Sox Win Kids Lose
   With apologies to Houston Astros fans, it was a wonderful World Series.
Championship-starved Chicago fans were able to give a ticker tape parade to
a baseball team after 88 years.
  Although it was a four-game sweep, the games were close. A base hit there,
a curve that didn't hang, a long ball that was inches foul and the parade
could have been in Houston.
  The Sox was a team of players nobody ever heard of. Instead of big names,
they had names hard to pronounce. It wasn't a team of all-stars, but a team
of cast-offs and even a few misfits. But they knew how to play as a team.
They even liked each other.
  The fans in both cities threw away their alarm clocks and dragged into
work the next day as exhausted as the players. One game wasn¹t finished
until after 1 p.m. CDT.
  Not so elsewhere. Although it was an exciting series, fewer fans across
the nation watched the fall classic than any time since they had begun
televising the series. This year was a drop of almost 30 percent from last
year's series.
  The games had barely begun on the East Coast when it was time for  the
kids to go to bed. Over half of the school children in the country missed the
World Series.
  Since the games were broadcast so late and on a cable network, other fans
missed it too. Not everyone has cable and not everyone is comfortable
watching TV in bars.
  By eliminating the youngsters with night games, as they have for over 30
years, baseball is losing fans. The Little Leaguers of the 1970's  had
Little Leaguers of their own who may have opted for other sports.
  Baseball still claims high attendance at the ball park. Fathers still take
their sons and daughters to the games, but they go to see gigantic home runs
hit by gigantic men. They also head for the parking lot before the last man
is out.
  Kids go to the ball park now with gloves and $20 bills. In the minor
league ball park here, there are activities for kids other than the ball
game. Throughout the game the ushers are constantly admonishing the kids not to run on the concourse.
  In our day, the kids were not allowed to run. They came to watch the ball
game and had to be content with one hot dog, one soft drink and perhaps a
bag of peanuts or Cracker Jacks.
  My father would come from work and, from March to November, bat balls to
me and the neighbor¹s kids. He taught us how to bunt and slide and throw a
curve ball.
  My next door neighbor, an Astros fan, still does that. Only after the
Series was over did he begin throwing a football. Other kids in the
neighborhood are riding to the soccer field in mom¹s SUV. Some prefer to spend their summer days in front of a computer.
  Back in the days of radio, the World Series could be heard in the
workplace and, in some places, even the classroom. In the early days of
television furniture stores and other places which sold TVs had them in
their windows and crowds would gather on the streets. For those who are over
40, the Series' was something to remember.
  Major League baseball seems bent on self-destruction. The commissioner who decided that the Series was a night affair was preceded by the commissioner who put the asterisk  beside Roger Maris' name and succeeded by the commissioner who suspended Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays from baseball.
  Maris’ record was broken by a player who took the fifth when asked about
steroid use and baseball, instead of suspending those who use steroids,
gives them a slap on the wrist.
  Baseball survived the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919. It set an example by
ending racial discrimination. It has survived strikes.
  But owners' greed and dumb decisions still remain. The national pastime is
becoming the national once-upon-a-time while Super Bowl Sunday has become a national holiday.

The "Proper Role"
When Harriet Miers accepted the nomination of U. S. Supreme Court justice from President Bush, she said, “It is the responsibility of every
 generation to be true to the Founders’ vision of the proper role of the
 courts in our society.”
   Had Miss Miers read her history, she may have discovered that the founders
 themselves didn’t know what the role of the Supreme Court was to be.
   If they did, they didn’t specify it. The Constitution doesn’t define it
 and the early justices did not know if it even allowed the court to
 interpret the Constitution.
   President George Washington, certainly one of the founders, appointed
 three chief justices. The first one quit to run for governor of New York,
 the second didn’t even sit, choosing to sit instead on what he though was
 the more prestigious South Carolina Supreme Court and the third one resigned
 to take a diplomatic post. None of them seemed to have an idea of what the
 Court was supposed to do, much less demonstrating a vision.
   It was Chief Justice John Marshal who established the “proper role” of the
 Court and that is to interpret the Constitution. His first important
 decision was to invalidate a congressional statute.
   Although his court didn’t “legislate from the bench”, it made sure that
 some legislation didn’t cut it.
   When President Bush said he wanted a “strict constructionist” he failed to
 tell us what that means, other than that it is a term used to describe
 judges who support conservative causes.
   For a clarification from none other than William H. Rehnquist, then a Nixon-appointed Justice Department staffer, who described it thus: "A strict constructionist ... will generally not be favorably inclined toward claims of either criminal defendants or civil rights plaintiffs the latter two groups having been the beneficiaries of the Supreme Court's ‘broad constructionist’ reading of the Constitution.”
