Why I'm glad I don't have to drive in India

Doing our duty

I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty.
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, May 27, 2007; B01

Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to prevent their loss. When my son was killed in Iraq earlier this month at age 27, I found myself pondering my responsibility for his death.

Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son's death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings.

This may seem a vile accusation to lay against a grieving father. But in fact, it has become a staple of American political discourse, repeated endlessly by those keen to allow President Bush a free hand in waging his war. By encouraging "the terrorists," opponents of the Iraq conflict increase the risk to U.S. troops. Although the First Amendment protects antiwar critics from being tried for treason, it provides no protection for the hardly less serious charge of failing to support the troops -- today's civic equivalent of dereliction of duty.

What exactly is a father's duty when his son is sent into harm's way?

Among the many ways to answer that question, mine was this one: As my son was doing his utmost to be a good soldier, I strove to be a good citizen.

As a citizen, I have tried since Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a critical understanding of U.S. foreign policy. I know that even now, people of good will find much to admire in Bush's response to that awful day. They applaud his doctrine of preventive war. They endorse his crusade to spread democracy across the Muslim world and to eliminate tyranny from the face of the Earth. They insist not only that his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was correct but that the war there can still be won. Some -- the members of the "the-surge-is-already-working" school of thought -- even profess to see victory just over the horizon.

I believe that such notions are dead wrong and doomed to fail. In books, articles and op-ed pieces, in talks to audiences large and small, I have said as much. "The long war is an unwinnable one," I wrote in this section of The Washington Post in August 2005. "The United States needs to liquidate its presence in Iraq, placing the onus on Iraqis to decide their fate and creating the space for other regional powers to assist in brokering a political settlement. We've done all that we can do."

Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference. But I did nurse the hope that my voice might combine with those of others -- teachers, writers, activists and ordinary folks -- to educate the public about the folly of the course on which the nation has embarked. I hoped that those efforts might produce a political climate conducive to change. I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.

This, I can now see, was an illusion.

The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November 2006 midterm elections signified an unambiguous repudiation of the policies that landed us in our present predicament. But half a year later, the war continues, with no end in sight. Indeed, by sending more troops to Iraq (and by extending the tours of those, like my son, who were already there), Bush has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as "the will of the people."

To be fair, responsibility for the war's continuation now rests no less with the Democrats who control Congress than with the president and his party. After my son's death, my state's senators, Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, telephoned to express their condolences. Stephen F. Lynch, our congressman, attended my son's wake. Kerry was present for the funeral Mass. My family and I greatly appreciated such gestures. But when I suggested to each of them the necessity of ending the war, I got the brushoff. More accurately, after ever so briefly pretending to listen, each treated me to a convoluted explanation that said in essence: Don't blame me.

To whom do Kennedy, Kerry and Lynch listen? We know the answer: to the same people who have the ear of George W. Bush and Karl Rove -- namely, wealthy individuals and institutions.

Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation's call to "global leadership." It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent.

This is not some great conspiracy. It's the way our system works.

In joining the Army, my son was following in his father's footsteps: Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam. As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time. Yet he was the better soldier -- brave and steadfast and irrepressible.

I know that my son did his best to serve our country. Through my own opposition to a profoundly misguided war, I thought I was doing the same. In fact, while he was giving his all, I was doing nothing. In this way, I failed him.

Andrew J. Bacevich teaches history and international relations at Boston University. His son died May 13 after a suicide bomb explosion in Salah al-Din province.

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By Stan Matuska

Why am I left feeling that all we as citizens can do is vote to "do our duty", but that voting isn't enough???

It seems that no matter who is voted into any office, it's politics as usual!!! There has to be a better way to get Washington to do the will of the people who put them there in the first place! It always comes down to power and money. When and how can we stand up to our elected leaders and officials and say "enough is enough. We don't want your ass in office if you aren't willing to do the will of the people. Step up to the plate, shit or get off the pot or get the hell out of there!". Of course, we would then have to "do our duty" and vote for someone else to take their position; and hope they don't fall prey to the political correctness of Washington.

It's as though Washington has gotten too big over the years, and we as average citizens are only heard just enough to keep us voting for our favorite politician. I don't believe that was the intent of our founding fathers of this great country; and I don't believe it was your intent when you went to the polls.

Something fun to do over the holiday weekend!

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to run

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has thrown his hat in the ring to become the next president in 2008. I find this very interesting since we already have Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running.

I have always said he was one to watch. He has probably the most impressive resume of all the candidates! He's a Governor, has foreign policy experience and much more of a resume than the other candidates.

I am going to watch him closely. What do you think?

Full story from CNN.com

The next Larry Bird?

I took some shots of my son Harrison playing around with an old toddler basketball hoop and a ball he got from Chuck E. Cheese. Next, with a little creative editing, I made him look pretty good. All completed shots are real - no cgi here!

