that junkies are shooting up in the park, etc.;

Rule Eight:
If citizens offer concrete evidence of problems -- such as dead rats, used syringes -- call the police and have them arrested for disrupting a city meeting. If the protesters are popular figures, or if the audience turns on you, take the lead and immediately demand an investigation. Insist that YOU are going to get to the bottom of the problem, by God. Proclaim with righteous indignation that there be a full airing of the issue at the very next meeting;

Rule Nine:
If at the next meeting there is a large audience demanding action, appoint the most outspoken critic as chair of a task force to conduct an investigation; make sure the committee is packed with bureaucrats and your allies; schedule the meeting of the task force on Super Bowl Sunday, arguing it is a matter that must be addressed immediately;

Rule Ten:
When projects are not completed according to schedule and costs mount as a consequence, blame unforeseeable circumstances; suggest the council place the matter on the next ballot so citizens can exercise their democratic rights and vote for a tax increase;

Rule Eleven:
Keep things below the radar whenever possible; when required to notify the public about something you want to do that the people are against, bury the item in the consent calendar, and write reports and memos that require an attorney to decipher;

Rule Twelve:
When discussing a controversial subject at a meeting, double talk in triple time for as long as possible until you spot yawns in the audience and among council members; then hold opponents to strict times limits so the meeting won't last "all night";

Rule Thirteen:
Whenever possible, write the minutes of important meetings yourself, making certain to leave out points made by others not to your liking;

Rule Fourteen:
If things get very tough, take a medical leave for stress, or an extended vacation. If there is any chance that charges may be filed against you, announce with regret that you must resign citing the need to spend more time with your family.

A Day at the Russian River

By J. P. Bone

FIFTY-FOUR or more brown pelicans squat on a sand bar where at this time of day the Russian
River and the tides of the Pacific surge east and west. The pelicans have the look of men in suits at a
bar waiting to order a drink, preferably "sex on the beach." They are very cocky, indeed.

Nearby close to 40 sea lions and seals nap at river's edge where foamy waves of the sea roll into the river's mouth, the river dark green, the Pacific swirling indigo and turquoise. In the far distance a curved stretch of blue shines bright on the horizon, saddled by a heavy dark mound of fog that grows lighter as it billows toward the heavens, a wisp at its peak like fresh whipped cream.

Cormorants race across the surface of the sea like bats but in a perfectly straight line. Nearby on the beach rocks are frosted: there are limbs and pieces of marbled elephants, tree trunks washed ashore, bleached white by salt and sun.

A sea lion -- or is it a pelican? repeats the same word over and over again in a voice that sounds like Stephen Hawkins: "Wow." A few drops of rain fall. I'm back after going on a chase to find Loly who wandered off to get a better view of the pelicans and sea lions...

We have wandered over to an area where the river forms a lovely pool ringed on the northwest side by a soft bank, a place where our children used to play when they were kids, running down a tall hill of sand and leaping into the warm water of the river. The hill is smaller now, worn down by time and wind and rain...

Everywhere we go we remember our children. Every landmark, every turn of the beach and bend of the river that remain trips memories –the games they played, the exact words they said, the expressions on their faces, the sparkle in their eyes, questions asked... and we wish so much that they were here.

One hundred feet from the lonely sandy hill where the kids used to play, running down it at full speed then diving into the river (that is to say as close to full speed as they considered safe -- they were always cautious) -- one hundred feet away is a grassy knoll, the point of a penisula, solid land, THE land, shoreline untouched by tides for a hundred years.

Two rusty railroad tracks are suspended in mid-air between the mounds, long parallel iron rails ringing in the wind and from the weight of the steel wheels they once supported . They will not be moved and dutifully await the resurrection of a phantom train buried in a sandy grave in Mendocino.

Facing northeast, following the river with one's eyes, it appears to be low tide, rocks and a fallen uprooted tree in the shallow water, the tree's roots tangled like so many tentacles.

Naturally Loly has wandered out there. She sits on a Loly-sized smooth rock, (a small one) gazing this time at a tiny sandy island in the near distance, the Republic of Pelicans, population 24.

There's a peninsula directly across from the Pelican Republic, two or three wing flaps away, the tip crowded with citizens, one flapping his wings, neck craned in a display of dominance (though he may just need a stretch).

Two seals play in the river, which is what drew Loly's attention, flipping, flapping, noses and heads popping above the surface playfully as they sniff at the air, whiskers and eyes blinking, the seals rolling around, tumbling, creating a black-and-tan with foam at the top.

"It must be nice to be a seal," Loly says, "except when you're near a killer whale. They don't have any predators here," she explains, "except PEE-ple."

A squadron of pelicans arrives in formation, wings arched as they float with confidence across the river.

Three gulls make a sudden run for it, one in the lead, another apparently on the outs, squawking and hurling insults and gull threats.

