The Unforgiven

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Bit by bit, despite their fiercest efforts to hide the truth, the drip-drip-drip of the reality of criminality of the most disgraced [self-disgraced] administration in American history is coming out.

Today, a new chapter is added with the release of Jane Mayer's book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.

The briefest of introductions already make clear this is a book that should be required reading...by every babbling-head of The Village commentariat, by every Congressperson, by every student, by every voter, lest we forget. It's now #1 on my must-read list.

Froomkin's back, and his column gives a sample, via the words of New York Times columnist Frank Rich on the depths to which the Bush-Cheney Alliance cast aside principle, honor and the rule of law in embracing torture and barbarism as their guiding principle:

"The avalanche of misinformation since 9/11 has compromised prosecutions, allowed other culprits to escape and sent the American military on wild-goose chases....The biggest torture-fueled wild-goose chase, of course, is the war in Iraq."

And further, from Frank Rich, this:

The men were John Ashcroft’s deputy attorney general, James Comey, and an assistant attorney general, Jack Goldsmith. Their sin was to challenge the White House’s don, Dick Cheney, and his consigliere, his chief of staff David Addington, when they circumvented the Geneva Conventions to make torture the covert law of the land.

We've only a few months left of this bunch, the Deciderer is already lookin' forward, those visions of fillin' the ol' coffers dancin' in his head. The Bigtime Dick doubtless figuring what still needs to be shredded or destroyed. Rover runnin' over to Sweden dodging subpoenas....

Much work to be done to get us through election day. Much work to be done to restore the honor of a nation that Chee-knee and Cronies cast aside as recklessly as he shot an old guy in the face.

Will they get away with it? Will they stonewall and obfuscate and conveniently lapse their memories as they did on the Plame case, as they've done on the Tillman case, and laugh all the way to Purgatory?

Maybe they will, but they'll still be The Unforgiven. And the Bush family name and the Cheney family name will live in infamy.

Morning Notes

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A couple of interesting things on the Imus Show this morning that deserve repeating.

● Sunday evenings on WABC Radio, Richard Cohen (married to Meredith Vieira) hosts a radio conversation building on his chronicle of people living with chronic diseases, Strong at the Broken Places. We're seeking further information regarding schedule and availability, will keep you posted. [We have confirmed that the show airs from 6-7 p.m. Sunday evenings on WABC am 770 in NYC, and it will be streamed online.]

Cohen's personal story of living with multiple sclerosis was the basis of his earlier Blindsided and he is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist. Constrained by serious illness, Cohen has chosen not to be contained, and this new venture at WABC Radio holds hope for giving voice to others who deserve their stories told and their concerns discussed.

● Col. Jack Jacobs has retired from two different careers, the first, obvious, being military. The second on Wall Street, and he has the cred to talk candidly about both. Which he does, and in the doing, shows to those who will see the linkage between Big Oil's war in Iraq and the current state of our economy. He's equally blunt discussing wind farms off Cape Cod and Gitmo.

On Guantanamo and the management of the war. "...we gotta be able to show...either we show why we've got these guys in jail...or win the war. We decided to take the easy way out [my bold] and that's why they're in Guantanamo. If we'd done the right thing in the first place we wouldn't be in this problem.

"The guys who dreamed up that strategy had no more idea than the man in the moon and thankfully they're not in business anymore."

On the economy and the state of the stock market, Jacobs is equally unequivocal. "I'm surprised it's as high as it is" which he attributes to big institutional buyers. It's gonna get worse, predicts Jacobs. Wouldn't be surprised if it drops below 10,000...America's in a worse situation than a lot of the rest of the world because the dollar is so weak. [We'll be watching for a link for the entire interview and update.] UPDATE: Here's the conversation between Imus and Jacobs today.


We decided [over the protestations of too many ordinary Americans and not enough of the Very Important Americans] to take the easy way out. Sounds like the model for the entire BushCo way of governing.

I hope Barack Obama has reached out to Col. Jacobs, Medal of Honor recipient, Vietnam veteran, successful investment banker in international residential development. This is the kind of counselor, informal or in a seat of government power, who would give him real straight talk, reality based, and demanding of standards. I have no idea what his politics are, but his credentials in economics and military issues are strong. Sure would give the McCainiacs pause if he were, oh, say, a veep or SecDef prospect. And he's the kind of action-oriented thinker who could clean up the Chee-knee culture in the Pentagon.

He strikes me as a man who'd relish the challenge...if he can be talked into taking the pay cut.