  Yet, conservative justices don’t always practice what they preach. For
example, the five most conservative justices recently decided that an
individual cannot bring suit to enforce any and all rights created by
federal statute.  According to the Court's opinion, an individual may not
sue whenever deprived of any "rights ..." The best reading of the Court's
opinion is that he or she may only sue when Congress has expressed its
intent, in "clear and unambiguous" language.”  The case was brought before the court from a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 which provides a cause of action for any person who is deprived under state law of “any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws" of the United States.”
  The language, and the intent of the act is as plain and unambiguous as it
can get, but it conflicted with Rehnquist’s memo to  Nixon and so the
Rehnquist Court ignored the act which came about by abuses in the South
during Reconstruction.
  Legislating “from the bench” is another catch phrase for conservatives
arising from the 1954 decision banning segregation and has been used to
object to every court decision since in which the judiciary seeks to protect
minorities from unjust majorities.
  Why, then, are conservatives having doubts about a conservative
president¹s choice?
  The intelligent ones are pointing out that Miss Miers’ record consists
only of her being a nice lady and extremely loyal to President Bush, who is
asking his political base to trust him on this one.
  One conservative leader, James M. Dobson, is asking the evangelical right
to trust his support of her because he knows something about her that the
rest of us don’t.
  Dobson, an avid foe of legalized abortion, says he has talked to people in
Miss Miers’ evangelical Dallas church and that she’s O. K. Given
this, the only clue to Miss Miers’ thinking is that she probably considers
Roe vs. Wade a bad law, and since she has no record in the law, it’s
impossible to know if she would make decisions based on law rather than
personal beliefs.
  Yet, the ultra-conservatives are not satisfied with this. No doubt they
want someone who they all know, not just Bush and Dobson.
  The politics behind this is simple. When John Roberts was nominated to
fill retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Conner¹s seat, the right wing was content
because they were waiting for  Rehnquist to die and were reasonably certain
that the President would appoint someone cast in his mold.
  Bush misread the politicians whom he thought he knew best. Apparently,
they don’t trust anyone.
  Yet, most people, not politicians, have to place their trust in the
President and the Congress to make good decisions. After all, they elected
them.
  And most people are unsure of what the Constitution says and less sure
about what the Founding Fathers intended.
  One of the things that the framers did intend was the system of checks
and balances of the three branches of government, One of these branches has
shown a remarkable lack of backbone. Congress approved Roberts, although the now
chief Justice would not answer their questions.
  (This is the same Congress who relinquished its power to the executive
branch by giving it blanket permission to wage war, a prerogative expressly
granted by the Constitution.)
  If the Congress persists in rubber stamping the President’s appointments,
then we would be just as well off by electing the judges. Considering the
President’s embrace of cronies to fill posts, perhaps we would be better
off.
  One of the founders, Alexander Hamilton, wrote that it was good that
Congress had the power to reject the nominees so that the President could
not get away with appointing just his friends.
  There are a lot of good and experienced judges out there who have proven
they are fair and, well, just.
  John Roberts is not one of these and Harriett Miers has inspired a draft
Judge Judy movement. At least Judge Judy lets you know where she stands.

The Poor Are With Us
  Go to your local sea food restaurant, even in pre- Katrina New Orleans,
and you will find that a Po¹ Boy sandwich ain't cheap. Prices, not just gas
alone, began to rise sharply on many products and food.
  For a moment, the people of the country were shocked into feeling empathy
for the ‘sho nuff po’ as they watched with horror the plight of the less
fortunate who were stuck in New Orleans. They dug deep and gave and paused
long enough to recognize that poverty may just be a problem in the United
States.
  That concern lasted just long enough to have the images of the poverty
stricken crying for bread, water and diapers replaced by scenes of the more
affluent stuck in traffic.
  Although the American people dug deep and no doubt felt great satisfaction
of doing something while its government did little, the pictures of the
struggling poor are now gone with the wind.
  But TV coverage of any problem resulting from Hurricane Rita had to
compete with the President as he went a-Roving around creating photo-ops.
While reading a morning paper headline that the president was urging the
rest of us to conserve gas by refraining from non-essential trips, I glanced
at TV to watch him depart from fuel-burning Air Force One into a gas
guzzling armored SUV. (His fuel costs for five days was over $50,000).
  Anything he did on the road in seven trips to the Gulf Coast could have
been done from the Oval Office. For example, he suspended provisions of the
Davis-Bacon Act that would have required government contractors to pay
prevailing wages while the Department of Homeland Security temporarily
suspended sanctioning employers who hire workers who cannot document their
citizenship.
