Skipping Vision Quest

Belated Post

June 8, 2010

Since our education class had to stay on schedule for beginning the school semesters at the respective schools, we did not join our Volunteer-mates on a Vision Quest. That entails going out into the country, sometimes on your own, and making do with the minimal (and minimal is an understatement for me personally) language skills in Twi (pronounce that as CHWEE and you are close to the right sound) to connect to a currently serving PCV.

While that sounds like a blast, our group of education volunteers had to stay home as it were in the dorm rooms and get ready for arrival at our host families. But before we did this, the trainers asked us to visit various sites in the city of Accra and its outlying suburbs to see what we could find. Armed with a few basic places to start with, we ended up going off in groups of two and three to arrive at destinations unknown to us.

It was terrific.

The amount of things to take in is mesmerizing and daunting. What did that passenger just pay to board the tro-tro (I have no idea the Twi spelling for this so you have the phonetic spelling right there) and what did I have to pay? Did I get a better deal? Highly unlikely. What did the person taking money just say to the driver? Why am I in a vehicle that needs a few "minor" repairs? All of it just absolutely enjoyable.

We made a connection to the second line in Medina. Think of these large vans as if they were a big city's subway system. One line will take you here, the other will take you there. Just wandering the street to ask for help seems a nightmare, but with a gentle question, put in Twi thank you very much, yields all the help you could imagine. Many people here enjoy helping. With only four days of a brand new language, it is hard to get the hang of just quick banter, so quickly I am asking "Do you speak English," and hoping for the best. One poor woman had her baby right next to me on the tro-tro, and whenever the baby looked over at me, Mr. Pale Face, he started to cry. His mother didn't speak English and I clammed up and tried my best to stop making the little one cry, but that is the way things happen sometimes.

I was with two friends here and we did our best to find our destinations. We asked our questions and found out that a military hospital cared for veterans, active duty soldiers, and the civilian population alike. They would even help out a volunteer should we arrive in disrepair. How nice. I like that all of us just kept looking around the next corner for answers to our questions, as we were jumped to seven different people before we got to our last one, and even he directed us to the first place we asked to get proper clearance. Very funny.

One short walk from the hospital and we were at the Peace Corps HQ. I got to check my email and send a note to my mom and brother. I hope they read it and felt alright about my lack of updates in the last few days. It is hard not being able to reassure people that everything is well and dandy when it is just that. I know certain somebodies that tend to worry.

More work to be done, and some quick prepping for our departure on the 9th. I hope this update found you well and good in your part of the world.

Things That I Have Learned

Belated Post

June 6, 2010

All the meals have been provided up to this point for the two or so days that we have been there, so I don't know anything about cooking or buying food, but I do know now how to wash my clothes using only the bucket and bar of soap method. Seems a bit more time consuming that way was my first observation. Roughly ten minutes to get one pair of pants sufficiently (but not perfectly) clean. The drying part is self-explanatory, the sun does that nicely. And of course the bucket is useful in that one can take a sufficient bath in it. We have shower heads here but I felt I should do the experiment of my first bath with a bucket yesterday, our first full day in Ghana. It was nice actually, and the water was not cold nor warm, just the temperature of a pool in July I bet.

On the other end of the spectrum is learning the language. It was a bit overwhelming to begin with. The trip to the market wasn't helpful, I felt like a fish out of water. A fish out of water with a lot of onlookers witnessing the episode. After returning back it was brought to my attention that I would likely never see these people again, and that making mistakes was part of the process. So pride took its toll on my first day out. We were there for about an hour, and the food looked really good save for the dried fish that had flies hovering all about. Heck, I'd eat them anyway but they just don't have that much visual appeal.

Today (it was June 6th, Sunday) has seen a few more lessons on safety, some concerns
 on security, and all in all, be aware of who you are and where you are while on duty. That concept of being a representative of the states all day every day was drilled home.

Oh, and I can't ride a motorcycle unless it is life and death. That waits until I get back to America I suppose.

Really, I am not for wanting of anything right now. It is warm, but so what, you sweat and drink water and survive. Let's see if I am saying that 10 months from now.

I Am Actually In Ghana

Belated Post
June 5, 2010

Here I stand along side a wall typing on the netbook (thank you once again Damla) as the rest of my Peace-mates play volleyball (one rope strong across two columns and a make-shift volleyball which is actually a soccer ball) and also soccer keep-away in the open coutyard, I have to pause and consider how lucky I am to be here. The people are wonderful (both Americans and Ghanians) and so far, every anxious moment I had wondering what it would be like has passed and most things have turned out far better than I could have hoped for.

I have landed and somewhat adjusted to the new world here. The flight out to Ghana went well after the airport had to double check that all of our luggage was actually on board. We waited for alomst an hour before getting out of JFK, but then that was it, we were airborne and only a small, apprehensive sigh came out; it was really happening.

Then about twelve hours in the air passed by. I think I managed to sleep or slightly doze of for about an hour during the trip, and that put me in Accra, the capitol, around 8AM their time. I was not that tired, and the warm rains made sure to wake me up upon stepping off the staircase out of the plane. It no longer was happening, it *had happened*! I made it. What a sense of relief it was. Then came the airport. Or at least out departure.

We collected our bags, showed our passports to everyone, and then jumped outside to approach the bus which would ferry us out to Peace Corps Headquarters. It was large, bright green, and nicely air conditioned. This short trip to HQ gave us a quick acquaintance with the area. The streets, the vendors, the cobbled together shacks and some of the very nice houses made me feel that some have it nice, others have it pretty hard. The meet and greet at Peace Corps' office went well, and the rain kept coming and going for the rest of the afternoon. It really felt nice if it didn't pour too much.

With official business concluded and our behinds back on the bus again, we made the rest of the trip out to our temporary digs at a school about an hour or so from Accra. we had the same escort to the dormitory on a campus outside of town. Lots of honking, lots of not so happy faces peering back in the windows, but they were out numbered by the very happy faces who would wave.

Still, there we were, enjoying a new space and a new land. Small rooms but they had toilets and even a shower head, though I will probably try just the bucket for fun to get used to. The weather was a bit hot and humid, but fortunately it is the rainy season so the day time highs are not that high, mostly in the high 80s as the sun doesn't come out much.

Here we met the staff that will begin the training session for us. All Ghanians, and all smiling and extremely helpful. They fed us and made some great spicy foods which I could enjoy.

So for the first day, I had about 30 or 36 hours of up-time and little down-time. After dinner I crashed in bed without even taking off my clothes, and in the early morning I realized I hadn't taken my shoes off. Yes I was that tired.

No mosquito bites yet! That is a big victory in my book, though I haven't seen one yet so that is a good thing.

Saying Goodbyes

Who knew they would be so tough.

Well, of course they are tough. Still, it is tough to do it and if anyone knows me they know at least one thing - I am terrible at them.

So after some tearful goodbyes, it seems that the only thing left to do is to arrive in Accra and get acquainted with some tropical sun and some mighty friendly people. Care to come along?

Great!

(updates though may be a bit spotty, so go ahead and sign up via that email link and get them sent directly to you!)

Staging In Philly Begins

This is where posts get tricky. The access to the network is a must for posts naturally, and given that I am sitting in the airport awaiting the flight to arrive and take me to Philadelphia means that I have wifi here at the terminal. Whence I leave this terminal things become less certain. I presume there will be spots in Philly where I can crack open the netbook and give it a whirl, but Wednesday the 2nd means business Peace Corps style; lots of things to soak up and prepare for.

That means I might be hit and miss for a bit. Thursday afternoon is the road trip from half-way-'round-the-world. Leaving Philadelphia means a bus ride to NYC and to John F. Kennedy Airport to depart for Africa. Exciting? You bet! But I want people to know that I am all right while I am out and about and that gets a bit tricky since I know next to nothing about where I will find myself in Accra and parts beyond.

So stay tuned. It should get much more interesting from this stage forward.

Just A Few More Days Here

There are only a few more hours to go state-side and then I am off to Africa. It still hasn't sunk in completely. Each step has been a theoretical leap, nothing changed about my life or my surroundings, just an update or a form to fill out and that was that.

Now it is getting a bit more real.

My apartment is becoming more barren as each hours slips by. The vehicles are sold, the accounts that I used to pay monthly (and take for granted) are now closed. I have books, some music, and a phone which also will be leaving my side very shortly to keep me company.

In addition to that, I still have my friends and an American culture that I am still quite comfortable with at my fingertips. That will be the scary part - seeing that disappear over the horizon.

