American Tsunami

American Tsunami: Coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico -- Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana (including New Orleans) -- were wasted after a monster hurricane, "Katrina," blew over the area on Monday just past.

Katrina: A vengeful lady!







New Orleans, Louisiana has had an easy-going, party reputation because of its annual Mardi Gras excesses--the "Big E" people called it. But things are not so "easy" at the moment. As I write this, the city of some 1,500,000 apparently is in a state of leaderless chaos. The levees holding back the surrounding Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River were breached in several places by the monster hurricane; water is slowly flooding the historic city that sits in a geographic "bowl" below sea level. The giant Corps of Engineer pumps intended to remove water from the "bowl" reportedly are flooded and inoperable. There is no electricity or telecommunications capability in the city. Gasoline is scarce. Most highways have been blocked or damaged by the flood waters. The city is a prisoner of itself.

Some 30,000 to 40,000 people who couldn't leave the city before the storm hit on Monday morning took shelter in the massive sports "Superdome"--which now, according to the city's mayor and state governor, can't sustain this number of people, so they must be moved out-- soon. Other thousands who scrambled out of their area flooded, destroyed homes--many had to chop holes in their roofs from their attics--are being brought to or are walking to portions of the federal Interstate 10 highway that are still above the water. But they wait, dazed and confused, without food, shelter, water, or a way out of the city. Trapped like wharf rats by the rising water.

Federal, state, and local authorities seem to be frozen! Evidently, emergency planners had not envisioned or prepared for the scope of such a wide disaster. So they're flailing about, looking for leaders. They're asking: Where to locate the thousands of displaced? Should we commandeer holiday cruise ships that ply the Gulf between Florida and the Caribbean? Erect huge tent cities like those used for refugees in foreign disasters? Where to locate them? How to transport them? How to feed them? And who would coordinate the logistics--FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, National Guard? Should Washington federalize resources? Various Washington functionaries issued televised statements this morning, with the apparent intent of assuring citizens that their government is trying to organize federal and state relief and police efforts. Their dispassionate voices didn't inspire confidence, since it was evident that these officials were trying desperately to keep their powder dry.

Meanwhile, looting is taking place unhindered, according to news reports; despite the mayor of New Orleans trying to put a positive spin on this ("people are hungry"), the pictures of laughing black people running away from stores with flat-panel TVs and other "necessities" belies such a claim. It's a terrible public confession of the dark side of our culture. Mississippi's state governor Haley Barber issued a tough statement yesterday: "Looting absolutely will not be tolerated under any circumstances."

The question that needs examination now is: If we aren't able to respond with precision and speed to a predictable event--such as Katrina-- after all the planning and money spent on Homeland Defense since 9/11/01, what would our response be, were Osama bin Laden's cockroaches to unleash an unpredictable bio- or nuclear-weapon attack on an American metro area?

Will the United Nations react? It will be interesting to see whether and how the rest of the world responds to the largest recorded natural disaster in history, in light of how America (both as individuals and institutions) responded to last December's tsunami disaster along the South Asia coastal plains on the Indian Ocean. Will the U.N. will rush to the cameras to solicit aid for U.S. disaster victims, criticizing countries too slow in responding? Funny--so far, the U.N. has been silent.

We who were unaffected weep for the victims. The best individuals can do to help immediately is to send the Red Cross cash donations. The website is: www.redcross.org

Here is a heartfelt plea for help I received by e-mail from a Texas man:

I am begging you and everyone. . . Please, Please, Please. . . Contact the Red Cross or another reputable organizations to help those in need on the Gulf Coast. Many people need each and every one of us to provide assistance. We here in Texas are under no illusion that those coming to our community are not likely to return to the Big Easy. We understand that the city is probably all but lost to anything other than industry and tourism. I am working here locally to raise funds--food and water mostly--to send to Louisiana. I am doing this through a local church. I urge each and every one of you to open up your hearts and your pocket books. We need money down here and we need help. Please give to a charity assisting the poor souls affected by Katrina. We can not rely on our government. We must do this ourselves.

Questions to ponder: (1) Since New Orleans has been long known to be particularly vulnerable to what finally happened, and in light of a series done in 2002 by a local paper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, that forecasted exactly Monday's scenario (not the date), and even recommended specific preparedness measures, why didn't the governor or mayor "take a second look" at the problem? (2) Why, at minimum, didn't they pre-position MRE's, water, and tents to be erected in case of a disaster--as they regularly do in Florida? (3) And particularly since Homeland Defense was created almost four years ago, what kind of emergency planning for New Orleans, as well as other U.S. cities, has been taking place for all the money we've been funneling into this new bureaucracy? I now fear the answer to question #3 is "apparently none."

Hopefully, American leadership at all levels will recover and respond quickly and responsibly to the people who have been needlessly suffering--suffering for which the governor and mayor are specifically and partially responsible. Perhaps they should call in Rudy Giuliani to advise?

Vigilance at Wal-Mart

Was the guy unAmerican or a Patriot? I ask you to consider a brief encounter I had the other day. Then judge the circumstances and tell me what you think by considering the six questions at the end of this blog.

Background: In my sometimes capacity as a real estate broker, lenders and creditors ask me to do property valuations of commercial properties. Besides gathering financial data, I usually have to take photos to accompany my report. One such work order involved a large property adjacent to our local shopping center, which is anchored by Wal-Mart.

The incident: While I was busy taking shots of the Wal-Mart parking lot, a local man in a pickup truck was unusually interested in my photographic activity. When I advanced on the adjacent target property (our FedEx facility), the pickup truck guy followed. I finished walking around and photographing various angles of the target and went two blocks farther away to photograph another commercial complex (which a local defense contractor leases) from a distance.

As I was getting my camera oriented for the best wide-angle shot, the curious citizen jumped out of his pickup truck and ordered, "Hey you, hold it right there! Put your camera down!" I was mildly startled as he strode toward me in an authoritative manner. I wasn't surprised that my photographic activities had drawn his curiosity, because after all, Homeland Security has been advising all of us the past couple years to be alert. But his manner and tone instantly lodged a chip on my shoulder, so I responded in kind, "Hey, pardner, have you got a problem?"