● A viewing note: Kerith Foster mentioned to Imus that Michelle Obama will be a guest host today on "The View. " Not sure what the program and guests will be covering today, but one guest I'd like to see: Mary Joe Matalin. Imagine these two Chicago-style strong women as Ms. Matalin tries to b.s. her way through the Rethuglican spinpoints. Maybe they can discuss their roots among the "little people" as Matalin calls them. Telling it is that Obama celebrates her roots, Matalin...?

UPDATE: Here's Michelle Obama on The View via Huffington Post. I tried to link to the original source, honest I did, but The View's website is...well, visit for yourself, if you dare....

We'll update with links as they become available. Part 3 of our series on Fatherhood is in the works....

Remembering RFK

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This morning, in a compelling conversation on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Pete Hamill noted that Bobby Kennedy had a compassion for ordinary Democrats and a keen sense of the urgency of now [my paraphrase] that has been lost for all these years. He further noted the Kennedys are a rich family with a passion for public service when they could have been living well in the south of France.

This morning, Bill Eppridge—author of The Time It Was, Bobby Kennedy and the ’60s―described the moments when he captured history. His was the iconic photograph of the busboy at Kennedy’s side, on the floor, moments after Kennedy’s victory speech that long ago night in Los Angeles.

It is tough to talk of that night.

Whether or not you are old enough to remember firsthand those times, I recommend this book to you, sight unseen. Because I intend to read it, myself. I think, after this long arduous primary campaign―which has renewed so many memories to me of that time, that night, MLK, Chicago―it is a book that will help those of us who must be part of a unified Democratic Party going forward from this week to heal.

I was a green kid who suspended her sophomore college year to work for Gene McCarthy, and when Bobby Kennedy joined the campaign, a late-comer in our eyes, a snatcher of the groundwork that McCarthy had done, there were resentments.

In Los Angeles that night we were at a different campaign’s election night event, then left and walked in the quiet darkness with co-workers through the long blocks to the McCarthy headquarters in Westwood, talking resolve and determination, coming to the red flashes of police car lights and the news.

Were there not that tragedy 40 years ago last night, lingering into the next day, those resentments would have been healed, the disparate party groups would have been reunited, and ….

Oh, but there was that tragedy.

And as much as it was the loss of one inspiring leader, it was also the breakdown of the best of what the Democratic Party can be, as Hamill noted. A breach that allowed "other priorities" to seize control, to take away that focus on the common good that serves ordinary Americans, and cede instead to the will of the fatcat global corporations and lobbyists. That is long past needing restoration.

That signal year began a long, slow slide into what we see now…Iraq and the grievous wounds that lies have brought us to, the corruption of the bedrock principles of justice of our government, the laid-off workers, foreclosures, Katrina, recession, hunger and homelessness … the list is long … you know it.

Right now, in this need-of-healing-and-unity time, we have another leader who has shown time and again his ability to inspire and lead and take charge to bring us together for a common, noble purpose.

It’s tempting to find metaphor in the Biblical journey of Moses…we have been wandering in our own wilderness these last 40 years.

For now, let’s reflect on what we lost, but only in the context of what we have yet to achieve, now, this fierce urgency of now. Let us pick up the threads of purpose that have lain in discord and distraction too long and set about rebuilding the best of what this nation can be. All of us united.

What Do You Do Now?

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Senator Jim Webb had to answer that question time after time in his service to this country and all of us over the years, but the most poignant moment, the one he himself says stays with him to this day, was during his Marine Corps duty in Viet Nam.

From his new book, A Time to Fight, excerpted Sunday in Parade magazine and at Parade.com:

A gray-haired man in white pajamas, probably a grandfather, was dead, having wrapped himself around a small boy to protect him from the blast. It was clear that his final thoughts were of the boy. His shocked, opaque eyes and his still-curled body were the very definition of love and human sacrifice. The boy was still alive, although barely....

The doc put the boy on a wooden box next to our command post. Over the next half hour, as I spoke on the radio, the boy lay near me quietly, never making a sound, all the while watching me. Nor could I stop watching him. And as we stared at each other, he slowly died.

Webb sees the state of the nation today, but also issues a challenge to each and every one of us.

Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis. This crisis has many causes, but much of it has been brought about by poor leadership decisions at every level of government. In addition, our electoral process is dominated by financial interests that are threatened by the very notion of reform.

Be as shrewd and ruthless in your demands on our leaders as the wizards running campaigns are in their strategies to get your vote.

This past week we saw a ramping-up of the Politics of Smear by George Bush and John McCain in their tag-team attacks on Barack Obama. Attacks that backfired as Democrats justly rallied around the candidate, including his only remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton.