I am anxious to get started but I understand one important thing, I am going to be returning some point in the future as a different creature. What I lose here I am sure I will gain on the other side of the Atlantic. Still, it is quite the unknown.

Just a few more hours to go then. If I manage to pack just half of what I need in Ghana then I will be happy.

What To Do

Nothing is quite like packing up your life and figuring out what you will need for the next two years. I haven't figured it out just yet, but with some help I have a shopping list and a few great suggestions on what to take to Ghana.

The apartment is getting more vacant and everything that I look at lately gets categorized instantly again and again. Take, don't take, dumpster, sell, give away, etc. It feels as though nothing is really being condensed or narrowed down, but I imagine after a few more trips to the storage unit and the dumpster, things will be gone and I will be left with only what I need. Or rather, what I think I need. Probably my best guess now will look foolish in about three or four months. Part of the fun of it though.

One other problem is what to do with the time remaining. I want to spend it with everyone of course, but time doesn't quite permit everything. So I am doing the best I can with talking and seeing people where I go. When someone says, "See you next week," I now explain that this might not be the case. After a while that starts to wear a bit on the head; this may be the very last time I see this person. Should the handshake be extra firm? Should I just say 'later' and move along? Odd changes of the mental state keep coming back and sometimes I just go quiet thinking about it all.

When not stuck in deep contemplation I have enough sense to just try and enjoy and laugh and absorb the good times. Some good times are still left and in my better moments I realize there are some great times to come.

The British Petroleum Spill Senate Hearing

While on the road for a good long while yesterday I had the pleasure of tuning into C-SPAN II radio while passing through the Washington, D.C. area to listen to a hearing regarding the Gulf of Mexico oil spill / leak. Senator Lieberman chaired the hearing and Senator Collins sat as the ranking minority member of the committee. They brought out DHS Secretary Napolitano to answer questions and then the chairman of BP America, Lamar McKay. Both had answers for some questions but not others.

All-in-all, I thought that it was a rather enlightening session. A couple of points brought up struck me as significant: there are many deep water oil operations in the Gulf but at the outset of the meeting it was thought that they constituted less than 5% of the operations in the Gulf - more like 60% if I remember correctly; the contingency plans focused on clean-up were in effect presuming the spill was on top of the water, not from its source below the water's surface; that there hasn't been a catastrophe of this proportion earlier.

The idea that the U.S. government allowed businesses to secure rights to drill this deep yet have no real requirement to determine the means of containing a disastrous worst-case scenario such as this is baffling. This is not the first time a well has been drilled in 5,000 feet of water either. So by sheer luck and some forethought, most wells have gone in without incident. I then could completely understand the position of BP to paraphrase lightly - we really don't have a case history here to deal with an explosion and rupture so deep, so this is all an experiment. I gather some paper diagrams saying how they would contain the bleeding would have been sufficient to say they had thought about it, but there again that type of preparation wouldn't guarantee that it would work in reality.

It certainly struck me as I listened to this entire session that I was able to take it all in from the luxury of my four-wheeled vehicle that is always in need of some nice crude to be pumped or procured from somewhere else on earth. I am repulsed at the amount of damage that this leak has and will cause in the Gulf of Mexico, but I can't say that I want all off-shore drilling and production stopped.

Rather, I am more agreeable for costs such as this to be added to the price of oil products that we as a whole buy. Plastics, oil, gasoline, all of the hydrocarbon-based things that we buy should have an actual cost that covers the necessary destruction of the environment whether that is air, land, or sea pollution. That cost isn't to punish us but to make us aware that there are many unknown expenses associated with these modern-day conveniences. It seems more fair and makes all of us responsible for the world we leave behind.

Visiting The Family

I have spent the better part of the last nine days visiting family and it has been great. I had the chance to spend an entire day relaxing with my brother by the pool for his birthday party festivities, I had a chance to go to the beach with my mom and dip the toes into the Atlantic Ocean one more time, and then yesterday I was able to visit with all my extended family on the other side of the state and receive all the great well-wishes. You couldn't ask for a better time.

But with all that great time, you get to figure out what you will miss most. Twenty-seven months is a long time to go without a hug, but I am sure some family will have a chance to travel and visit me, so I will be counting down the days to those visits for sure.

Until that time, I enjoy these moments and get to hold on to them for quite a while!

One Update One Day Late

Yesterday I happened to re-check my online application status. My girlfriend suggested it, and while I hadn't received an email (the usual way I would find out if any changes were made to my account at Peace Corps) I went ahead and took her very wise advice. Nothing was different - or so I thought.

I had neglected to check one part of the account. Your Application. Since I had been nominated and now my account had changed in the look and feel department, I hadn't gone back to review what my application had listed. Yes, it was different and all for the better. It said that something had been mailed to me on the 4th.

I had called the main office earlier and they seemed a bit surprised that I hadn't received anything. I still did not know they had sent something at the time, and I just chalked it up to someone getting a signal crossed. Of course that certain somebody was me. Naturally.

I went to the Post Office and picked up my mail, and in the mail box was a key for a package that had been sent. It was my Invitation. Oh joyous day. I was so incredibly excited that I called her up and let her know that I was coming home with what was sure to be an invite.

I got home and she helped me open the envelope. She gave me the cover-letter and sure enough, it was there. "It is with great pleasure that we invite you to begin training in Ghana for Peace Corps service."

We hugged and the smile on my face was impressive I'm sure. So Ghana. I quickly helped myself to all the information inside and while I do need to fill out a few things, I think this is it. What I have hoped for since the start was a chance to serve, a chance to see what I am made of and a way to help out. All the while learning about who I am.

Pretty neat huh?

Where Are We In The Process

To be honest, I am not so certain where I am in the process of the Peace Corps application. I had a notice about a week and a half ago that I had an invitation. Sure enough I checked my account and there was an invitation listed for me (and hey, that is tremendous news in and of itself since that is what I have been after for a long while now), but the invitation was lacking something. A tiny bit of crucial information.

Where to?

The invite seems to have left off a continent or a country for the destination so most of the pages in my account are available to me, but the juicy information is omitted. I can only imagine that this is a great first step towards finding out where I am heading to, but then it twists me in knots to NOT know where it might be. After a call to the headquarters in D.C., it seems that either I am to receive something in the mail or I should expect a call.

More. Waiting. To. Go.

But still, you should know that there is an invite, but I don't know where to! Hooray for that, right?

Well Then, That Is The End Of That

It has been a while since I had something to update, but here we have it. After many months of being in the lurch on the medical aspect of my Peace Corps application I have come to find out today that I am now fully medically cleared for the second time. The surgeon wrote out a clearance paper for me that says I am fully healed and ready to depart the moment they say "go". Which means... yes, I can now go!

What that depends on though is the Peace Corps having a position open for me to move into which has proven problematic at the end of 2009 and at the beginning of 2010. The countries that are putting out the requests now need to put up a position where I am a perfect match and then I get to head out.

Keeping the fingers crossed this long still seems to pay dividends. In the meantime I have kept busy with different scraps of work and hobbies. Having quit the full-time job so long ago I forget what it is like to get up earlier than 9AM, but I am sure that I can swing right back into the flow once something concrete comes my way.

More patience for 2010!

Ah, It Goes On And On

Boy, I need to update this site more often. Yes, the deployment has been delayed and looks to continue its delay until 2010, maybe in the spring. While waiting I have had a few calls with the Placement Officer and her response has been toned down but encouraging. Hang in there and you will be placed since you have been waiting a while.

So obviously, I have had the misfortune of being placed back into the waiting game for my Peace Corps placement. The unfortunate medical incident at just the perfectly awful time made me sit out while others were sent in earnest across the globe. I just had to be patient. I had to keep repeating that to myself whenever another form would come across or another update would be emailed or phoned to me.

Now I am back in line with the Medical Office. They sent me the following letter:

"Dear "You",

Thank you for submitting your medical information to the Office of Medical Services. We have reviewed your medical records and determined that we must defer our evaluation of your medical qualification until you have completed your 3 month follow up visit for evaluation of the right zygomaticomaxillary complex fracture.

If you wish for us to reconsider your application at that time, we will need a report from you physician that includes current evaluation of this condition.

You may request review of this decision by the Peace Corps' Screening Review Board. You must make this request in writing within 60 days. Please send the request to your reviewing nurse. The request must be accompanied by some new information from your physician or other licensed health care provider not previously provided to Peace Corps. The decision of the Screening Review Board will be final, and not subject to further review.

If you have any questions, contact..."