Time for a free credit checkup

It's very important to keep track of your credit report; and equally important not to pay to have a look at it! Websites like freecreditreport.com are not really "free", you have to pay for a membership to get a look for free.

The government did a good thing by allowing all people to check their credit report once a year from each of the three credit reporting agencies....for free!

You should bookmark the link below for future reference. You should also NOT check all three of them at once. You should spread it out over the course of a year since you can only check it once a year for free.

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

Is the 9/10 cent added to the price of gas necessary?

I was trying to find out the history of the 9/10 portion of gas prices, when I came upon a site that has a lot of information - maybe too much! Check it out, and then tell me what your take on it is. Heck, tell me it's origin. I still am not sure. I personally think it is time to eliminate the 9/10 portion of the gas price. With the high price of gas today, is the 9/10 portion really necessary???

http://www.users.qwest.net/~taaaz/AZgas.html

Guilty until proven innocent

This is a true, but long story that happened to me recently. I will try to keep it as short as possible.

Several months ago I let my son borrow my car to go to work because his car was not working at the time. He worked at a rental car company at the airport. He called me at my office to tell me that there was some kind of skirmish with the police around where he parked my car. He went out to see what was going on, but the skirmish had just ended. The police asked him whose car this was, pointing to my car. He said it's his Dad's, and he was just borrowing it. The police told him that his Dad was in big trouble!!! My son asked why, and the police wouldn't tell him.

Back at his work area, a fellow employee said the police told him what the deal was with his Dad's car. He said there is a warrant out for his (my) arrest!!! I told my son, Josh, that this has to be some kind of mistake. I haven't done anything wrong, and I haven't been hiding from the law. He insisted that I call the police to see what the problem is. I ignored him for several hours until my wife called me. She heard from Josh what happened and urged me to contact the police as well. So, when I got home I decided to make the call.

I called the police station and asked if there was a way I could tell if there was a warrant out for my arrest. He said, "yes", and put me through to the warrants department. They asked me my name, and then said, "yes, there is a warrant out for your arrest". By this time, the color had drained from my face. What in the world is this all about, I asked. The guy from warrants said, "check deception". WHAT!!!??? I had never written a bad check in my life!!! I told him there must be some mistake and he said there was nothing he could do about it. My mind was racing about a hundred miles per hour, and found a clue in the process. I told the guy that back in 2000 I had some checks stolen and this must be what this is all about. He suggested I turn myself in!!! Turn myself in, I thought, wait wait wait a minute. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not going to turn myself in for something I didn't do. I then ended the call.

My son called me back to have me look at www.indianasmostwanted.com. If you entered my name, I was in their database!!! There was no photo, because I had never been booked before, but it even had this generic message: "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND ANY OF THESE SUSPECTS AS THEY MAY BE ARMED AND DANGEROUS." Yikes!!! What the hell is this all about????? I am not a criminal!!!

Wow, what a situation. There is actually a warrant out for my arrest, my arrest, I kept repeating to myself. How can this happen to me??? When my checks where stolen in 2000, I immediately made a police report because some stores were contacting me for payment. The checking account had been closed for about a year and a half, and was in my name only with a previous address when they were written. Some of the checks I saw at the time were written to Wal-Mart, Clark gas station, Scott's and KFC. They were signed "Mrs. Stan Matuska" which was a dead give-away since the name on the checks were "Stan Matuska". There was no “Mrs.” pre-printed on the check. The ones I saw totaled over $1500! Back then, I was told by the police to go to my bank and sign my name several times as an affidavit to my signature. I was to make a copy of the bank form and the police report and send it to the merchants notifying them that they cannot contact me for payment, by law. I did this for every merchant that contacted me until they finally stopped calling and mailing me. I had copies of everything that I held onto for over 5 years until I moved in 2005. At that time, I thought there was not need to hold onto that bad memory any longer, and tossed everything away. I recently found out that was not a good idea.

Back to recently, I spent the next week contacting everyone I could think of who could help with this situation. All I needed was for someone to look at the warrant and compare it to the police report. Once they did that, they would see this is just a case of mistaken identity. If only it were so easy. I even had a co-worker who knows someone who works for a Judge, contact me to get this resolved. The Judge pulled up the complaint and told her assistant to tell me that the only thing I could do was to turn myself in.

I decided to contact an Attorney to resolve this matter. He tried to see the case file against me without me turning myself in, but the request was denied. The only way he could have access to my case file was for me to turn myself in. The Judge did say that I would be allowed to leave the jail on my OR (own recognizance, I later learned) until my court date. We were already downtown at the time my attorney told me that I should turn myself in in the early AM hours, so I won't have to spend a full night in jail. I asked if I could just do it now and get it over with. He said, yes, but was concerned that I wanted to do it right away. I wanted to get this over with, and I found out that the ONLY way to resolve this was to turn myself in!!! My attorney said I would only be booked for a few hours then released. He escorted me to the jail where I was booked. At the booking window, I explained what happened to me (not that it would help, but I felt like a criminal), and the officer said he had something similar happen to him! He said it had to do with a check at Meijer grocery store. He too had to go through the booking process, or at least he said he did.