But this was an attack that goes beyond partisan politics. The history of the presidency itself has been smeared by Bush's craven desperation to inject himself into the campaign against Obama with his words to the Knesset. The best disinfectant and clean-up for such dirty politics is a good housecleaning... and that's going to take your vote.

RIP Hassler, Abigail, and Agatha McGee

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Two lights have dimmed and flickered out in the heartland, and their passage needs noting.

The author Jon Hassler was a renowned Minnesota author, beloved for his tales of Staggerford and Agatha McGee and simple truths of living that transcended their small town settings and ordinary-seemingness. Minnesotans have a way of doing that. As more nationally well-known Minnesota cultural lights have also done, Garrison Keillor, the Coen Brothers, among them.

Staggerford is just up the road a piece from me this evening. Oh, the map makers might know it better as Park Rapids…or Bemidji…or…

There is a sweetness and beauty to small town America that too-often gets overlooked. These are the towns that raise the men and women who fight our wars and our floods.

The big media go looking for dark instead of light. Allentown. If you listened to the media today, you’d think it was all a town of bowlin’ rednecks barely hiding their “biases.”

Tonight, I prefer to believe that Allentown, too, has its Agatha McGees.

Late in life, Hassler takes his beloved character on a journey to Ireland to meet the pen pal she’s corresponded with for years only to learn he’s a priest who’s led her along.

We can still learn, late in life. And be the better and wiser for it.

A much younger light was Abigail Taylor, a child of six. She sat on a swimming pool drain and had part of her guts sucked out, and went thru organ transplants and testified before Congress and then succumbed to a cancer that can too frequently strike those who have organ transplants.

Her journey was much briefer in time than 74-year-old Hassler, who died of a chronic Parkinson-like disease. Much briefer than the life of Agatha McGee in Staggerford and on her Green Journey.

But she had a lesson to teach us as pure and honest as the lessons Hassler, the former schoolteacher, taught in his writing. That people matter.

That honor and honesty matter.

That the corporate “cost of doing business”--which a swimming pool manufacturer rationalized as justified not to fix a known flaw—is what Agatha McGee would call a sin.

Their passage dims life for all of us, and we note their lives with reverence…and tears.

And the hope that justice is done, for Abigail’s wrongful death, for all the people who are forgotten by the corporations and the Very Important Villagers as a “cost of doing business”--in war and in life.

Kickin’ Back

Something there is—do I have to footnote that?—about a weekend. For a few folks—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Keller, John McCain come to mind, oh, and toss in a bit of Boll Bennett and rightwing ranters who shall remain nameless because we refuse to give them any further publicity on what’s turned into a typical Beltway contretemps of spin, deflect, and denial—this weekend won’t be different than the rest of the week.

But for the rest of us, the weekend’s a perfect opportunity to kick back, reflect and rejuvenate for the week to come.

Renew the well.

Now that the campaign season seems to be pretty much a 24/7/365…have the candidates for 2012 announced yet? And who are they blaming?

Yeah, me, too. It started too damned early and it’ll last too long, and it’ll be too nasty and nobody will be satisfied for long and….

There’s something to be said for stepping back.

Put on your cuddle-duds and your boots and your jacket and cap and venture out into the fresh air. Had any lately?

I’m heading back out into the sunshine, the bracing mid-20s temperature (hey, after record minus-thirtyish temps just days ago, this is downright tropical…almost…), whistling for the spaniels, stoppin’ in my tracks, and raising my face to just bask in the moment.

How about you?

At the cabin I turn to a fun little book, If My House Were on Fire…These Are the Recipes I’d Take by Lori Powell Gordon. You’ll find this kind of combination of recipes and family nostalgia and fun under various titles in gift shops in touristy country just about anywhere.

But instead of recipes, I assemble moments in my mental spiral-bound book. And today will be one…chickadees at the bird feeders, a downy woodpecker overcoming shyness to zero in on the suet feeder, ice houses out on the snow-covered lake in a necklace chain right where the lake bottom drops away, the low hum of snowmobilers for undernotes.

A moment to kick back and savor… and save for a day when you need to pull out a moment.

Had any lately?

PEBC: On Change...Not So Big and Bird by Bird

And so we begin Prairie’s Eclectic Book Club.

Change is much in the wind these days. The weather is changing…storms batter places they’ve never visited before. The WGA strike has changed teevee programming. Tired of winter we look forward to the change in seasons, reading our garden catalogues. The economy is changing—interest rates going down, down, down instead of up. Even though Just go shopping as a solution to everything from 9/11 to the 2007 Christmas doldrums just isn’t making it any more.