From what I am gathering, it is stating that I am out until that 3 month follow up visit is received by them (they received the 2 month office notes because that is how they learned about the 3 month appointment).

What is getting me upset, and not a temper tantrum upset I should say, is that the 2 month office visit stated that I was clear to leave if the Peace Corps offered me a placement opportunity. The surgeon keeps putting me into the "how about we just see each other again next month" routine and I have yet to say no.

Either way, this leads to yet more back and forth-ing and I am contemplating a request to review this decision, but if it only takes a short office visit and a doctor's note explaining in plain english that is acceptable to put me on a jet plane then that is what I will do. A call on the 8th should help out.

A Bump On The Road (And On The Face)

As of this writing I am uncertain if I will be leaving for Peace Corps at the time they had intended me to leave. I was interviewed on Tuesday, the 4th, and things went well with the Placement Representative until I had to disclose a medical injury to her. Unfortunately I took a punch or three to the head late Sunday and have to have a surgery scheduled to fix the broken zygomatic process on the right side of my face.

Honestly, I realize that patience and flexibility were all a part of the process here but this was distinctly NOT on my plan when getting into the Peace Corps. I will be alright I think, and the story that got my into this position is long to tell but suffice to say, all parties are being responsible and I feel it will work out. The aspect of getting deployed though looks likely to be put on hold for a while unfortunately. I have an initial examination with the plastic surgeon to see what they can do for my bones to fix the damage, and from there we figure out what can be had in terms of timing for Peace Corps.

I suspect this will be a longish delay, not weeks, but months. Then again, things have worked out for me without my understanding in the past so maybe I will be fortunate here and have things go my way.

Either way, it was neat to find out that my theory of when I might be heading out was pretty close. Not quite August, but not quite winter either. Now where is that ice pack?

Medically Cleared - Finally

After all those visits to all of those healthcare specialists I finally get to declare myself medically fit for the Peace Corps. Or more correctly, I get to report that the Peace Corps thinks I am medically fit to enter.

The letter finally came today and while not an invite to a country, it was a great relief just to get to this stage in the process. Now I need to wait for the last little thing - an invite to join.

More patience. A lot more!

A Letter Is Coming

It has been a few weeks since I had an update for or from the Peace Corps to post about. I had my last medical questions filled out and returned back in early June. I received a notice that the Medical Office was in receipt of them and that put me back in the position of waiting.

That waiting may (or may not be) over soon.

I received another update on my account this past Tuesday, July 6th stating that I should look for a letter to come to my home in the next few days. I do not know what the letter will have and the status chance on my account now shows my medical kit has been fully completed so I know for certain that this letter is not more information that I will need to fill out with the help of my doctor. I just don't know what the letter has in it!

More patience. From my Peace Corps account, it read as follows:

"A decision has been reached regarding your medical review. Please look for a letter in the mail."

I don't know if the letter is one qualifying me for a position, disqualifying me, or something altogether different.

I am incredibly nervous but there is nothing that I can do but wait for the mail to come each day and be hopeful for good news.

We shall see, and I will write with the next installment of this Peace Corps saga.

Happiness

I just finished a fascinating article in the Atlantic titled, "What Makes Us Happy?" written by Joshua Wolf Shank. An incredible digest of the 70+ year Grant Study of Harvard students and its longtime director, George Vaillant.

I am not sure that I had ever heard about it prior to reading the article, but it is truly worth the time to read and think things through. Since I've been trying to find my own slice of happiness in the world it should come as no surprise that many others have done the same and probably bounced around the same paths as I have.

Without permission, this one particular passage stood out:

case No. 218, continued

On first glance, you are the study’s exemplar. In Dr. Vaillant’s “decathlon” of mental health—10 measures, taken at various points between ages 18 and 80, including personality stability at ages 21 and 29, and social supports at 70—you have ranked in the top 10 of the Grant Study men the entire way through, one of only three men to have done so.

What’s your secret? Is it your steely resolve? After a major accident in college, you returned to campus in a back brace, but you looked healthy. You had a kind of emotional steel, too. When you were 13, your mother ran off with your father’s best friend. And though your parents reunited two years later, a pall of disquiet hung over your three-room apartment when the social worker came for her visit. But you said your parents’ divorce was “just like in the movies,” and that you someday “would like to have some marital difficulties” of your own.

After the war—during which you worked on a major weapons system—and graduate school, you married, and your bond with your wife only deepened over time. Indeed, while your mother remains a haunting presence in your surveys—eventually diagnosed with manic depression, she was often hospitalized and received many courses of shock therapy—the warmth of your relationship with your wife and kids, and fond memories of your maternal grandfather, seemed to sustain you.

Yet your file shows a quiet, but persistent, questioning about a path not taken. As a sophomore in college, you emphasized how much money you wanted to make, but also wondered whether you’d be better off in medicine. After the war, you said you were “too tense & high strung” and had less interest in money than before. At 33, you said, “If I had to do it all over again I am positive I would have gone into medicine—but it’s a little late.” At 44, you sold your business and talked about teaching high school. You regretted that (according to a study staff member’s notes) you’d “made no real contribution to humanity.” At 74, you said again that if you could do it over again, you would go into medicine. In fact, you said, your father had urged you to do it, to avoid the Army. “That annoyed me,” you said, and so you went another way.

There is something unreachable in your file. “Probably I am fooling myself,” you wrote in 1987, at age 63, “but I don’t think I would want to change anything.” How can we know if you’re fooling yourself? How can even you know? According to Dr. Vaillant’s model of adaptations, the very way we deal with reality is by distorting it—and we do this unconsciously. When we start pulling at this thread, an awfully big spool of thoughts and questions begins to unravel onto the floor.

You never seemed to pull the thread. When the study asked you to indicate “some of the fundamental beliefs, concepts, philosophy of life or articles of faith which help carry you along or tide you over rough spots,” you wrote: “Hard to answer since I am really not too introspective. However, I have an overriding sense (or philosophy) that it’s all a big nothing—or ‘chasing after wind’ as it says in Ecclesiastes & therefore, at least up to the present, nothing has caused me too much grief.”

That bolded passage above struck me - the very way we deal with reality is by distorting it. How can you know you are not distorting reality? And the subject's admission that "it's all a big nothing." Happiness is so elusive in its application to the human condition that it astounds me where other people find it, or how they relate to it in their lives.

Again, a fine article not only on the study itself but on what conclusions we can draw from it.

A Fill-Up On The Enthusiasm Tank

It has been some time since I have had any word on my application to the Peace Corps and honestly, without any news the whole idea recedes into the back of my mind if there isn't something new to ingest. Over the past week or two I have been more preoccupied with my upcoming vacation than with an update on my medical kit from Washington, D.C.

An enthusiasm gap was settling in - will I ever get going with this? Do I still want to do this if it should come to pass? Without the wind in my sails I felt more adrift, and just a touch less ready to get to that next stage.

Tonight's get together over in Northampton changed my perspective somewhat. Past and future Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) were invited to a pot luck dinner and meet-and-greet at a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer's (RPCV) house. This was the fastest 3 hours I've spent at a pot luck ever. The time whizzed by as I was privileged to speak with those who have already been through the process and gone through the emotions. My very good friend (and RPCV herself) Rebecca was there, as well as my brand new RPCV friends Joe, Jill, Sara, and "Betsy". Many more were in attendance but once you get rolling with the questions and the answers come at you in waves it is difficult to talk to and meet everyone. Probably about 20 in all were in attendance.

It is hard to pinpoint what I gleaned from the evening as there were 3 suggestions and 2 intriguing stories for every question I had, all of which I wanted to memorize or do my best to store away for later use if I am so lucky to be invited, but the most important thing I got from this evening was that connectedness to something bigger, grand, and exciting. It has been quite some time since I felt like that, possibly even going all the way back to the night where I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about applying. Just tremendous fun to talk about this possible life.

I really took too much of Sara's time with my questions, but she had served in Lesotho (a pronunciation that sounds much more like leh-SU-too than how I was accustomed to saying it) and I was zoning in on those who served in Africa without realizing it. Great information from her as she described what it was like living there, getting used to the situation, making new friends, and even coming back and the difficulties that imposes on the volunteer.

I could go on but the picture is pretty much done there - a friendlier group of people it would be hard to find.

As the night of stories moved along I realized that some of those old comforts that I am so used to right now won't be here for long if I really were depart in July or August (who knows when the date might be), so I strolled over to the convenience store that is open 24 hours a day just for a whim such as mine and walked out with a pint of ice cream. I know I shouldn't do that, but while I still can...