Just then a police cruiser pulled up behind us (fortunately for us both, the pickup truck guy had reported the incident). A young policeman approached and asked politely, "Can I help?" The pickup guy blustered that he suspected me of being a subversive-- ". . . otherwise, why would this guy be taking pictures of a defense facility?" I reminded the officer that photographing public buildings was not against the law, and that the pickup guy had no authority to make a "citizen's arrest" (as he was evidently intent on doing, had the officer not arrived when he did).

End of story: The officer had the good sense to call in and ask for guidance; he returned to announce that, indeed, there was no law prohibiting photography. I was pleased that I had made my point, but later, looking back on the incident, I said a little prayer of thanks that the pickup guy wasn't packing heat that morning--a lot of us are authorized to do so in Arizona--and that he hadn't been drinking before our encounter.

Here are six questions: (1) Would the pickup guy have reacted in the same way before 9/11? (2) Assuming you'll say "no," was it appropriate that he reacted the way he did? (3) Do you believe that his attitude (of being so concerned) is desirable in light of the "war on terror?" (4) Was my "chip-on-the-shoulder" reaction to the pickup guy's behavior appropriate? (5) If you say "no," how should I have reacted when he ordered me to stop? (6) Do you think this "security incident" will become a permanent lifestyle in the U.S.A.? Before you conclusively answer question #6, perhaps you ought to read an excellent treatise on fear in societies:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer121.html

Who hijacked our educational system?

Which aliens stole our educational system? The Dallas School Board (yes, that’s Dallas, T-E-X-A-S, the state where road signs warn: “Don’t mess with Texas”) confirmed that it too has become possessed by Aliens From An Unknown Planet. The Board voted last week to require their school administrators to learn Spanish (“to better integrate non-English speaking students into the educational system”). Since the mysterious Alien Invasion began 45 years ago, I had always remained confident that tough Texas would successfully resist it. This was the final straw!

Can't quite make out the faces of the students in a one-room school house? That's because they're becoming a faded, blurred memory in history. Did we really have things so wrong then?

I was there when it began: Although I wasn't aware of it, the invasion was just reaching my school system, the sprawling Jefferson County School District between Denver city limits and the Rocky Mountains. In the summer of 1961 I had signed on with Evergreen High School—today a ritzy bedroom community populated by upscale Denver businessmen—to set up the first foreign language program (German and Russian). But for my refusal to lend my language programs to some kind of a new “core curriculum” experiment being organized by my principal on behalf of the brand new union, the American Federation of Teachers, the Alien invaders would have captured me too.

The idea was, as the principal and a cadre of his faithful, enthusiastic assistants explained, that instead of me teaching Russian and German to a select few qualified, crème de la crème students in an “elite, isolated” environment, the new concept would make Russian and German available to every enrolled student. That is, after attending a few “core” courses (presumably the “ABCs”—I never went into it very deeply), they would be permitted to “migrate” into and out of “non-core” courses, at their leisure. My language courses therefore, not considered a “core” requirement, would be open to this “migration” of students. The advantage, as my principal proselytized, was that more students would be able to “experiment” with language courses, without committing to them.

It wasn’t easy to buck my principal. After all, I was a new hire, dependent (as we newbies were indoctrinated by the County School District after accepting our applications) on continuous favorable ratings by our principals for three years, before achieving a semi-secure tenure. But I was adamant. After my recent semester of student teaching in a County high school, I already had a good idea about the level of academic ability and attitudes of a lot of American high schoolers, so I wasn’t about to volunteer to cast my pearls before idly curious students—especially since they wouldn’t be obligated to take my Russian and German classes seriously . . . they would be, in effect, “monitoring” them.

How it happened that I survived that confrontation with this phase of the “education revolution” remains a mystery. I think it had to do with the fact that the “revolutionary” forces promoting the cockamamie ideas weren’t yet strong or confident enough to order me into their strait jacket. So, after an appropriate consultation with his hierarchy, my principal sent me a terse, typewritten memorandum, noting that, for the present school year only, I would be permitted to enroll and teach only those students who demonstrated sufficient aptitude. I became, therefore, the lone exception to Evergreen’s “core concept” system, but it wasn’t comfortable. I was a marked man, generally isolated from my colleagues and I knew I was on shaky grounds.

When you’re in forest, it’s hard to see it for all the trees; therefore, I wasn’t aware that I had just experienced the opening volley of the vast “education revolution” underway. Experimentation with all manner of questionable education techniques and theories came to be the vogue. As during the heady days after the 1917 Soviet Revolution,* any kook who claimed to have discovered an easy short-cut to Nirvana found favor, so now too, American educators began to toy with just about any “progressive” idea. Never mind that the vast majority of these ideas ranged from silly to nonsensical—or that the victims of this experimentation were our prime national resource: the future of our country. Today's teacher isn’t considered "in" unless he/she is on board with the "New Era." The motto of this era should have been from the outset: "What a shame to waste a nation of minds."

*In the 1920s one of Stalin’s favorite toady-scientists, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, trumpeted that he had the answer to curing certain ailments in animals. One of his experiments that caught the attention of Stalin and his central agricultural planners: Fitting cattle and hogs with booties or shoes. His theory was that this procedure would "breed out" foot and mouth disease in one or two animal generations. This pseudo-scientist overlooked the obvious way to control the disease: by raising animals in a clean, disease-free environment. I can't help wonder whether we've forced our educational system to wear similar booties, while overlooking the obvious.

Getting up to speed: Recently, in an effort to try and catch up with what’s happening in the classroom these days, from time to time, I began reading snatches of my wife’s modern education textbooks (she’s studying for teaching certification) . I was both amused and stunned. The “revolution” that started in 1960 has almost been completed (it's hard to imagine that we could wreck our system any further). Coincident to last week’s announcement that the Dallas School Board had capitulated to the “multidiversity” mantra, last night I flipped open to an interesting chapter of one of her texts; it explained the overriding importance of being "sensitive" to students. The particular passages that caught my attention offered various scenarios, in which non-English speaking, middle-school students would challenge the teacher’s ability to respond to their various “problems”: self-esteem, shyness, inability to “relate” to new school environment, in-home mental and sexual abuses, and so on. If kids today don't think they have personal problems when they arrive at school, the teachers will help them acquire a few.