The seals are not distracted by the dispute. They poke their heads above the surface, smile at each other then disappear -- except their flippers, which slap at the glassy surface, which shatters and rolls into soft balls of foam.

Loly has made a discovery: The sea's tide must be rising. The dry stone spotted sand is slowly but visibly flooded, fingers of the river reaching for the feet of the sandy mound.

We stand and watch in wonder just below the high water mark, our toes planted where there will be two feet of water soon. It is astonishing to see how quickly the tides reclaim dominance over river and land...

Brown pelicans float down from the heavens and settle on the river as it brews. “If only humans could leave nature alone,” Loly says. "The earth is so generous..."

Preempting Hillary

By Bob Schildgen

Sure, I'll go along with those historians who have declared George W. Bush to be the worst president in our history. They've laid out some pretty persuasive evidence to rank him even lower than that remarkable Trinity of Failures, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren G. Harding.
(For more on this dismal topic, see
www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history )

But I'm sick and tired of watching Democrats who voted to unleash Bush in Iraq turn around and complain about how badly Bush has "handled" this disastrous war. Before making Bush into a scapegoat they ought to face up to their own responsibility and their own complicity in this war, and acknowledge their own bad judgment.

Instead, they conveniently ignore their role in this violence, or blame faulty intelligence reports, or claim it was an agonizing decision somehow forced on them by circumstances. My own senator Diane Feinstein, for example, sent me a letter in which she offloads her responsibility by saying that "The Senate vote on the resolution to authorize the use of force in Iraq was . . . difficult and consequential." Well, yes, but just because a decision is "difficult and consequential" doesn't justify making the wrong decision.

Feinstein also says that the vote was "based on trust" in the intelligence that was received.

But what was the CONTENT of this intelligence? Certainly the intelligence that was publicly presented was so transparently phony that any halfway informed person would question it. At times it was downright laughable, as with Colin Powell’s talk about aluminum tubes and mysterious trucks in the desert. His statement to the UN that "these are not toothpicks" was so feeble it actually telegraphed that he was not convinced any threat existed. (If not toothpicks, then what? Popsicle sticks? Railroad spikes?) If we always moved on such flimsy excuses, we’d be bombing deserts everywhere from the Mohave to the Kalahari

And if the evidence these war-supporting senators saw was different than the unconvincing nonsense that was publicly presented, we ought to be told exactly what it was that convinced them.

Hillary Clinton's justifications are even shabbier. In an interview with CNN in April 2004 she said: "No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." So she voted to go to war because of a "context"? I'll spare you the invocation of George Orwell and his masterful "Politics and the English Language." Read it if you haven't. Reread it if you have.

But what about that grave overpowering "context." Well, according to Hillary Clinton, it was the very same "context" Bill Clinton had, the difference being that Bill Clinton never demanded an all-out war over a "context."
"The consensus was the same from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration," she said. "It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared."

So what was the difference? Well, only that Bush "believed" in the "belief" and the "context" more strongly than Bill Clinton. Yes, we went to war because of a belief in a belief. After this revelation, which makes the most loopy fundamentalist a cold rationalist by comparison, Hillary Clinton doesn't just twist the language, she throttles it to death: "But I think that in the case of the [Bush] administration, they really believed it. They really thought they were right, but they didn't let enough sunlight into their thinking process to really have the kind of debate that needs to take place when a serious decision occurs like that."

Oh, so it was Bush who pulled down the shades? Only that Prince of Darkness Bush? But of course, because those bright beams of inquiring thought! Wondrous how they streamed down on Congress, shining in the minds of John Kerry and may other Democrats who vote for war.

Hillary Clinton continued: "You have to have a decision-making process that pushes a lot of information up and asks a lot of hard questions. You don't get that sense from this White House." Yeah right.

This focus on Bush's bad strategies and the tortured explanations of their vote only makes people wonder about the real motives Democrats who voted for war, and raises the question whether they were being opportunistic, trying to convince voters that they were not soft on terrorism or anti-military or weak on national security issues. It makes me want to say, "Come on, cut the crap about intelligence. What were your other motives? Were you listening to your conscience or you focus group? Give us a straight answer, and we might forgive you."

But even if there HAD been incontrovertible evidence that Iraq possessed WMDs, there was still no compelling reason to start a war, not with the following strong arguments against it

1) THE INSPECTION TEAM: the international inspection team was doing its work, finding nothing, and there was no reason not to allow it to continue until it completed its assessment. Hillary Clinton herself had the gall to criticize the Bush administration for not allowing the weapons inspectors "to finish whatever task they could have accomplished to demonstrate one way or the other what was there." She must have profound faith in the America's collective amnesia to call attention to this Bush failure, because the need to let the inspection team finish its job was a major argument against the invasion she voted for.