I made the exception. It was delicious! Enthusiasm and blood sugars are at an all-time high.

Spare Time And Evolution

Since there is no news on the Peace Corps front (patience... flexibility), I found myself wandering back to items in the political sphere again.

From another web log I was directed to an article written by Tamim Ansary who claimed deep experience in the educational textbook arena for K-12 education. It was published in the November 2004 issue of Edutopia under the title, "The Muddle Machine: Confessions of a Textbook Editor". The copy of that article is online still, and sheds a bit of light on what, at the time, was the process of publishing a textbook in the United States.

This passage is the striking information:

"In textbook publishing, April is the cruelest month. That's when certain states announce which textbooks they're adopting. When it comes to setting the agenda for textbook publishing, only the twenty-two states that have a formal adoption process count. The other twenty-eight are irrelevant -- even though they include populous giants like New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio -- because they allow all publishers to come in and market programs directly to local school districts.

Adoption states, by contrast, buy new textbooks on a regular cycle, usually every six years, and they allow only certain programs to be sold in their state. They draw up the list at the beginning of each cycle, and woe to publishers that fail to make that list, because for the next seventy-two months they will have zero sales in that state.

Among the adoption states, Texas, California, and Florida have unrivaled clout. Yes, size does matter. Together, these three have roughly 13 million students in K-12 public schools. The next eighteen adoption states put together have about 12.7 million. Though the Big Three have different total numbers of students, they each spend about the same amount of money on textbooks. For the current school year, they budgeted more than $900 million for instructional materials, more than a quarter of all the money that will be spent on textbooks in the nation."

In effect, three states call the shots as to what gets in and stays out of curricula for the nation's students. Of these three, only Texas administers their purchasing agreement for all grades which obviously covers high school textbooks as well as elementary programs. Hence, if you can sell it in Texas, you hit the mother-lode for your sales figures and you can sop up bonus money by pitching the textbooks to the other states who don't follow the adoption process.

The author details the process by which the Texas Board of Education reviews textbooks submitted, and the open hearing process whereby the public may question and comment on the textbooks. It has been through this (and the conservative make up of the Texas Board of Education) that the curriculum held in the hands of students in the Lone Star State have received watered down versions of science for quite some time. Just as recently as March 2009 the Board succeeded in adding language which will require students to "examine all sides of the argument." Clearly a dive for creationism in the classroom at all costs by the board, several of whom are very vocal about their support (any statement by Barbara Cargill on science makes her views perfectly clear).

This is not to put aside Ansary's view on the flawed system of textbook publication in this age, with diluted facts and subtle self-censorship on the part of producers, but to highlight what places the stress on science education almost across the board: a fifteen member panel and vocal activists with little background in the sciences insisting that political and religious views be foisted onto the masses.

To be honest, they are playing the game fair and square (as fair and square can be in Texas). I wonder if colleges and universities might make it known that fewer scholarships for math and science will be issued to native-taught Texans for the foreseeable future; that if given the choice, maybe a student from Michigan, Ohio, or Pennsylvania will have the background suitable for a rigorous education in the honest-to-goodness sciences more than a Texas senior would.

Then again, that probably wouldn't bother some Texans in the slightest. And that is a true shame for the next generation.

And So The Medical Kit Is Returned

After receiving my medical evaluation kit back in November of last year I have tallied the visits to the doctors, sifted through old medical records, scratched my temple to figure out what was being requested, done double and triple reviews of my documents in comparison to what the Peace Corps wanted returned; so finally today I sent the whole batch of papers back to their office. Hoooray!

The last official duty was making copies of everything that I was sending to them so I had a record of what I passed along. My hunch here is that this medical evaluation just serves as another step in the process to weed out potential candidates. Then again, maybe college graduates don't have much more then one visit to the doctor and the dentist to be finished with this part.

All in all, the ordeal is done and it treated me to a full battery of medical tests which is a good thing. I am sure my health insurance company can't quite figure out why someone would go for a Polio booster, but the Yellow fever shot my clue them in that I may be traveling soon. I'm hopeful that they pay for some of these things at least.

There is still a chance that Peace Corps receives my reply and finds something out of place which may delay the deployment. I hope this isn't the case. Another opportunity to practice patience and flexibility I suppose.

Onward and upward.

Back In The Clear

I neglected to post on Friday that the results so far of a more thorough eye exam is negative - that is the result was good for me and positive for my Peace Corps application. The ophthalmologist could not see anything on the retina other than a nevus that just should be looked at closely on further visits to ensure that it is not changing. That made me much happier. 

What I have left to do is some more writing, a few more references and then I can ship off a packet full of papers to the main headquarters and wait patiently for any follow-up questions. I may try to do a page count of what I am sending just for the humor of it all.

Our 44th President

Today was the inauguration of the Obama presidency. I happened to be fortunate enough to view the broadcast of the event while still at work but I certainly wish I had been there front and center to witness it with my own eyes. What an impressive day, more so for those who have felt the brunt of an oppressive society during the last century.

As I am an incredible devotee to the Presidency of Lincoln, it is very reassuring that President Obama has the same fondness for our 16th president. I really do hope that he can match the kindness and humility that Abraham Lincoln put on display in both public and private matters. Even if he falls only a little short of that superlative example, I am fairly positive that Obama's presidency would be a success.

We will find out soon enough; for now, it is a nice day to be alive.

The quote from Lincoln's second inaugural address:

"With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds."

Patient And Flexible

I was told earlier in the process, prior to the interview as a matter of fact, that using these words - patient and flexible - would get me places. They represent the need to understand that things operate differently in a different culture, that sometimes it takes all of your strength just to adapt to the most simplest and mundane changes that are bound to occur.

This ideal of patience and flexibility are already being used, and I am only at the medical portion of the application process. I am thinking of doing a new meditation technique where I only hear these two words looped over and over again to a new age sound track whilst I say aloud, "aum". It might just help.

More appointments today were made and met. I had to return back to my primary care physician to have her sign off on two sheets of paper that I had misread prior to my second visit to her. Just another sheet acknowledging past conditions and her signature. A second Hepatitis B shot as well (they are starting to hurt less now) for good measure. Just two more shots to go plus the Yellow fever and Polio boosters, and I'm almost done with the injections.

It was the second visit to the optometrist that threw me a curve ball. I needed new glasses in the worst way and before I go I need to have two pairs as a precautionary measure. Many hundreds of dollars later, I had the glasses I needed. Before I was out though, my optometrist dilated the pupils to take a good long look at my retina. He did notice something in the left eye. After far too much prodding on the eyeball, he could not get a good enough look at a small lesion in there. He then proceeded to tell me that this was more than likely nothing but a second opinion wouldn't hurt. 

Then the disconcerting news came. Something to the effect of, "If I saw this in a patient who had a history of melanoma, then I would definitely get this checked out." 

Yes, that would be me there mister. Back in 2001 to be precise. Any alarms and whistles at that?

While no horn fired off nor steam whistles blared out of his ears, he gave me a choice of specialists to visit so I am off to see one next Friday for a second look. I should say that it is a good thing that Peace Corps is this thorough with there medical checks for an old man such as myself, but I would have preferred to have news of the A-Ok variety. If it is nothing, then all I am out is an hour or two Friday. Better to be safe here, that is for certain.

And now on to practicing some more patience and flexibility.

A-u-m. A-u-m.

Being Detail-Oriented Helps In A Bureaucracy

There was some travel time over the holidays which meant that if I planned rightly, I would have about an hour and a half to whittle away while sitting in the Raleigh airport. That came to pass so I opened up my Peace Corps folder (a very full-of-papers folder mind you) to go over details of my medical evaluation papers. I am still on the hook to have those completed and returned to the Peace Corps Medical Offices. As I am leafing through the paper and the essay question that I must fill out, I come across the form that explains how to receive reimbursement for office visits required to complete all the medical forms. It is a three or four page packet and I recall seeing it many times, however for some reason I always read the front page, not the page or two after it.

That was a mistake.

I had to have a clearance for three other items that I highlighted on my application with my current doctor and while I remember seeing these a long while ago, I had forgotten that they appeared after the initial reimbursement cover page of the packet.

I need to set up another appointment with my doctor to have her answer three questions which I am hoping she can fill out, as two of them are more geared towards a specialist or three that I visit. I'm sure she will be happy to see me again for the third or fourth time.

No one's fault save my own but I think it highlights the process nicely: read everything three times and then double-check those documents two more times to be certain you have everything.