Fascinated, I continued reading, in search of the author’s suggestions on how to teach the kids possessed by the various conditions he described. He discussed, at length, how to identify the potential psychological problems that would abound in any classroom, but stopped short of offering specifics on how to treat them. I guess he left that to the innate creativity and “sensitivity” of each teacher. I then forged ahead a chapter or so, looking for instruction on how to actually impart subject knowledge in the classroom (you know, math, science, reading, etc.)—I mean, just how is the modern teacher supposed to impart specific knowledge to kids who might not be able to communicate in English? And, on top of that, they might also be suffering from the myriad of psychological problems--right? My wife suggested that other courses and textbooks probably take up these questions (although I have my doubts).

I taunted her with a hypothetical: “Let’s say you’re teaching elementary arithmetic in a largely non-English capable class? What’d be wrong with just plowing forward by teaching arithmetic in English? After all, they’re young kids who, as everyone knows, pick up language skills faster than adults. Why not assure them that you’ll always entertain any question in class.” I tried to anticipate her objection, “Of course, you’d have to notify each parent and encourage them to push their kids in English—even if it meant getting them tutors or into additional, outside English classes on weekends. And, of course, you’d have to be able to work with the kids after school hours until they became comfortable and started to ‘get it.’”

My wife looked at me like I was the Chief Alien Invader! “You’re so far out of the loop, it’s not funny. Are you kidding? You wouldn’t last more than a day! And if you did, you’d probably have a lawsuit slapped on you within a month.” So much for turning back the revolution!

But what brought this about? It was the 1960s—the Age of Aquarius was being introduced along with its handmaidens: free love (an import from Sweden); freely available marijuana; Timothy Leary’s cactus-derived path to Nirvana; the Easy Rider syndrome—all in reaction to our weariness with the Cold War. The threat of a nuclear holocaust hung over everyone’s head, 24/7. Our schools were running regular nuclear drills by (naively) having our kids duck under their desks at the first sign of a blinding flash. And then--as if Americans would be cheered by a negative national policy of moral equivalence, the government announced that Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) would guarantee our Soviet adversaries would, hand in hand with ourselves, enter Valhalla should they drop a nuke on us or our allies.


Now enter the young, glitzy president, having just beaten his dour Republican opponent and his 5-o’clock shadow during the first televised presidential debate. His recent bride, socialite Jacqueline Bouvier, was his perfect Lady Gwenevere. Jackie inspired instant adoration and emulation by American youth. Young ladies aped her pill-box hats and modish hairstyles. Her style and beauty won over everyone, including thick-necked Soviets and other foreign diplomats. The attractive pair offered instant relief from the oppressive, dark Cold War era. It was Camelot, the Age of Youth--on a quest for that new, shining castle on the hill.

Out with the old, in with the new: By definition, the New Age of Camelot required being ready to throw the baby out with the bath water, if necessary! And what better candidate than our "outmoded" public education system! The teacher unions took charge. Out: Rote memory drills in the ABCs; penmanship classes demanding conformance and neatness; multiplication tables to be recited until perfect; stern teachers who insisted on parsing strange verbs in useless Latin (“how come we have to learn a language nobody speaks”); reading “hard” stories written by an outdated dude called Shakespeare in outdated and awkward English that was “hard” to understand; “hard” civic classes in government, on the constitution—especially vile were teachers who insisted their students memorize the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, and . . . well, everyone now bought the new line: The old methods of education were restricting the "self-realization" of our children in the Age of Aquarius. There must be a better, easier way. And so the word went forth and spread like wildfire: “Education for the New Age must be more 'student-oriented' in the spirit of self-liberation and self-fulfillment.”

The Metamorphosis: Most of us are aware of how far experimentation with this “spirit” has gone in our public schools; to outline them all would exceed the space for this essay. However, both course content and teaching techniques underwent moderate to radical changes. Curriculum selection and design favored those subjects in which students could find instant gratification and “self-realization.” Teaching techniques were modified so that the teacher was no longer to be an authority figure or a towering model of knowledge, but rather a “facilitator” whose role is to “encourage” students to investigate themselves--as opposed to the world of knowledge.

Self-realization becomes the center of gravity. The Age of Camelot was reinforced by LBJ’s “Great Society” that continued to emphasize individual “self-realization,” and by the mid-1960s included increasing concern for the social needs of the poor and neglected in American society. JFK began and LBJ continued to confront the unfinished business of racism and civil rights for the people Lincoln had emancipated nearly 100 years earlier. Martin Luther King emerged to become the lightning rod for this final stages of emancipation, which, in the school room, grew to include concern for all ethnic groups. This was translated into the buzz word “multiculturalism” which educators happily accommodated. In doing so, among other things, they devised the (very odd) concept of welcoming non-English speaking students into the classroom, by accommodating them with instruction in their native languages! This was consistent with the evolving New Age philosophy of not overly burdening students' intellectual capacities.

"Ebonics" and the “Dallas Solution.” Despite the “dual language” concepts being counter-intuitive, “professional” educators continued this experiment unchallenged. In fact, the Oakland (California) and Dallas (Texas) went one step farther: In 1999, the Oakland School District approved teaching “black street talk” (educators dubbed it “Ebonics”), ostensibly to make students and teachers more “sensitive” to the black majority of students. And only last week, the Dallas School District mandated that school administrators would have three years to learn Spanish, ostensibly to make them “more sensitive to Hispanic students’ needs.” Clearly, Aliens have captured the minds of those two school boards.