We are a country hungry for change. You can see it in the crowds drawn to Obama appearances. You can read it in the blogs educating us about the issues the MSM leaves out or gives scant shrift or spin to…and building vibrant online communities in the process.

The political landscape is going through a titanic shift these days, and about time doing it. We are looking for new leaders, we are looking for rebuilding, we are looking for restoration of the sturdy foundations of the nation.

But how can we expect such great change unless we are willing to change within ourselves? If we remain unchanged, will anything around us truly change?

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

The architect Sarah Susanka named a way of thinking about homes in her seminal book, The Not So Big House, and in the process of describing that concept, she gave voice to a restless rebellion against the McMansioning of our lives. The overbuilt, overblown, grandiose grotesqueries all the more silly for being plunked down on teeny-tiny plots of ground.

Her masterstroke was the away space. Be it a room, a nook, a corner, a closet, the away space is respite from the hectic, cluttered, frazzly parts of a house where most of the time the living takes place. A porch where you can sit and contemplate the birds at the feeders, a shelf where treasured tokens carry you to faraway places, a room totally bare but for a mat where you can sit and meditate… the away space is yours to define and find.

At this time when ’most everyone says they want change, how will we get there? It starts within, and Susanka has taken the building/remodeling concepts of her world of architecture and put them in a new frame that we all can use: The Not So Big Life.

Just as the series of Not So Big House books bring us to a new way of looking at and living in our homes, The Not So Big Life is a handbook for remodeling—changing—our lives.

And as with any remodeling, there is the blueprint, what will be the right structure…for me? How do I—and you—look at self and decide what needs changing, what’s worth keeping, what’s just clutter needing casting away?

There are a bazillion self-help books on the market, a bazillion guides to self-improvement. Susanka brings a freshness to the subject by putting us in the context of the place where we live and guiding us through looking around and taking stock…of our home and our heart.

Bird by Bird

And if you’re not new wave, and change seems too daunting, no matter how much you feel it resonate. If you feel a bit of “buyer’s remorse”—if you worry that maybe change is just “hoo-hah” as Medusa Matalin would like you to believe, then meet another wise woman: Anne LaMott. Her iconic book Bird by Bird transcends its Instructions on Writing…to become a nurturing guide to life. And right now, in the pivotal time of change when change comes with its own hobgoblins gibbering to push us back to status quo, we need just such a reminder that change, improvement, remodeling, rebuilding comes step by step, day by day, bird by bird.

Will it be the right change, we wonder, as we go thru the primary process and leaf through the seed catalogs. Hosta or hydrangea? Democrat or Republican? Two-story or rambler? Red state or blue?

Oooh, the hand-wringing potential, the obstacle building we can set up for ourselves if we let go of hope and promise and let somebody tell us change is “hoo-hah.”

But you know what, you are just you, and I am just me, and if we get it wrong, we can still work toward getting it right again. If we are willing to change.

PRAIRIE NOTE: We’re workin’ on change around here, too. Soon we’ll have links to where you can buy these books—for you and your library, just sayin’—but in the meantime, please support your local indie bookstore whenever possible.

Strong at the Broken Places

Because we live with disability in the Sunshine household, Richard M. Cohen's appearance this morning on the Imus show caught our attention. He's touting his new book, Strong at the Broken Places, which recounts the life experiences of five people who live with chronic illnesses.

Cohen himself [Mr. Meredith Vieira of Today Show fame--and The View infamy?] lives with multiple sclerosis and now blindness.

He hit some hot buttons we understand...the disabled are not looking for a hand...or a handout. We, disabled and caregiver alike, just want to be treated like everybody else. With this book, Cohen offers, in fact, a hand out to the "normal" community but more importantly, a reaching-out to others who daily endure the challenges of life lived as fully as possible despite the crap that is disability and chronic illness.

In their conversation, Imus and Cohen amplify a telling point: these are the stories the general public--and doctors!--don't hear enough.

Don't know about you guys, but I'm planning to get this book as soon as the local bookstore opens this morning--and if they don't have it yet, I'll be ordering it online. One for us, one for the local library, one for Mr. Sunshine's doctors, one for.... well, you get the idea. This is a long overdue subject for discussion.

Kind of like the whole business of turning the page on the status quo in politics. Enough of healthcare--and living--being dictated from the top down. Patients and caregivers' voices must be heard, and Cohen offers a much needed catapult to the conversation.

And yes, there's a website. I've already stopped by, and I hope you will, too. Tell 'em Prairie sent you... Strong at the Broken Places