Here's to hoping that January 2009 I can put all this material together and get it right on the first try!

A Possible Change Here In Content

It has been quite some time since I have posted last here. Needless to say, I was quite happy with the outcome of the most recent election at the national as well as the state level. Now begins Obama's opportunity to reshape policy and direct national efforts in a liberal manner. I will hold judgement on his military endeavors until his administration actually makes decisions.

But, for the changing of content here.

Political posts are still in the offing, and there are numerous stories that merit comment on now and in the future without question. Governor Blagojevich's deeds being a prime example of current events.

Instead I will also detail a new path in my own life and career here as well. I work in the web sphere and have been doing so for a decade now. A few months ago I sought out to change that a bit and ended up applying for the Peace Corps. Through July into September I pulled together the various pieces of my application and submitted my essays, resume, history, and all relevant facts of my life that might be of interest. With a great deal of support from my friends and family, I put in my application. By October I was interviewed (more essays preceded the interview) in a town close by, and then near November 1st I learned that I had a nomination for a position. After putting in the time to get the application started and finished, the nomination part happened astoundingly quick.

As early as July 2009 I may be taking leave of the United States and land near Sub-Saharan Africa to take on a position helping in the IT sector in a country where I don't know the language nor the customs. I am extremely excited at the prospect to put it lightly. For a long while I have felt a lost sense of what I am here to do during my tenure in this world. This has been the first thing that I have felt a deep, gravitational-like pull to do something larger than myself.

Below is the essay I completed that answered the question, "Why do you want to join Peace Corps?" 

"It was two in the morning and I couldn’t shake the idea from my head. I lay wide awake thinking about changing my life and becoming a Peace Corps volunteer. It was a powerful thought that grew and took hold of my imagination - becoming immersed in a different culture, working to help others, and gaining the insight of what life is like elsewhere in the world. For the past year I have known that my life needed to change but I never knew it would lead me to this point.

In early 2007 I met a wonderful friend who shared her experience of joining Peace Corps and her time in a small village in Niger. The stories fascinated me and I asked many questions about the culture, the people, the work, the positives and the negatives of being there. Something about the world fascinates me intensely and before I knew it I wanted to know more about this country in Africa and its people. To this day I still pause to read articles online that have even a passing reference to Niger.

With the seed of service planted in my mind I came across this quote by Daniel Dennett: “Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.” My professional work in the information technology field puts me in touch with a number of people whom I assist in many different ways. However the idea of helping people truly in need of technology in some far off place on the globe energizes me in a way that is beyond the way I feel in my current position. It is as if I made the connection between what I am doing and something more important than me: being of service to my country and to the world in a significant way.

For as long as I can remember the world outside my own intrigues me, but I have not found a way to connect that interest to a path in my life. Politics and political history provided the initial step in learning about people beyond the borders of the United States. This was followed by religious and cultural questions centering on what others believed and adhered to around the world and through recorded history. I feel my horizon opening up wider and wider.

Which brings me to the present. That yearning to be of service and to change the world coupled with a greater understanding of life on this earth matches perfectly with the ideals that the Peace Corps embodies. My intention is to lead efforts that build on the intuitive and creative minds already present in a foreign land. The culmination of this is to bring back these experiences and leadership skills and affect change in my own community. Mohandas Gandhi put it best: “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.“ This is the perfect summation of why I desire to join the Peace Corps."

As more updates come in I will be sure to add to this web log. For the time being, my nomination is on hold in a technical sense until I can get my full medical evaluation complete. I have had some appointments that could only be made into January of 2009, so it will be some time before I can get the last of my qualifications completed and returned to the Peace Corps.

More updates to come.

Why My Vote Went To Senator Obama

I voted last week by absentee ballot. I will be traveling home on the day of the election and there was no other means for me to get to the polls aside from voting early, so my right to suffrage has been exercised, and my ballot had Obama's name clearly marked. Our state happens to run elections on the scantron system so there is a sheet of paper marked with black ink - no confusion on who one votes for.

So why did I vote for a one-term Senator? The choice was not very difficult at all.

Barack Obama has shown throughout his long campaign for the nomination and for the office of President that he has the capacity to think through situations and issues, to base his decisions based on clear input from advisors and to stand on liberal principles.  While some stances he has taken I do not entirely agree with (his siding with Georgia over Russia when the issue was a bit more complex than a right and wrong position, and his notion that Afghanistan only needs thousands of more troops to bend to our nation's will), his temperament suits me as quite superb for the office.

I also look at what the possibilities will be with each candidate and I note that which ever team gets to the critical 270 electoral college votes, they will face a Congress that is decidedly Democratic. How will the President work with and enable passage of key parts of their plan? For Sen. Obama, this looks quite promising for various proposals, including the tax increase on the upper bounds of income-earners in America which may put the smallest little scratch in the United States deficit splurging budget. Health care proposals may come closer to universal coverage with a Democratic Congress and President (though Sen. Obama's plan does not call for universal federally-funded coverage, it may be an opportunity that comes during an Obama administration).  In short, his priorities on the domestic front appeal to me, and I could even forgo the tax cut plan for the middle-class if the budget was pinched. I really do not see how every four years the United States can keep cutting various taxes and not eventually pay for this debtor nation policy.

One major plus for Obama's campaign on the international front is a desire to communicate first, act second if necessary. Time and again in the U.S. those in the foreign policy arena feel compelled to lord over many other countries the "superpower" status of our Pentagon behemoth. It happens practically daily. If ever there were a way to make America more isolated, it would be to threaten and cajole foreign countries in the press and in diplomatic relations with bellicose statements about "options being left on the table"; of threatening destruction unless the country in question toes the line. At least there is some glimmer of hope that an Obama presidency would parlay some modest amount of good will internationally into solutions that would work towards our favor rather than directly against our national interest. Iraq can only be seen a worst-case scenario for how not to conduct foreign policy and I believe it would be far less likely to happen under Sen. Obama's tenure then Sen. McCain's.

There are many other things that compelled me to vote for Obama. Personality, leadership quality, oration skills and a magnanimity that pervades his communications one-on-one and in the press. But to further explain why I voted for him, I need only compare his opponent.

While Senator McCain is often portrayed as one who rebels against his party when his principles dictate, I have seen far too much pandering in his campaign to the far right wing, taking stands irreconcilably different from prior stands he has sought and held. President George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy were opposed earlier in the decade; now they are embraced by his campaign. Offshore drilling for oil was opposed; now it is acceptable. Scurrilous campaign tricks and tactics were deplored by Senator McCain in 2000; he now uses not only these tactics, but the same outfit that smeared him.

It is also hard to square Sen. McCain's propensity to take incredible personal umbrage at political situations as his history of personal derision and insults to fellow Republicans as well as Democrats clearly attests. There is something worrisome about an individual that can propel the nation to war who sees confrontation in such a personal manner. Indeed, I fear that he sees Iran as something for which battle plans are the only solution available.

There is also the purely political selection of Governor Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate. If adding 10% of your political base was worth that choice, it has to be countered with losing 5% of the more independent minded voters across America who see the nod to the Alaskan as anything but reassuring.

Hence, these and many more reasons put the mark next to Obama's name. As of this writing, it looks like there is a decent chance that he will take the keys to the White House come the 4th of November. I believe the nation will be better off with that outcome.

An American Pot Calling A Kettle Black

Woe to those currently held captive in the fighting taking place through Georgia and South Ossetia, this cannot be a happy time for anyone unsure of what the next hour let alone the next day will bring.

Russia took umbrage at Georgia's flagrant intrusion into the disputed territory of South Ossetia. Its response was to repulse the thinner, weaker Georgian army and then intrude on Georgian territory. Neither side claims any moral high ground here and much like two brothers in the back seat of a car, the response "he started it," doesn't resolve the matter one whit. That blood is being spilled is always the end result is the true tragedy of such events.

Yet here is the United States of America stepping up and calling out Russia with vigor and passion. President Bush has had a great deal to say on this matter of one country invading another, let us see what insights he might have:

"In the years since it's gained independence after the Soviet Union's collapse, Georgia has become a courageous democracy. Its people are making the tough choices that are required of free societies. Since the Rose Revolution in 2003, the Georgian people have held free elections, opened up their economy, and built the foundations of a successful democracy."

Courageous enough to strike upon a bold, utterly catastrophic move of raising the hackles of the Russians in South Ossetia. If I were a native Georgian, I might be seriously mulling other candidates to lead my democratically elected government other then President Saakashvili. That ineptitude might be rewarded in the United States circa 2004, but this is the real world and bad decisions can have terrible consequences for your country.