How to reform the reforms? Since the Alien Invasion began in 1960, I’ve become distraught when I think about the terrible things we've done to two generations of our prime national resource. As a result, just to maintain a touch-and-go status quo in science, technology, medicine, and business, we’ve had to turn for "brain power" to Europe, India, and elsewhere. There are a few recent encouraging signs—like the “No Child Left Behind” concept—that we may be awakening to the scope of the problem; however, what remains is to energize and empower the widest sectors of our society to undertake the reform of the reform.

At my lowest psychological points, I’ve fantasized that a brilliant team of all-American geniuses would appear—like in sci-fi flicks—and in one cathartic effort come to the rescue, exorcise the Aliens and restore our education system. But Hollywood fantasies are a terrible cop-out. Instead, we have to call upon concerned Americans at all levels of society, while ignoring those educators still infected with the Age of Camelot. As a one-time teacher, I have some a specific concept of where to begin, but I’ll leave that for another blog.

Conclusion: I know this much: the problem is so enormous that no sloganeering or advocating one single solution will untangle the monstrous Gordian Knot we’ve created. It will take the will and energy of competent thinkers together with real-world movers and shakers, using the combined resources in the private and government sectors, to “part the Red Sea.”

N.B. The present essay begs the question: "What happened at the college and university levels?" I'll have something to say about this in future musings.

America's Mexican Experience

America's Mexican Experience: Indignant Citizens on Both Sides of the Border

"Illegal" immigration has been taking place since 1848 when we finagled present-day California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Except for survey markers set up soon after the war with Mexico, the border has been marked only by the Rio Grande River, barbed wire and short stretches of a medium gauge metal fence. In other words, the border has been and remains virtually 100% porous.

Adventurers, outlaws, smugglers, mercenaries, and ordinary folks from both sides of the border crossed largely unhindered, except for sporadic attempts by the U.S. Cavalry "Buffalo Soldiers," based near the border at Fort Huachuca in the territory of Arizona, to suppress weapons smuggling. As the U.S. developed its newly acquired territories, the requisite labor came mostly from . . . where else? Today, except for the increasing number of laborers who cross into el Norte, in response to mushrooming growth, nothing has much changed. Except, that is, Americans are becoming aware of the problem, exacerbated by security awareness born out of 9/11/01 and the serious tax burden on taxpayers to support burgeoning social services in support of the "illegals."

The "Minutemen" Project (not to be confused with the 1960s-1970s ultra right-wing organization of Robert Welch) was well timed. A brash young Californian, Chris Simcox, recently transplanted to Arizona in search of self-employment, bought an obscure, marginal weekly newspaper (The Tombstone Tumbleweed) in the tourist-trap, movie-set village of Tombstone. With help from a California friend, Jim Gilchrist, Simcox formed the Minutemen and tapped into the Internet for "volunteers" to "force Washington to do the job it is failing to do," according to him, "to seal off" the border.

To seal or not to seal--that is the question: The Minuteman Project caught the fancy of the national and international media, turning the project into some real--even if its self-declared charter is at cross purposes with the U.S. Border Patrol's mission, which is not to "seal off" the border, but to "secure" it (that is, to maintain and manage the environment, and to control who enters--when and how). This small mission detail gets lost in the discussions and debates. In the face of hundreds of thousands of illegal entries annually and the specter of Al Qaeda and other evil-doers carrying their WMD devices into the country, in addition to the untenable, mushrooming social service costs to state governments, the Minuteman Project is forcing a public debate and politicians are being pressed "to do something."

Governor Richardson (D-New Mexico) recently declared a state of emergency in their states. Gov. Richardson, whose state has been officially and tangibly accommodating to Mexican illegal-immigrants (issues driver's licenses, pays for schooling, awards scholarships, etc.), led off.

Gov. Napolitano (D-Arizona), , quickly followed suit. Her action was a bit puzzling, because the governor, a long-time pro-immigrant advocate, has tried her best to block implementation of Proposition 200, passed last November by Arizonans (requiring voters to show a valid ID at polling stations, and requiring state officials to dispense services only to authorized, legal residents).

And this week, the "Governator" (R-California) is said to be interested in a similar action designed, of course, to extract money from federal coffers, as well as to prepare for the possibility of placing their states' national guards on duty at the border--a very contentious step that would collide head-on with Posse Comitatus, the protocol that since 1878 forbids using active duty military to "execute the laws" of the land.

Is this a Red State-Blue State issue? Hardly. Historically, both Republicans and Democrats have preferred to remain silent. Business-oriented Republicans traditionally ask: "What would our vegetable, fruit, and cotton farmers do without itinerant farm labor?" Socially-oriented Democrats assert "promoting people first," which generally translates to a hands-off "open border" policy. So the border has remained porous to the satisfaction of all parties--until now.

Enter Simcox's Minutemen Project about a year ago. After being bashed by both sides of the immigration issue, the Minutemen survived as a media darling--a good story having the elements of poverty, racism, national security, and politics. After a month-long vigilance in April along an 11-mile stretch (of Arizona's 750-mile-border) of desert scrub and rusty barbed wire, Simcox claimed triumphantly and the media reported enthusiastically (and demagogically) that the Minutemen had drastically reduced the number of illegals entering the country. The claim was technically correct--along the 11-mile patrolled stretch, many fewer illegals crossed in April. What wasn't reported was that the illegals merely went east or west of the Patriots' sector and forged ahead without missing a beat.

Although that little discrepancy isn't widely publicized, we locals know the truth. Here's what a local blacksmith near the border wrote to a local paper during all the hoopla:

So much attention for just sitting around in lawn chairs

To the Editor:

The Minutemen Project was much ado about nothing. I have a blacksmith shop on a piece of land along the border in Cochise County. I have a front row seat on the tidal wave of humanity said to be moving north, [but before the Minutemen] I could count on one hand the number of times that I have seen the travelers near my land. The Border Patrol has everything under control.

I was puzzled when the Minutemen set up camp just below me on the Border Road. That's a section where Mexico and the United States converge on different sides of the road. Of course, the Border Patrol has always kept a close watch on this area. But they didn't need any assistance. [I'm guessing that] the Minutemen felt safer where they were surrounded by so many patrol vehicles.