2) INSTABILITY AND OUTRAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MUSLIM WORLD: Various commentators and observers, especially on the left, warned that attacking Iraq would only provoke increased destabilization, greater hostility to the U.S., and serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists. All this has come to pass.

3) MORAL AND RELIGIOUS OBJECTIONS: Numerous religious authorities from mainstream faiths condemned the invasion as immoral, warning that the argument for a preemptive strike was an invalid application of the just war theory that has been developed over the past thousand years. Secular ethicists raised parallel concerns. Yet Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who voted for war turned a deaf ear to them. They still do not admit to or even address this moral failure, a moral failure that is at the basis of a call for ADMISSION OF GUILT AND PAYMENT OF WAR REPARATIONS.

4) POOR PROSPECTS OF SUCCESS: Both the just war theory and realistic political strategy demand that there be a sound prospect of success before declaring war. Well-informed observers cautioned that victory would be difficult, given the history of Iraq, Iraqis’ suspicion of Americans, and sectarian and ethnic differences within the Iraq.

5) ECONOMIC COSTS: Many commentators also warned that the cost of the war was unjustified, given our own vast domestic needs. Now that we have squandered about $300 billion, it’s clear that these warnings were also correct.

6) GEORGE BUSH’S PSYCHOLOGY AND THE NATURE OF HIS ADMINISTRATION: Many of us have wondered--quite understandably--about George Bush’s sociopathic tendencies. Beyond that is the obvious bellicosity and secretiveness of the administration, especially in relation to oil, as frighteningly evident in Dick Cheney’s refusal to disclose discussions of his energy committee. Handing the power of war to such people was woefully imprudent at best.

Given all these compelling objections to the war on so many levels, it is astounding that anyone voted for it.

Although the Democrats blame the Bush administration for faulty intelligence and incompetent military planning, some of them continue to speak the same language as Bush. They view the “mission” as one that must be carried out in some way or another, while others now advocate abandoning the mission. Largely they consider its problems technical and military, rather than the profoundly moral issues they are. The disturbing Bushspeak in Feinstein's letter could have dripped from the sneering mug of Dick Cheney himself: “I recognize that setting a specific date for withdrawal of all American troops, WITHOUT COMPLETING THIS MISSION, [emphasis mine] carries with it the particular hazard that Iraq would deteriorate into chaos, civil war, and a terrorist state would evolve thereby destabilizing the Middle East.”

The term "terrorist state" is exactly language Bush used to justify the war. It is unlikely that a terrorist state will emerge. It is not even clear if there is such a thing as a"terrorist state"—although some critics label the USA as a terrorist state.

This is why we must move discussion of the war from a merely technical and military level to a moral one. We do not know how much worse an attempt at a "surge" or “completing the mission” might make the situation. It’s not even clear any more what the “mission” is, since the Bush administration has marketed it in so many ways, ranging from the “accomplished” mission of overwhelming bombardment to finding yellow cake uranium and anthrax to capturing Hussein to fighting terrorism to introducing democracy to building good will among Iraqis to stabilizing the Middle East.

The way out, then, is moral, rather than merely tactical, and quite possibly the moral way out is the only reasonable tactic left. This is why I reiterate a plea for ADMISSION OF WRONGDOING AND PAYMENT OF WAR REPARATIONS ON THE CONDITION THAT IRAQIS STOP ATTACKING EACH OTHER. We are more likely to regain the world's respect if we simply admit our horrendous mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and offer substantial reparations as a concrete act of repentance. The victims of our attack might then focus on obtaining compensation rather than on the violence now being unleashed. Repentance and reparation would also signal to the Muslim world that we are embarking on a new path and will be far less likely to engage in military attacks or meddle in their internal affairs. It would blunt the motives for terrorism that have been so intensified by the war. The essentially religious nature of an open and sincere act of repentance and restitution might also open the way for expanding discussions between Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders that are already taking place and would surely help ease hostilities. (For my article on the need for war reparations, see www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ chronicle/archive/2005/11/06/EDGGJFJ1VA1.DTL)

Proponents of this war have constantly compared the threat from Iraq with that of Hitler’s Germany, and talked about the lessons of preemption learned from World War II. But in this cloud of false analogy they conveniently ignore the most striking lesson: Germans harbored many deep grievances and fears resulting from the treatment it was given after the First World War. Hitler played on these emotions, teaching the lesson that nothing drives a people to violence more easily than grievances not redressed. Many people in Iraq and the Middle East obviously have profound grievances, and unless we begin to redress them, talk of stability imposed by military force is mere wishful thinking.

The other lesson that can be learned from World War II is that when a nation admits it has done wrong, apologizes, and pays reparations, as Germany and Japan did, it can regain its respect among nations.

Meanwhile, now that Hillary Clinton has announced her candidacy, we must ask for a straight answer to the question: "Would you ever again support a preemptive war?" If she waffles the slightest bit on this question, she must be tossed out of the running, pronto.