It may be slightly disingenuous to point out here that Russia also has a democratic process, just one that elects the same person perpetually. Just to be fair here, the current Russian gate keepers aren't that fond of multiple parties.

"With its actions in recent days Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."

Just a touch hypocritical, no? Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable? Except when a "lone superpower" does it to a country whose military was a ghost of its former self. It appears the one fault of Russia was to not take their grievance to the UN Security Council and then ignore the vote and move ahead with the invasion just the same. President Bush has very little political capital (to use his cliche) here to criticize this exercise. As has been pointed out in numerous articles in print and on the web, President Bush's own policy towards the Hamas victory in January of '06 was to close the door on almost all forms of cooperation with the new Palestinian government and conspire with the leaders of the old Palestinian Authority and the government of Israel to choke the nascent Hamas government. Democracy is bliss, so long as the American rubber stamp officially says "Approved."

So to summarize, President Bush laments that a country (Russia in this instance) would belligerently march into another country and cause harm and damage to said country. That is not how we do things in the 21st century of course. Ignore though that A) Georgia provoked the incident by invading a territory that was not under its sovereign control, B) South Ossetia actually is touching the border of Russia and could be perceived as an actual military threat (unlike a perceived threat, an example of which is a country's theoretical attainment of sophisticated weaponry). 

I don't think Russia is doing itself any favors by remaining in Georgia even if irregular forces were still contesting towns and cities - their point of, "We can punish you and no one is coming to save you," was settled in South Ossetia. With a truce now signed, it would be a benefit for all Russian troops to disengage and find their way back to their side and let the rebuilding begin and possibly hope that such a conflict does not rear its head once more - but that may be hoping for too much.

It is still astounding the hypocrisy of the U.S. government to criticize foreign invasions when it employs and has employed far more bellicose actions on the world stage and completely at the behest of the leader making these criticisms.

Only a few more months though. Of course one of the choices in our contest really sounds like he wants a new Cold War. Invoking a bizarre moment at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, Senator McCain said, "I speak for every Americans when I say ... we are all Georgians." Can you imagine sending your son or daughter off to fight for God, country, and Tblisi?

What Can You Say?

The deed was done. Yesterday the Senate passed the FISA bill that exculpated the telecommunication companies from complying with the Bush Administrations patently illegal requests to eavesdrop and drag net communications with warrants. The Congress humbly asks the corporations to please not do this again, here are the new rules which nicely round over the oh-so-tough edges of the old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which we negated at our President's request for you. And if you could, we'll be running for election this fall so if you could drop a few dimes into our campaign coffers, well, it'd be much appreciated.

So very sad.

Equally depressing is the major media's coverage of the affair. Rarely will the popular press allude to the entire illegality of what Bush officials did outside of the rule of law. As is mentioned in the original FISA, it is a severe penalty to infringe this law which is the only means of spying on electronic communication when connecting one dot outside of the United States to a dot inside the country. Up to five years imprisonment, up to a ten-thousand dollar fine -- per offense. Did they do it? Yes. Did they admit to this in public? Of course, as they mentioned it many times branding it the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' when word leaked out. If the public heard any discourse on this matter, it was more then likely that they would hear it couched in terms of "listening to terrorists making phone calls to Afghanistan," rather then an illegal communications sweep.

As it is today, that goes by the wayside. It doesn't matter what it is called, what it was called, as Congress has seen fit to remove civil liability from corrupted corporations involved in the affair, and revise the FISA law to mete out exactly what the President wanted. Do we know the details of this? Of course not, neither did some 70 Senators who voted to sweep this under the rug. Why bother with the nagging details of criminal affairs? What is best is that we put this behind us. The fourth amendment in the Constitution hasn't been updated to current technologies, it may be better to remove it entirely in a few years with an even more compliant and malleable Congress.

What a stain. A Democratic Congress deserves the credit here; the Republicans could only be so giddy to march in almost a near-unanimous fashion (one lone Republican in Congress voted against it in the House, Tim Johnson IL-15) behind this bill. This bill couldn't even come out of a Republican controlled House and Senate in the 109th Congress.

There really are no words to describe this capitulation as Sen. Feingold aptly described it. They just don't do the insult justice.

America Turns 232

A happy 4th of July, 2008, to you America.

Almost.

There are several things that just don't seem right about the United States. Much like a trash can collecting far too many flies on a hot summer's day, the contents emanate a foul smell as of late. Unfortunately the contents in the rubbish heap have been added to again and again since 2001 under the Bush Administration with a little help from his friends and the public at large.

Guantanamo Bay and the absence of legality and international norms. Warrantless fishing expeditions by the state on American citizens under the guise of security. Countless dead conducted over the course of two major foreign occupations. 

Was this really what distinguished the American experiment from the rest of the world's governments? Was this institution supposed to trundle its way into oblivion on the meat hooks of public passivity and egregious defense department budgets?

I'm incredibly depressed by all of this. It doesn't end with all that flies in the face of Constitutional government either, but those are for another post. It just seems terribly difficult to continue a celebration when this should be a period of mourning, a time when we reflect on how nice it was to have a government Of the People, By the People, and For the People.

This year starts a new tradition: actually reading the Constitution of the United States of America. One more Republican term and the whole document will possibly look, (what was the word so popular in 2001? ah yes) - quaint.

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

- Mark Twain

Laws Of Civilizations

There continues to be a flood of articles reviewing how damnable the United States treatment has been to detainees of invaded and occupied lands. While these cases are extremely well documented in various press, it never hurts to review some excellent reporting on the subject.

Easing of laws that led to detainee abuse hatched in secret by Tom Lasseter for McClatchy examines who created these protocols for dubious practices and cruel punishment.

It was a few bad apples, however they wore nice suits.

"The quintet of lawyers, who called themselves the “War Council," drafted legal opinions that circumvented the military's code of justice, the federal court system and America's international treaties in order to prevent anyone — from soldiers on the ground to the president — from being held accountable for activities that at other times have been considered war crimes."

Their names are Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William J. Haynes II, John Yoo, and Timothy E. Flanigan. Of these five, only Addington still remains in the Administration serving as Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff. All of these men are implicated by memorandums and legal opinions of setting up a rogue system of international justice where protections which the U.S. Armed Forces takes for granted for itself on the battlefield would not apply to anyone culled in Afghanistan and then Iraq.

Quite interestingly enough a Justice Department lawyer, Jack Goldsmith, offered up this reasoning (paraphrased from his book) for many of the legal tacks taken by them:

"The five lawyers saw legal opinions drafted by Yoo and others in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel as a shield ... that would make it hard to convict someone of acting on legal advice from the premier legal office in the administration."

Nothing like covering one's hindquarters as a good start when patriotically fighting the "war" on terror.

Recall as well that these people picked up on the battlefield were the "worst of the worst", demanding such harsh techniques and of course torture to extract information. McClatchy has information on former Guantanamo prisoners/detainees posted to its web site. In five minutes, one can learn a bit more about Aminullah. He is a free man again in Afghanistan after confinement and imprisonment from October 2002 to the middle of 2008. Clearly, there is the point that he was with the Taliban when U.S. forces arrived, but part of his story is that he joined the northern alliance when they swept through his province. Additionally, there is some evidence that he may have been given up to the U.S. based solely on his ethnicity. Clear cut case of Aminullah being a monster, yes?

In the page above the following quote ends the article:

"Asked why the Americans had detained him, Aminullah shook his head and said, 'Only God knows.' "

My guess is that President Bush would have the same answer to that question.

All The Way To Denver

In a prior post, I had lamented the current system of around-the-clock campaigning for the Presidency due to the primary structure of both political parties. Longing for contentious conventions and multiple ballots and slates of names for the nomination appeared to be exciting and energizing to the process.

It would appear that the Democrats are not far removed from that occurrence which would fulfill my romantic dream of what a convention ought to be. However, that idealized convention was not to be preceded by months and months of speeches, campaign ads, fundraising and mud-slinging between the candidates. Alas, that would happen most likely in any event where the primary process was in place or not as each candidate would jockey for position at the convention.

Forgetting the abstract, wished-for state, the current tangle that Senators Clinton and Obama face now has compelled commentators to suggest that it is ruining the party's chances in November. That might be a possibility but given the attitudes of most Democrats to Independents, they are not eagerly awaiting a Republican candidate to sweep them off their electoral feet. What could be more poisonous is a convention that switches the public's choice. For all the effort placed into the primary system to let voters decide who the best candidate is only to have a convention switch the platter being served up in November could spell disaster.