On several occasions in April, I drove the Border Road from end to end. I counted far less than two hundred people they claimed had volunteered--more like a dozen or so--in three or four cars and three or four recreational vehicles. They sat on folding chairs with their binoculars, and waved little American flags.

One day, I saw a volunteer couple with a microphone and a camera "documenting" a short man, standing on the Mexican side of the road, wearing a western style cowboy hat and a T-shirt that said "Undocumented Border Patrol." This was some kind of souvenir set-up, I guess.

On the American side of the road stood a couple of grandfatherly looking men and three teenage boys. They couldn't have been locals, because they were all hatless in the desert sun. I think they were initiating the boys, the older men lecturing and the young men listening. I'd guess they brought the boys up to the border to watch the flood of illegals, but it had turned out to be more like a snipe hunt at summer camp.

The Minutemen were not here to "help the Border Patrol." They were here only for the photo ops. This was not a real event. It was a media mirage. Lou Dobbs (CNN) reported untruthfully that "thousands" of Minutemen had volunteered. Bay Buchanan was solemnly worshipful of the volunteers. Sean Hannity (FOX) sounded ecstatic on his radio program as he interviewed a Minuteman and an anonymous Border Patrol agent. Governor Schwarzenegger of California also patted them on the back for doing a terrific job. Senator John McCain of Arizona said he understood their frustration.

The Border Patrol said that they were a nuisance, tripping off all their sensors and causing confusion. I am truly amazed that a dozen people, sitting on lawn chairs in the desert, pissing in the wind, could garner that much attention and such blind devotion.

It was true that a lot (hardly "thousands") of retired and out-of-work volunteers drifted into Tombstone in search of a time-killing adventure with the Minuteman Project. But what wasn't reported was that the county sheriff, an old-fashioned, no-nonsense lawman, knowing the problems a few out-of-state, pistol-packing volunteers, emboldened by beer and boredom, could cause, took direct action. As the wannabe border patrolees came into town, he read each of them a plain-spoken riot act and then quietly urged the obviously unqualified ones to leave his county. Each day he patrolled the 11-mile stretch, making sure the handful of Minutemen were behaving. If anyone had come to the border with the notion of doing a little self-styled "enforcing," Sheriff Devers quickly introduced them to his reality. Fortunately, the Mexican Army, after running a military jeep up and down the Minuteman's sector on the Mexican side the first couple days--undoubtedly scaring the bejeezus out of Simcox's volunteers--wisely withdrew.

Adding a low-key note to the media story, the most vocal and newsworthy opponents of the Project sent their lawyers to the scene: the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center and a couple of the usual left-leaning, publicity-seeking outfits. Alas, all they could do was issue their respective anti-Project statements to the media--there simply weren't enough patriots around to stir up a newsworthy controversy. Chris Simcox, the publicity-savvy organizer, wisely avoided contact with his antagonists; he was seeking only the positive "spin" that CNN and FOX networks generously afforded him. Things almost got out of control when the Al Jazeerah Network announced it was coming to interview the Project!

The view from Mexico: As attentive readers will have deduced, the average Mexican, abused by his own country's ability to provide him work, sees el Norte as the way to escape his misery--and if someone were to ask him about the "ownership" of the land north of the border, he might well answer that it is "naturally" Mexican by virtue of history and culture. At a more sophisticated level, Presidente Vincente Fox, for his own political reasons, seeks to acquire the U.S. government's agreement to accommodate Mexicans who he says have a "natural" right to residence beyond its legal northern boundary. As if poking Mr. Bush in the eye, Señor Presidente okayed the publication and distribution of a "how-to" manual to Mexicans about how to safely undertake the crossing. This little comic-book style booklet even has advice on what to do when encountering U.S. Border patrols. Fox seems bent on pressing the U.S. unrelentingly, taking full advantage of Mexico's considerable leverage on the American economy--not to mention the several billion dollars his countrymen annually send back to their impoverished relatives. So far, however, Señor Fox has managed only to arouse more indignation in the minds of more Americans, who are becoming increasingly aware of this ongoing problem. Even if it's accurate to say that the Minuteman Project is more a media phenomenon, it is also accurate to say that it has been responsible for making more Americans than ever aware of the enormity of the problem.

Solutions, anyone? Should the 2,000 mile-long border be "sealed" as some insist? How and at what cost? What to do about the estimated 7 to 13 million illegals estimated to be living in the U.S.? President Bush favors a program designed to control the ingress and egress of laborers the business community says are sorely required for the agriculture and construction industries. A couple other plans have been proposed by two senators and at least one congressman. But will they see the light of day to become law? And if so, will those plans be adequate and enforced, or will this be a replay of the 1980's efforts to control illegal immigration?

So where are we headed? What will the governors do, now that they've declared a "state of emergency" in their states? Will the plans, hastily put together by a handful of senators and representatives, ever see implementation by Congress? I do have some ideas for a solution to this thorny problem, but that's not the purpose of today's blog. Maybe later.

The next hundred years should be interesting

The next hundred years should be interesting. Is Iraq another Vietnam? What a naive question! No, there's no comparison whatever, except both are (were) armed conflicts. The Iraq adventure has much more profound meaning for our future than Vietnam. Here's why.

The single similarity between the two is that they are (were) competing ideologies vying for dominance. Vietnam was relatively easy, because the ideologies underlying this conflict were essentially political. Iraq, however, will prove to be much more difficult, because the ideology underlying this conflict is wholly religious. In plain terms, this means we're not dealing with rationality, but the opposite. It is the re-emergence of an earlier struggle between cultures.

Vietnam:

Background: This was an indirect, protracted (from about 1950 until 1975) clash between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Indochina became the unfortunate host to this conflict, with the U.S.S.R. sponsoring its client, Ho Chi Minh--by now thoroughly committed to his Russian patron--while the U.S. sponsored Ho's Catholic-based South Vietnam. It all started when President Eisenhower decided to accommodate the French, Indochina's former colonial master (and recently bloodied at Dien Bien Phu by Ho Chi Minh's determined guerrillas), and allow them to abandon their political mess and hand it to the U.S.A.

