Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

-Thomas Gray


The Maddening Crowd
[In two parts]


I wonder how many folks have seen the Monty Python skit where the scene is at a stadium and there is a vendor walking around selling Albatross?


The Iraq Study Group has issued its report to much fanfare only to be ceremoniously dumped in the trash as DOA.

For just a moment I was standing there; an American with hope and a feeling that there was foreign policy was around the bend. Fat chance…eh?

Then we get to listen to the Iranian president pour salt in the wounds of the last century of history because well, its just seems like the only good Jew is a dead Jew? At the same time the ideology would stipulate that if the same line of thinking was presented about Iran they would car bomb the Pope-mobile.

Now ~ that’s moxie. Pun intended.

I’m losing patience. I spent part of the day Friday looking at some of the old names for leaders…like Frederick the Great, James the Just…and there was one of my favorites Stupid Willy for Wilhelm II of Germany.

So ~ where does that leave us? Curious George...no, it is not funny.

Yes, we’ve been waging a war for several years and suddenly it occurred to the administration that their war plans are failing and now unless you come up with a plan that closely mimics the ‘Mission Accomplished’ fly by extravaganza it is a recipe for defeat.

No ~ simply sparing the lives of the uniformed volunteers… not good enough ~ stop throwing money into a bottomless pit? Nope, not good enough... Do something to help out the failed state that Iraq is? No no no no no…

Because really Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea; if this indeed was about something…if the whole effort was not vanity then any thing proposed would not appear to market the endeavor as in vain.

So ~ all you bookish intellectuals, all you presidential wanna be’s… stop thinking that anything is going to happen in the next year. We have built up an Army that is poised to hit Iran; we have no intention of doing anything with Iraq… Iraq is that old car in the garage that we intend to fix up one day.

George H.W. Bush’s emotional outbreak honoring Jeb a few weeks ago was testimony that his oldest boy has been lost; the intervention with Mr. Baker has failed and it is the last one that the old man will be able to attempt.

Georgie boy; congratulations, you did it, you have broken your father’s heart. More to the point, you have made me empathetic to him…and I truly can not stand the tool.

I’ll paraphrase; the test of a man’s character is how he handles defeat. Daddy and Jeb both know it and understand failure is only a test. What Georgie boy is failing at is an emergency.

I am having a hard time not lacing this with profanity.

So here are some links…

This is an L.A. Times editorial about that nut job in Iran.

This is a link that will take you to the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report.

This is a link to a Bosnia type solution to the Iraq civil issues. I like this, I don’t agree with it 100 % but short of a lock down or a Berlin Wall around Baghdad there are not many solutions left.

In conclusion I have not had the stomach to deal with the idiotic claims from the White House concerning the ISG report. The administration does not care what anybody thinks about the American war in Iraq. This administration NEVER EVER wants to leave Iraq under any circumstances.

I agree in varying principal about an escalation of troops to some extent; to achieve the balance that we have not had. We need to be able to establish lawfulness, to be able to allow Iraqi citizens that fleeting pursuit of happiness. Then GET OUT.

I think we need to start taking actions. We need to begin to seek true leadership. I have a dark horse to recommend: General Barry McCaffrey not as a presidential candidate but as a level head and forward thinking with experience.

In the business world they are always using slogans to the tune of Think Smart. We need to start asking our MBA President to do the same.

I suggest looking at this page in general today.

And what is the holiday season without Fruit Cake Newt Gingrich style.

Part the Second

Because all of that is so despairing…this program that was on the Sundance Channel was pretty cool… check out Maya Angelo.


As always there is plenty to be inspired from and there is plenty to add apprehension to our lives. I think the big idea is still to try to establish community where ever you can. If you aren’t including everyone; those that differ in opinion and way of the world ask why.

It appears to me the American spirit is soul sick, terribly weakened from a long battle. We should not accept that as a tradition we would like to get used to. Corporate greed, personal material and assumed status are meaningless in the grave and if there is indeed a hereafter??? I wonder what that’ll be all about.

It’s a season unlike any other season; one that starts by being thankful; lends itself to forgiveness and hallowed by every known religion. We sacrifice, we hope and we dream within our dreams to bounty a full heart and soul. We mimic our own nature that calls out to love our world, our lives, our strangeness, our solitude and our casting of spirits.

It is important to focus on what one wants for oneself that love; companionship and friendship are all parts and not a whole. This season, tends to lend us to compromise and compose our worlds from images that have been taunting human nature from the dawn of time. There is that ultimate question which fails to get answered, what is wrong with me?

Unfortunately that answer does not come as a card or a gift basket or as a sweater or a tie or a pile well intentioned pages; it is simpler than that. It comes from understanding that we must provide our honesty to the dark feelings we have about ourselves are simply there to test us. Yet, that darkness is magnified because of what seems to be everywhere else.

Did John Lennon sing; ‘nowhere you can be that isn’t where you are meant to be’?

Does it say what it means to say? ‘Jump back jack keep your hands off of my stack’?

If we focus on giving love to those we love then we won’t be worried that we aren’t being loved the way we think we ought to be loved, if we be love the way we want love then love will be…

And in the end; the season is only a temporary gig… ending with no matter what new beginnings… a la 2007.

I tell myself, Sisyphus…

Like the man said, rode hard and put away wet,
Throw out the bad news, and put it to rest.
If learning is living and the truth is a state of mind
You’ll find its better at the end of the line




- Hare Hare