More of an insult to the process were the states of Michigan and Florida moving up their primary to make their delegations more important to the convention under the presumption (accurate at the time by most who would make a prediction about such things) that the nominations would be sewn up by the time the candidates arrived in their respective states to campaign based on prior election years. The Democratic Party issued the ultimatum that it would not accept either delegation if it continued on the early path and followed through on that threat. It may be likely that Sen. Clinton would have won both states by a margin of 5% or so given her record so far in larger states but that is not a certainty. To be sure, she ran against no other opponent and left her name on the ballot purposely which had the Obama campaign actively ask voters to select "none of the above" on their ballots. Clinton's counting of these states is a smokescreen of support for her candidacy. Just the same, it happened and is part of the issue.

What is slightly odd on this is that the last primary is June 3rd of Montana and South Dakota. That will wrap up all the pledged delegates to the convention. Terry McAuliffe was quoted by David Corn that they would be fighting for the nomination all the way to "June 15th." Of course the Clinton campaign manager would confidently say that his candidate would be the winner by then, but waiting 12 days after the final primary election leaves a lot of wiggling on the super delegate front. Curious to see what their campaign might do during that period.

Denver could be a fun spot to be in come the end of August.

Telcom Companies Have Earned Their Right To Privacy

There are only so many descriptors that can be used regarding the Senate's capitulation to the Administration's request for telecommunication companies' immunity before redundancy sets in - the words lose their meaning against the face of the audacity of the crime. The adjectives become hollow. The cynicism just becomes a granted and mundane part of the cycle.

For the time being the denouement comes from the Senate, approving of retroactive immunity handed over to the telecommunication corporations who knowingly violated the law at the behest of the Bush security apparatus.

For background, be certain to watch the Frontline documentary on the subject of warrantless eavesdropping by the United States government. Titled, "Spying On The Homefront," written by Hendrick Smith and Rick Young, it exposes what was known about the program first reported on by the New York Times regarding the cooperation between the Administration and several of America's largest telecommunication companies. A tragedy for sure, corporations who were expressly forbidden from turning over customer data as written in U.S. law gave away as much information as was asked for in an apparent bid to curry favor for future government largess.

The Senate passed their amnesty program on the 12th of February. The House blocked the passage of its version of the bill and by Friday the "Protect America Act" went by the way-side. There is no reason to believe however that at a later date the Democrats in the House won't pass a bill that looks remarkably similar to the craven, cave-in Senate version when they return from a one week break, however it was a moment of partial resistance to the dread and doom peddling of President Bush and his proxies in Congress.

To whit: Something quickly picked up on by commentators and some news outlets alike was President Bush's own veto threat against a 21 day extension of the bill from the House. We were under such a grave an ominous threat (no, Bush was not talking as a press spokesman from lawsuit-fearing telecommunications companies) from terrorists, that he would go so far as to veto any extension of the law to keep the status quo working. Status quo here means the illegal gathering of data as outlawed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. So the President chides Congress by not adopting his wished-for-legislation that he felt obliged to veto had it come to him with one small string attached.

Then what did he really need from Congress? Immunity for possible law-breaking by corporations. Congress could have bent over so that their collective craniums were behind their ankles to deliver a renewal of the Protect America Act but that wasn't even remotely close to the issue - it was the telecommunication industry blanket immunity that was/is needed by the Bush Administration.

What is glaringly obvious is that the Administration had been caught as red-handed as one can be caught, and needs a very precise legal instrument to cover up the tracks. Broad immunity for illegally spying on citizens without suspicion of wrong doing.

It never hurts to read up on our Constitution (and the Bill of Rights) at times like these.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[italics by this writer]

In the link above to the Frontline documentary, a brief exchange is included of the former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez being pressed on whether there were any other programs being conducted during this time. Sen. Feinstein's direct question, "Has the President ever invoked this authority with respect to any activity other than the program we are discussing, the NSA Surveillance Program," to which AG Gonzalez responded, "Senator, I am not comfortable going down the road of saying 'yes' or 'no' as to what the President has or has not authorized." If there are other programs or spying techniques being used, they are not to be talked about in an open Senate hearing, this is for certain.

For the next year at least no one can be absolutely certain that Big Brother isn't watching, listening, or sifting through one's house, papers, or effects (and that would include one's communications).

Welcome to the police state. Hold your number up and look straight at the camera please. Now to the left. Thank you.

Force Increases One Year Later

For just the briefest of moments there was general reflection by the media one year after the President's announcement that there would be an increase in troop levels inside of Iraq. The review of progress, the history of the surge in combat forces operating inside and outside of Baghdad, the numbers of murdered and bombings, in short a 90 second review of 12 months within the borders of Iraq.

Overall most coverage now has the positive outlook of what the increase has done for the country. Indicators were done in the second half of the year for the typical violence, and that was directly connected by the media to the boots on the ground.

Usually within the last 10 to 15 seconds however, the reporter or anchor would somberly note that the political progress that was hoped for with this escalation would follow, but has yet clearly developed. Cue next segment.

"In other news, the economy here in the U.S. is faltering and worries of a recession loom ..."

Last year at about this time I made mention of what I expected to be the result of the escalation -- more violence, at least at the outset. While that was true for the first few months, violent death and explosions did curtail through the summer months into the fall. I ended with this quote:

Some or maybe all of these instances may never come to fruition but this is the glum prediction of Iraq, and history has shown that the more dire prognostications have come true more often than the rosy ones. The Administration has constantly relied on brute force to fix Iraq, and there are few if any tangible results from said policies. The rhetoric of the President is fixed on success, but the jargon of his policy is set on destruction.

Breaking Baghdad even further is not the solution.

From the reports that came throughout 2007, it appeared that one could break Baghdad further; right along sectarian lines in fact, neighborhood by neighborhood. The city now sees less violence and more partition walls which has affected security. Yet is the country better off for the past year? Does a segregated city mean progress?

From recent citations through conservative organs, it is oft-reported that things have finally settled down and that the aggressive invasion of a foreign country followed by years of occupation are paying off and thereby vindicating the rationale for the adventure in Iraq.

Really?

The daily death toll is still the daily death toll out of Iraq. US troops continue dying (with a recent up-tick in the early part of January 2008) and Iraqis are still seeing bodies turn up in the morning on the streets, though not in the sheer volume that they were as in the beginning of 2007. Additionally, the Iraqi government is no closer to negotiating their problems away through major legislative efforts.

Bringing this to light was a post at TomDispatch.com by Tom Engelhardt reviewing some of the more trying points of much of the success talk from the right. Titled "Tomgram: CSI Iraq", Engelhardt reviews the situation in Iraq and the sight is not pretty. Throughout most of his article, he reiterates that the talk of success fills the void of what America must do next in the occupation of a foreign country. This technique is the equivalent of buying time; to make sure that the problem is not one of the Bush Administration's closing tasks but the grand opening headache of the next Administration.

At one point, the surge was begot to enable political reconciliation. That phase of the surge is essentially stillborn after six solid months of inaction on the part of the Iraqi Parliament (notwithstanding the one law passed recently allowing some ex-Baath party members to return to government positions -- provided any existed for them at this point). The city of Kirkuk, with its Sunni and Turk minorities, is just as in flux as it was in 2006 with the added gem of a Turkish government on the edge of its border waiting for any excuse to send in more combat missions into Kurdish-held northern Iraq to fight the militant groups of the PKK. If anything, the success-in-Iraq crowd tend to grudgingly allude to the failure in terms of political stability needed. For now.

Another fine article describing how well things aren't going in Iraq comes from Andrew J. Bacevich of the Washington Post. In "Surge to Nowhere," Bacevich reviews much of the same evidence for concluding that things in Iraq are not going well, but reserves much of the venom for those commentators who have rushed to parade "success" on as many news cycles as possible. From his article:

"Look beyond the spin, the wishful thinking, the intellectual bullying and the myth-making. The real legacy of the surge is that it will enable Bush to bequeath the Iraq war to his successor -- no doubt cause for celebration at AEI [American Enterprise Institute], although perhaps less so for the families of U.S. troops. Yet the stubborn insistence that the war must continue also ensures that Bush's successor will, upon taking office, discover that the post-9/11 United States is strategically adrift. Washington no longer has a coherent approach to dealing with Islamic radicalism. Certainly, the next president will not find in Iraq a useful template to be applied in Iran or Syria or Pakistan."