By the time JFK took charge, history was already waiting for him to claim leadership of the "Democracy Camp"--dedicated to defeating the "Communist Camp," They were two clean, transparent ideologies no one had trouble understanding. That JFK was inclined to view Vietnam as more evidence of growing Soviet aggression, than as a rebellion by former French colonial subjects, was enhanced by his humiliation at the hands of Nikita Khrushchev, dictator of an increasingly xenophobic U.S.S.R . JFK agreed to meet the wily Communist thug at a "summit" in Vienna--a then-popular venue where chiefs of state were supposed to solve national differences mano a mano. But this summit turned out to be a huge photo-op and a contest of personalities; unfortunately for us, Khrushchev made a fool of the new, young, glitzy president, thus setting the tone for increasingly bolder Communist mischief in Berlin, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Cuba, Nicaragua, and of course, Vietnam. Thus, from the outset, JFK saw Vietnam as a challenge to his leadership in the struggle between Democracy and Communism.

From 1960 forward, there was no turning back. Things rapidly escalated. Conventional armies, supported by infiltrating guerrilla cadres, formed in the North. We built ours in the South--an unequal partnership between South Vietnam and us. Although there were occasional, brief confrontations between elements of the armies, the conflict dragged on in the form of frustrating "search and destroy" missions and competition with the Viet Cong guerrillas for the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese populous, under constant pressure from both sides.

I needn't rehash why we lost that miserable conflict--but we clearly lost it, primarily because we were fighting under a war doctrine that was emerging too slowly out of WWII (typically, generals always fight the last war--the one they remember best). It took us almost six years to figure out how to deal with a popular insurgency, nourished by the U.S.S.R., but during this hiatus the Left, their fellow travelers and a laissez-faire, dope-smoking youth culture (dubbed "Flower Children") found their irrational, shrill, collective voice.

Anti-American "peace" demonstrations, "peaceniks" shouting their mantras "Give Peace a Chance"--"Make Peace, not War"-- "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many babies did you kill today?"--not to forget Jane Fonda, Hollywood's most narcissistic starlette and her shameful treatment of our POWs in the Hanoi Hilton--the seamless daily drumbeat badly demoralized the country, caused LBJ not to run for another term, and finally caused the U.S. Congress to lose its nerve. On the cusp of finally getting it right militarily, Congress cut off military funding for the war in the early spring of 1975. It was over quickly.

Famous photographs recorded the American humiliation for the world to see. Panic as the General Giap's army marched unopposed into Saigon. Army helicopters evacuating people from the U.S. Embassy's roof to waiting Navy ships; hysterical Vietnamese employees and others being pushed away from the Embassy's gates. In a matter of hours, the Communists occupied our Embassy, secured Saigon (renamed it Ho Chi Minh City), executed the Vietnamese who had collaborated with Americans, and set in motion the "boat people" exodus. We did not leave Vietnam "with dignity" as President Nixon had promised (by now he had resigned)--we abandoned it and the friends we used in a shameful manner.

Conclusion: Although the 25-year long venture ended badly and left the U.S. to deal with the psychological "Vietnam Syndrome" for years afterward, there was no direct, long-lasting consequence for the country's essential culture and institutions.

Iraq:

General: Iraq is a completely different event, with much more subtle and complex underpinnings. It undoubtedly will outlast the 25-year Vietnam conflict, and it well may span the remainder of this century! Not just because it's a war without the usual characteristics such as identifiable military units, uniforms, and defined battlefields. But mainly because this is turning out to be a cultural (read "religious") conflict, instead of the familiar political type, for which Clausewitz designed our now familiar military models.

Background: (The continuation of an ageless titanic struggle between two religious dogmas.) The two cultures once again pitted against each other are fairly described as "western style, religious based, democracy" against "Semitic style, religious based theocracy." Yes, there is a thread in history that helps us understand this: It goes back to the Middle Ages, when Mohammedanism, under the leadership of the Caliphs, rapidly and successfully expanded its military, cultural, and economic influence almost as far as transportation and communication logistics permitted. By the 8th Century, it had occupied Roman Africa, the Mediterranean littoral, including Egypt, Spain, regularly threatened Constantinople, and had even advanced to the gates of Rome and Vienna. This was Europe's "Dark Ages"and by about A.D. 1050, Mohammedanism had nearly swallowed Christianity (i.e. Catholicism). Christianity's supreme reaction, the Crusades (from A.D. 1095 to 1200), managed to recoup lost lands and push the Muslims back into the Arabian deserts. However, as some historians have pointed out, Mohammedanism receded only temporarily, simmering while waiting for another era in which to reassert itself. Some say (and I tend to agree) this era has arrived.

Some also say (and I tend to believe) that our forays into Iraq and Afghanistan (both well justified in my opinion) may have been the "fuse" on a time bomb that has been lying dormant, but slowly reaching critical mass, ever since the last Crusaders returned from the Holy Land. In other words, our adventures may be testimony to the "Law of Unintended Consequences."

Since history is still being written on the emerging conflict that could take titanic in proportion, unless I tried to play Nostradamus, there's very little to do, but watch history unfold. If history is a contributor to the shape of the follow-on epoch, then perhaps we ought to design our present actions in accordance with the present reality. But just what is that reality?

Reality seems to be elusive for many of us. It's why Ambrose Bierce, a frontier free-lance journalist, adventurer, and publisher, wrote at the turn of the century: "Endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be." In order to do that, we have to cast aside all those artificialities we (especially Americans) have foolishly imposed on ourselves, which we call "Political Correctness." Should we seriously consider what Ambrose wrote about religion, which is the reality that may be behind the present upheaval: "Treat things divine with marked respect, and don't have anything to do with them." And finally, as if to stiffen the spines of the politically correct folks, he counseled, "Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths."