So now, there I am. In jail. I had never seen the inside of a jail before. Looking back, it was almost like a bad dream. I was searched, photographed, fingerprinted, and stripped of anything of value, including my wedding ring, which had not been off my hand since the day I got arried. I was too scared to be sad, angered or even mad. They didn't tell you anything. I waited and waited, put in different holding cells with other "criminals", and fed some horrible food, which I refused to eat. It took some time to get an officers attention to ask if I could use the restroom. Eventually an office opened the cage and said, "Anybody else in here gotta take a piss?” At that point, I realized I wasn't at a Holiday Inn! They escorted us to a different cell with a restroom with little privacy! What was I thinking? I actually thought we would get to use a common area restroom down the hall!

Eventually, several of us were taken to a different holding room, but first, we were to grab a foam mattress before entering the room. Once inside, there were 4 metal beds, one sink and one toilet in plain view. The room was total concrete, with the exception of the jail door, and a tiny window. There was a camera in view, which was of some comfort. That's it. I put my mattress down on the lower bunk and waited, and waited, and waited. There was some talk, but mostly it was pretty quiet. After what seemed like forever, we were escorted out of the room, given our possessions, signed some release papers and ushered out a side door, where I was immediately accosted by one of the "inmates" who practically demanded some money. I don't remember how much I gave him because I was pretty bewildered at the time, but it was enough for us to part ways.

The rest of the story is very important, but it would drag out a long time. The short version is this: My attorney got my case file. It contained checks from Meijer!!! Apparently, back in 2000 when other businesses were finding my name and address in the phone book to contact me, Meijer simply turned me in to the police after their notice to me was returned to them because I had moved from the address on the bad check!!! They made no attempt beyond that to locate me like the other stores did! After several visits to see the Judge, mostly to ask for continuances, my attorney was able to get the case dropped. He is in the process of getting it expunged, but that hasn't happened yet. I am furious with Meijer, and my wife refuses to shop there any more. My attorney said Meijer was using the police to help their bottom line instead of hiring people to do the work! Meijer is probably doing the absolute minimum as required by the law to collect their debts so they can have the police hunt them down for payment!!! How convenient is that!!!??? I may still sue Meijer for their practices, or lack thereof; but if they are following the law to the letter, then I would be wasting my time and money.

I know several people who have had similar stories; and it makes me so mad, because there has to be a better way for innocent people to resolve these kinds of legal issues without the mandatory “turn yourself in” approach.

Genius of Love

One of the first music videos that I can remember seeing - I know Dan will appreciate this one:

Bizarre video

This is video of a plane crash during a baseball game. All four people aboard the plane survived. The pilot, Brian Mason, was unaware at the time, but his daughter was playing soccer on the field where the plane flipped over. She is one of the people rushing toward the plane.

Mario - Game Over

Star Trek tech comes to life

I was watching a segment on the science channel and came across this. According to the program I saw, this technology will be available for consumers at well under $1000 by 2011.

Click-it or ticket returns

Statewide the police will be mounting another massive campaign to force law abiding citizens to wear seat belts.

This is a great example of the "nanny state" that we live in today.

Last year 3125 seat belt violations were issued in Allen County!

According to pat White on Wowo today they want to issue more then 3125 between May 19th and June 3rd.

Is there Anyone who reads this blog who feels that this is the best possible use of our police force?

There are a lot of things that I think our police force could do that would be more useful, consider these ideas:

1. Allen County has almost 7000 outstanding arrest warrants. I would think most citizens would prefer the police apprehend those people who have outstanding arrest warrants rather then ensure that law abiding citizens are wearing their seat belts.

2. A lot of Hoosiers are killed each year in car accidents. I would rather see the police department spend their time ticketing those Hoosiers who drive in a manner dangerous to others.

3. Setup sting operations to apprehend drug dealers who are spending a great deal of time on street corners selling illegal drugs.

These are just a few ideas.

Maybe you have more ideas?

Mike Sylvester

Bush dates the Queen

George Bush has raised more eyebrows after getting his dates wrong and winking at the Queen.

His slip-up came during the official welcome ceremony on the south lawn of the White House, attended by 7,000 people.

The US president first aged the monarch by 200 years by starting to suggest she came to the US in 1776, reports Sky News.

"You helped our nation to celebrate its bicentennial in 17... 1976," he said in his speech.

As the crowd started laughing, he paused, turned to the Queen and winked at her.

He then declared: "You gave me a look that only a mother could give a child."

Ha Ha! He's such a funny President! I'm sure the Queen was laughing so hard!!!