With the expense of occupying Afghanistan and Iraq running between two and three billion dollars a week, it is a curious suggestion indeed what the U.S. can learn from President Bush's war. In order to stop a dictator from using weapons which he never had in the first place, George W. Bush will have placed trillions of I.O.U.s into the coffers for our grandchildren to pay later, and destabilized a region not known for stability in the first place which the country relies on for a hefty dollop of its foreign oil.

Least of which we should note the hundreds of thousands of lives terminated in the bargain. A tragedy, each and every one.

We witness the end of an empire. Good riddance.

Fighting For The Nomination

With the Iowa caucuses over and the New Hampshire contest shortly around the corner, there appears to be little concern to the process itself and what it has done to the political process of selecting the best candidate to represent the banners of each political party.

What it was over 150 years ago was a system of political control by party bosses at the local and / or regional level. The conventions held by the parties would actually determine who the candidate was at times, and at certain points in history would yield most excellent candidates (Abraham Lincoln) and not so excellent candidates (James Buchanan). The campaign was typically shorter, and depending on the most popular political names of the era, candidates themselves would rarely participate in open campaigning.

Today, quite the opposite case is apparent. John Edwards on the Democratic side had been planting campaign seeds and organizational roots across Iowa since his departure from the Senate in 2005. Governor Romney has been active since 2006 when Giuliani was still ahead in Iowa, and paid quite a sum to win a straw poll in August. What America has now is a campaign season that begins roughly two to three years in advance of the actual election.

Further, the campaign season of the primaries is becoming a contest amongst the states to be "more important" and nab the spotlight and monetary boon that is the early voting states. Iowa will not be denied going first, New Hampshire will not be denied being the first voting primary. Crowding into second are large states with huge delegations to send to the conventions, including states such as Florida and Michigan who jumped ahead against the behest of their own parties to vote at later dates. It is unlikely that those delegates will be seated come summer 2008 in the Democratic side, but it remains for a lawsuit to decide. Come 2011 or earlier, might it be possible that 10 or 12 states will vie for 3rd in the nation polling days?

In essence, the U.S. will have two candidates for the Presidency decided some time before March, with months and months to fight it out across a handful of closely contested battleground states. This observation comes before New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg decides if he will launch his own independent bid for the office.

What are the positives of an election campaign that lasts in excess of two years for an office with a term of only four? At what point is the system a detriment to the process of electing a president? Having a candidate lock up the nomination in two or three weeks time is almost akin to the old days of party bosses deigning one man over another to become the nominee in the proverbial smoke-filled back room. It is quick, and an extraordinary slice of the voting public has practically no say.

The one identifiable positive may well be that a relative unknown can work the ground campaign in a small region such as Iowa or New Hampshire and become a force in the election (President Carter had a similar run in 1976) and thwart the idea that only national figures or those with overly large war chests need apply. Even so, the individual that breaks through may still not be the most qualified candidate on the ballot among his or her party, let alone on the final national ticket.

I guess my proclivity runs towards the path of adding excitement back to the nominating convention. By not having a nominee, each party wrangles amongst themselves about who will be the best candidate, duke it out, have multiple votes, and charge out of the convention with a nominee and a campaign.

Of course this is more of a wish as the reality of a 24-hour news system means constant talk about who is ahead, behind, and in the middle of the race of races. With that as a backdrop, it is not a surprise that a campaign that lasts years is only there to feed the media beast so-to-speak.

Once the new President takes the oath of office, there will again be eyes back on who is visiting Iowa to stake out their very first campaign office in January 2009.

The Romney Sermon

If there was a reason why the Constitution of the United States was important, the speech delivered by Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney on December 6th provided the reason behind the founding text and the need for the very first amendment under the Bill of Rights. Whereas John F. Kennedy needed to assure the American public that his religion would not interfere with his political judgment and acumen, Romney could not help himself in pleasing the Religious Right that he is certainly religious enough to make his pious distinctions a part of public policy.

Heaven help us.

Read the full transcript of Romney's epiphany.

To put it succinctly, Gov. Romney needs Evangelical Christians to vote for him and this speech was presented to mollify their concerns about a Mormon. In effect, it was his bid to promise that he will really hammer away at keeping religion in government and it will be something approximating what they believe in - the correct religion if you will.

Some of the more confounding quotes from his speech:

"Radical violent Islam seeks to destroy us."

There was once a country named the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They did not destroy the United States, even armed with the most abundant military power the world could muster throughout most of the mid- to late-20th century. Does Mitt Romney really think 1,000 would be attackers could destroy America? Is that not unstable thinking, unreasoned and illogical through and through? The speech-writers must know this sounds appropriately scary to most citizens and puts them in the right emotional mindset to think that Romney will stop "them", but what he is propagating with those words is the myth that a religion is out to get the U.S. Why does that not ring as plain old silly?

Oh there is more:

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

There has been so much written on this claptrap already that it almost needs no clarification. Almost. From what we can gather of Romney's esteemed opinion, freedom from tyranny, freedom from oppression, freedom of individual choice just cannot come to be unless there is some form of religion backing it up. One must have God on her or his side in order to obtain freedom. Yes, that form of freedom that came directly from the Age of Enlightenment could only come about from the bishops, imams, and rabbis scattered throughout the world. Disregard the names of Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Jefferson, et al. It is almost too difficult to write how absurd a proposition that statement is and was. Many, many organized religions saw to it (and still see to it) that treatment of women was to be subject of the whims and wishes of the father or the husband. Freedom indeed.

"There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it's more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it."

Who specifically is asking him to distance himself from Mormonism? We need names here to back up this claim. Someone close to his campaign staff? Fellow former Governors? Joe Lieberman? Sure these offerings are meant in jest, but otherwise this is a standard ploy by politicians, most notably President Bush. "Some people say Muslims aren't decent enough to have democracy. (pregnant pause) And I reject that." You can make up any ill-thought-out claim and stand up and be on record as against it, but it adds zero to the discussion.

"The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation "under God" and in God, we do indeed trust."

Atheists and agnostics, please sew a badge on your clothing so that you may more easily be rounded up and removed from society. Polytheistic religious believers should also narrow down their scope of deities to a more uniform 'one' in accord with this new vision of religious tolerance in America. So there shall be no state religion, but you must believe in God since everyone does.

It goes on and on like this.

"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government."

"Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me."

Ending on this note:

"And in that spirit, let us give thanks to the divine "author of liberty." And together, let us pray that this land may always be blessed, "with freedom's holy light.""

Governor Romney's view of religious freedom is certainly his free right of expression, but let us pray that he never makes it any where near the White House that he may act on those expressions which the First Amendment equitably allows him to hold and espouse.

The Russians Are Coming

Vladimir Putin is at it again. Challenging the American hegemony in Western (and Eastern) Europe.

Putin's remarks preceding the summit regarding missile defense deployment made for some rather uncomfortable delegation members, including U.S. Secretary of State Rice. After postponing his appearance for some forty minutes President Putin appeared before the gathered press and made light of the defenses that the U.S. hopes to install along Russia's border.

All this leading to the summation by Defense Secretary Gates that Russia is saying, "We are back."

Had they ever really left? Well, throughout the 1990s there was a hiatus, but the nuclear arsenal never disappeared.

What Russia is doing does not occur in a vacuum. There are reasons aplenty why Putin has dared insult the United States in the manner that he has done. An ever-increasing NATO bloc that serves little in the way of United States security interests, a bold (and rather hamstrung)
missile defense system, and the addition of instability in the Middle East which includes vital partners to Russia; why wouldn't this be a foreign policy concern of Putin?

In the past seven years of the Bush Administration, there have been many mis-fires on the diplomatic front. As Jonathan Landay of McClatchy reports:

"Bush's strategy on Russia assumed that Russian President Vladimir Putin embraced democracy, wanted integration with the West and sought a "strategic partnership" in which Moscow would acquiesce to U.S. policies such as NATO expansion. Feuds could be resolved through the close personal relationship that Bush believed he had with his Russian counterpart.

Instead, fueled by record oil and natural gas prices and resentment of what he lambasted in February as Bush's "almost uncontained hyper use of force," Putin has led global opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq, hosted Palestinians on the U.S. list of terrorist groups, sold anti-aircraft missiles and other arms to Iran and stymied Bush's drive to tighten U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment."

Fortunately for America, there can only be one more year and a few months of fouled political decisions from Washington when it comes to relations with the Russian state. However, that is plenty of time to further deteriorate the strained connection, especially if any militaristic action is taken with Iran.