O.K., so let's try for a distasteful truth: What's really behind the conflict (whether President Bush and the neo-Cons knew it at the time of planning)? Religion. Christianity vs. Mohammedanism. You can couch it in any terms you wish, but that's the "distasteful truth." If you and I don't want to believe it easily, we do know the Muslims absolutely believe it. "Allah Ahkbar" ("God is Great") is the mantra chanted at each beheading, each outrage, and each Muslim's hostile act in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Pakistan, East Timor, Sudan, and wherever else Muslims are organized. You can try and parse the ugly situation any way you see fit, but none of the results is accurate or satisfactory, until you begin to see it through the lenses of the Mohammedans.

So what should our tactics and strategy be? I'll leave that to those better equipped and specifically charged with answering that question. However, anyone trying to devise tactics in Iraq by comparing it to Vietnam must be booted out of the locker room, for they're hopelessly caught in a time warp--still trying to fight a war long passed.

Conclusion: Forging a successful long-range strategy will require astute, concerted global thinking and is critically dependent on our ability to recognize the underlying reality of this present conflict--Iraq is merely the opening gambit in a much wider. The question is: Are we, along with the rest of the non-Islamic world up to it?

The next hundred years should be interesting.

Rape of the Fifth Amendment

Ask Susette Kelo of New London, Connecticut about the right to own property: The Supreme Court decided, 5 to4, this past July (# 04-108: Kelo vs. The City of New London, CT) that her home didn't belong to her after all, but rather to a private developer who coveted it.

For those who don't know the background yet, here it is (adapted from the Institute for Justice website):

Susette Kelo dreamed of owning a home that looked out over the water. She purchased and lovingly restored her little pink house where the Thames River meets the Long Island Sound in 1997, and has enjoyed the great view from its windows ever since. The Dery family, down the street from Susette, has lived in Fort Trumbull since 1895; Matt Dery and his family live next door to his mother and father, whose parents purchased their house when William McKinley was president. The richness and vibrancy of this neighborhood reflects the American ideal of community and the dream of home ownership.

Tragically, the City of New London is turning that dream into a nightmare.In 1998, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer built a plant next to Fort Trumbull and the City determined that someone else could make better use of the land than the Fort Trumbull residents. The City handed over its power of eminent domain—the ability to take private property for public use [as provided in the Fifth Amendment]—to the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), a private body, to take the entire neighborhood for private development[and thus to increase the city's tax base].

As the Fort Trumbull neighbors found out, when private entities wield government’s awesome power of eminent domain and can justify taking property with the nebulous claim of “economic development,” all homeowners are in trouble.

[The Supreme Court handed over the Fifth Amendment's "eminent domain" power to the private sector. Did not the SCOTUS alter the Bill of Rights in a fundamental way?]

A few observations after my attempt to stir the interest of friends, acquaintances, and professional organizations:

• Surprisingly, only a tiny minority of citizens--persistent critics, libertarians, and a few independents--reacted immediately to the SCOTUS decision with petitions and letters.
• Some, after being briefed on the ruling's undermining the eminent domain provisions of the Fifth Amendment, merely shrugged and moved on to "more important" things.
• Some even criticized me for proselytizing them with e-mails.
• Some remained silent, believing their protest might land them on "someone's list."
• Some even called us dissenters "fanatics."

But if the above doesn't get your juices flowing, perhaps the following blogger blurb (if true) sent by a friend this morning, might make you squirm a little:

And now the politicians, who run. . . the City of New London, are charging the victims . . . "back rent" for daring to continue to occupy their own property during the time when their case wound its way to the Supreme Court.

So where do you stand? Is this an issue worth your energy to learn more about? Are those of us who are outraged really on the lunatic fringe--too far out of the mainstream for your comfort? For the curious, you can logon to one of many websites that are active in opposing the Kelo decision (including the National Association of Realtors--surprisingly); here's a libertarian site that sponsored a petition, "Impeach the Justices," that was posted in July and August, and is being delivered to a member of Congress this week.

Chill out, Cindy and Beth!

Damn it, ladies! Enough is enough!

Both of you have stretched your own credibility and more than fulfilled your "liberated American woman" roles. We've sat by, patiently tolerating your antics because of the peculiar American "don't-be-judgmental" ailment. We've tolerated Beth's tormented, endless accusatory interviews on any TV network that would bite--"if it were your daughter, wouldn't you do the same?" an acquaintance asked recently. Well, yes. Up to a point.

Beth, here's my message to you: When you sent your daughter off on a "rite of passage" trip apparently de rigeuer in your Alabama social caste, you surely weren't so naive to believe she wouldn't be experimenting with sex, alcohol, and drugs on a Caribbean island with nothing more to commend it than being one continuous beach with palm trees, sun, and lots of discos and bars--where their proprietors legally dispense their wares to youngsters like yours, under the aegis of very liberal Dutch laws and cultural mores peculiar to Holland (legal prostitution, drugs, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, etc.). You surely also knew then, as you know now, that travel anywhere--foreign or abroad--involves dangers and real risks. Sure, you had every right to try and locate your tragically disappeared daughter.

But after three months, your influence produced zero results. And in your irrational zeal in trying to trash Aruba, you've managed to repackage me and others who travel abroad as the 1960s "Ugly American," an image many of us spent years trying to live down--not only on Aruba, but around the world wherever cable network signals are received. You've done it almost single-handed with your shrillness, your babbling, your bible-thumping, and your ill-considered accusatory comparisons ("In America, we do it this way . . . "), your aggressive impositions on innocent bystanders--all the antics you've been plying, most of which I suspect your allies, the TV media, have suggested to you in order to create another story to show to a wide American audience who are evidently addictive voyeurs and have handed record-breaking viewer ratings to FOX and MSNBC--all the while Rome burns.

Enough, Beth Twitty-Holloway. Go home. Allow the Arubans to finish their investigations. If you really believe they are trying to exonerate guilty parties related to your daughter's disappearance, then certainly, you should take up the cause, but in the appropriate channels. Which doesn't include recording your hysteria in the international entertainment media. If it gives you succor, then by all means continue to grieve, hire detectives, write letters . . . whatever helps you endure your loss. But leave America and Aruba out of it! Show some dignity by ignoring Greta van Sustern and the other media scavengers. But spare us the task of having to try to explain your excessive behavior to foreigners. And finally, you could put your time to practical uses: Start organizing your notes that you'll use to market your forthcoming book. (You didn't think we were that naive, did you?).