  Despite the billions of dollars awarded to no-bid unchecked contractors to
clean up the mess, he announced he would not raise taxes to pay for it but
instead cut the budget.
  When the administration and the Congress talk about budget cuts, you can
bet your bottomless dollar that the very poor will take it on the nose. Even
before the nation was shocked into recognizing there is such a thing as
poverty, Congress was looking at ways to cut Medicaid.
  Closer to home, South Carolina's governor has proposed Medicaid reform so
outrageous that health care providers are suing, arguing that the plan would
strip some of the state's most vulnerable citizens of their
government-sponsored health care, violating federal minimum-coverage rules
of Medicaid.
  By allowing sub-standard wages in the rebuilding efforts, unemployed
workers, scrambling to replace work lost by the hurricanes, will get less
while the corporations getting the tax breaks will profit, thus avoiding the
sacrifice the rest of us are called on to make.
  Too, like the businesses who don't have a chance to get in on the
financial gains, the people affected by the hurricanes and who are hungry
for work will have to compete with illegal aliens who are flooding the area
and lining up to take the jobs.
  While the hurricanes gave us a brief and dramatic look into the problem of
poverty in one region, the poor are always with us throughout the United
States. The U. S. produces more per capita than any other industrialized
country in the world. Despite this, poverty is more prevalent here than in
most of the rest of the industrialized world.
  We are continually told that the economy is good. When I hear that, I have
to ask, good for whom?
  37 million Americans were living in poverty in 2004 according to U.S.
Census Bureau, 1.1 million  more than the previous year. The average poverty
threshold in the United States for a family of four was an income of
$19,307, the Census Bureau said. It was $15,067 for a family of three,
$12,334 for a family of two and $9,645 for individuals.
  The Bush administration called the 2004 increase "modest" and said the
rise was not altogether surprising. "Poverty rates typically lag
improvements in employment and the economy in general," said Elizabeth
"E.R." Anderson, associate undersecretary for communications and chief of
staff in the Commerce Department's Economics and Statistics Administration.
  What Ms. Anderson failed to tell us is that much of the increase in
employment is  made up of low paying jobs and part-time jobs with no
benefits.
  Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary said this week that the
administration was dedicated to the quality of life for all Americans. One
of the results of this kind of "good economy" is the lowering of the quality
of life. Working two or three jobs to make ends meet with rising prices and
medical costs takes its toll.
  Poverty, with its constant companions of crime, drugs and misery affects
everyone. To do nothing about poverty is one thing, but cuts in vital
services and relaxing on an economy flawed with dubious statistics is quite
another.
  The famous New Orleans motto "Laissez le bontemps roulez"  ("Let the good
times roll") sounds hollow in the light of what¹s happening in New Orleans
and ghettos everywhere.

The Long, Hot Summer
  On September 10, 1786, delegates from five of the not-yet-united states
met at Mount Vernon to revise the Articles of Confederation, the loose
agreement which had held the former colonies together since the British had
quit fighting.
  Urgent requests were sent out to the remaining eight colonies to join them
at Philadelphia the following May.
  It was to be a long, hot summer. It would be September before the
delegates approved a much-debated, much-compromised constitution. It would
be four years later, and only after the Bill of Rights was included, before
the Constitution went into effect.
  Yet today the United States is pushing Iraq to establish a constitutional
government posthaste so that we can end the occupation and bring the troops back home.
  Even one of the congressmen who spearheaded the drive to rename French
fries to “freedom fries” is now calling for a timetable to withdraw our
troops who have fought for so many different causes.
  After 9/11, the people of the United States felt much as they did after
Pearl Harbor­, only this time there was no evil empire who bombed us and
against which we could immediately retaliate.
  It was also a time when a strong leader could unite the division in this
country. It seemed an almost personal vendetta when George Bush, the junior,
went after Saddam Hussein. George, the elder, had stopped short of
conquering Iraq.
  Militarily, the elder Bush, who waged war for what might be called a
reasonable motive and with the blessing of most of the rest of the world,
was advised that a prolonged occupation would be hard to win and it would
take a lot of troops to do it.
  The purpose of the present war has changed so many times that no one
really knows why we are fighting it. Weapons of mass destruction? Iraqi
freedom? In response to 9/11? To stop global terrorism? To keep terrorism
from coming to the U.S.?
  When one reason doesn’t take hold or gets worn out, we are given another.
Now we are being told that we are fighting and dying so that those who have
fought and died for these other causes will not have died in vain.
  This latest reason for the war was put forth by the president in response
to Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star mother who went to Bush’s vacation spot to
seek an audience so that he could offer an explanation for the war’s
continuance.
  It would have been much easier for him to have gone out and talked to her
than to put himself under fire, but that is not his way.
  Hillary Clinton called it a “vast right wing conspiracy.” Hardly that, but
the right wing propaganda machine, indeed vast, is quick to jump on anything
that smacks of disagreement. Ms. Sheehan was immediately trashed, even
called a forger who wasn’t really who she said she was.
  Primarily it is said the she should be doing something else, that she was
disgracing the troops, not to mention other Gold Star mothers. We heard the
same kind of talk when Rosa Parks didn’t go to the back of the bus.
  There is a pattern here. Rather than sitting down to talk with those who
disagree, this administration and its toadies seek to place their critics
and the not-so-gullible in disrepute.
 When Specialist Thomas Wilson asked the Secretary of Defense why he and
those fighting the war lacked proper equipment, he was immediately branded a
liberal media plant. One right wing press type said he shouldn’t have asked
that kind of question without going through channels (although the secretary
invited questions) and blamed Bill Clinton for the equipment problem.
  One critic of the war, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, got hit below the
belt by the underground gunslingers who retaliated against his wife. Other
victims of the right wing tar brush were veterans John McCain, John Kerry,
Max Cleland and former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, not to mention
civilians like the Dixie  Chicks.
  Yet those in their own camp, like Pat Robertson, can advocate a murder and
his remarks were simply “inappropriate.” Rather than listening to Cindy
Sheehan, the machine was quick to dredge up a Gold Star mother who agreed
with the President.
  The pattern can be found in both domestic and foreign affairs. Rather than
sit down and talk with our supposed enemies, this administration alienates
them further.  A good example is the appointment of a U. N. ambassador who
hates the United Nations. Having invaded one member of the “axis of evil” we
find Iran supplying weapons to the Iraqi insurgents and North Korea hell
bent on developing real weapons of mass destruction. Should we send the
National Guard into North Korea with inadequate equipment?  We tried that
once.
  The United States finds itself in a no-win situation. Pushing for a fast
creation of a constitution and setting up a government during a civil war
will not solve the problem of U. S. involvement no matter what the most
recent cause of our being there. There was no such pressure on our founding
fathers in Philadelphia.
  The administration has no clear-cut plan to get out of Iraq and military
leaders are less than optimistic about pulling out any time soon.
  The president and his sycophants didn’t want to hear Cindy Sheehan but
more and more people did because they have the same questions.
  Unlike the protesters of the Viet Nam the new anti war-protesters can
hardly be labeled as draft dodgers, communist tools, radical hippies,
guitar-strumming potheads and traitors.
  It is a movement begun by people who are not necessarily “anti-war” but
who want a real, not propagandistic, reason for fighting one and who want to
know when it will be over since they were told the mission was accomplished
almost two and a half years ago.
  It is hardly a protest of bomb throwing radicals, but one of parents
concerned about recruiting tactics in high schools, hardly a movement of
revolutionaries but a people concerned about the loss of lives abroad and
future terrorism in the U. S.  which no foreign war can or will prevent.
  The “liberal media” can be blamed, future Cindy Sheehans can be abased and
the war machine can fill the air with empty rhetoric, but the unwinable war
is losing public support.
  After all what has any of this have to do with the price of gas?

SECRET GOVERNMENT
Still at Work
    "Get it done. I want it done. I want the Brookings Institute's safe
cleaned out and have it cleaned out in a way that it makes somebody else look bad." 
  These are the words of a President of the United States. Clearly he is
ordering a criminal act.
  We would have never known Richard Nixon was a crook had it not been for two reporters who used a confidential source. That was in the days when a special prosecutor looked to put crooks in jail rather than reporters.
  Also, it was a day when the United States Congress acted in the defense of freedom of information. Nixon almost got away with destroying the tapes which contained this and many other startling secrets until Congress stepped in.
  Earlier, the release of the famous Pentagon Papers exposed a secret study by Robert S. McNamara, who had served Presidents Kennedy and Johnson as Secretary of Defense, on America¹s involvement in The Viet Nam War.
  The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers broke the story, and immediately the Nixon administration, who was still pursuing the same policies as to Viet Nam, sought to silence the newspapers. The battle between the government and the press culminated in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision.
  One of the results of all this was the passage of the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) which allowed reporters access to government files.  When later we learned President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill he, in the words of one journalist, "had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing ceremony."
  Nixon was a Republican,