-----------------------------------------

Then there's Cindy, the exploited California mom, understandably still grieving over the loss of her son, Casey, in Iraq. Yes, we understood Cindy at first, and even admired her that she was able to speak personally with President Bush several months ago. Many of us have continued to be patient as she morphed into a political spectacle, because we didn't want to be judgmental. "She has every right to speak out against the Bush foreign policy," the TV talking heads advised us at the beginning of her roadside Crawford vigil. Again, my acquaintance's taunting, "You wouldn't want to deny her the right to speak out?" Well, not exactly. But isn't there a limit?

But now, poor ol' Cindy's been pushed over the top and she's embarrassing the entire country, by repeating, parrot-like the lines fed to her by the long-haired, nose-ringed, sandal-shod grad students who gravitate to any anti-American cause, taking time off from their Leftist campus where their antics are daily routine. They have captured the attention of the ever-present media, anxious in their quest to derail the Administration; so now, the Left has ordained that Cindy's first congenial meeting with the president wasn't enough. So here we are today--she now believes that her son's death has amply equipped her as a foreign policy expert who can speak for me and thee. she's now mouthing the Left's mantras: "All war is bad. Invading Afghanistan was wrong; Osama bin Laden was the problem, not the people of Afghanistan. Iraq is wrong--they didn't do anything to us. We must bring our sons and daughters home immediately."

Oh puh-leeze! Is there no restriction on First Amendment rights? Can't we, the maligned, silent majority of citizens, be allowed to jerk her offstage with a long shepherd's hook, like they used to do to bad vaudeville acts of yore? Please have Karl Rove look into it! But in any event, Mr. Bush, do not yield to the pressures to allow this poor pawn into your presence again--to do so would sully your office and our military.

I've got a message for you, Cindy. You shoulda stayed home to care for your mom; she probably suffered her stroke out of embarrassment for your shameless antics. Has your penchant for the press and your need for more ego-stroking by the Left confused your priorities? Well, here's the bottom line, lady: Your son was not drafted. He volunteered to join the Army. He was of legal age. Reportedly, he was an intelligent, dedicated young man who was proud of his service in general, and his assignment to the war zone. You have a right to grieve, Cindy, but you have no right to dishonor all those wounded and KIA warriors by your thoughtless antics.

If you must extend your grieving, please do so in private--but don't attempt to impose your grief on us, or to turn it into a misguided political agenda. You have no right to do so.

Iraq & Vietnam: crusades both

Iraq & Vietnam: Any similarities? So you think I'm trying to to avoid this subject I promised earlier to address, do you? Honestly, I'm not, but in light of the second delay by the Iraqi constitutional committee today, I decided to wait for the outcome of this critical marker before straining my remaining active brain cells any further. In the meanwhile, however (if you care at all), here are some random thoughts defining my ambivalent, interim position on the major event of the new century so far.

Despite the lipstick we've been trying to apply to the pig's snout, this obstinate porker still isn't looking very pretty. President Bush is clearly worried (as he should be) and he's showing it by making extensive use of his bully pulpit to try and shore up support for the Iraq adventure. Is it possible that the sweat, blood, and billions we've spent the past two years will end in a civil war over which we'd have no control? Is it possible that this fictitious country, cobbled-together by the winners who divided the spoils of World War One, will decay into becoming the center of long-term Middle East chaos, instead of the role model from which we had hoped extensive economic, political, and cultural reform might emanate?

When the specter of invading Iraq appeared in the media, I was amazed and simultaneously puzzled. As a "natural conservative" (I don't believe this translates to "neo-con"), I struggled to read between the lines, especially after Secretary of State, Colin Powell, made an uncharacteristic (he's always been careful to promote and preserve his image) fool of himself before the United Nations. His sophomoric presentation of so-called evidence that was supposed to be the compelling reason for the U.S. to take drastic action was simply dumbfounding!

As a former intelligence officer, trained for and having worked at the national level in the late 1970s, it was clear to me that Colin Powell's native intelligence had somehow lapsed, or that he was being shamefully complicit by giving a presentation that he, of all people, should have known was foolish and without convincing substance. While he was sweating out his televised presentation before the U.N., I was more interested in the body language and facial expression of the then-CIA chief, George Tenet, sitting just behind and to Powell's right. By the end of the speech, I was convinced something was dreadfully wrong. (How it is that he was not only not sacked long ago, but awarded the Freedom Medal after finally resigning, remains a mystery to me.)

Despite my uneasiness, I decided to "suck it up" and back the President's decision to invade. After all, I told myself, there must be a grand strategy being played out. I tried to convince myself that it probably had to do with a Bismarckian power political strategy: Establishing a major, historic, and permanent presence in the Middle East. Such a strategy would be truly revolutionary, as geopolitical theory goes, by permanently influencing and reforming the entire region. Not only would western interests be preserved and advanced, but up to 500 million Muslims would be ultimately "liberated" (from themselves), beginning with the liberation of Saddam's brutally oppressed. Yes, yes, yes! Such a grand strategy would be much too complicated to explain to and unlikely to win support of the masses, so best work up the WMD and Al Qaeda links as justification--everyone'll understand that. Yes, yes, yes! Now I understand. And so "sucking it up" became a little more palatable for me. Was I involved in a classic case of rationalizing? Or was I on to something? If that was the grand strategy, it's clear that the wheels of that bicycle are now getting wobbly.

So I prefer to wait a little longer before committing myself to a position. When and if I finally realize one, I will willingly share it. It's clear that history is being made daily. The problem with living through historic change is that, like the proverbial forest, it's hard to see it, for the interference of all the trees. But that's the challenge for all of us, isn't it? Being able to discern the size and shape of the forest will allow us to map a way out of (or around) it.

I still haven't addressed the "Vietnam element" (if there is one), but I will. More on this later.

My Czech mentor

Everyone should be so lucky to have a real live mentor. I was finishing my four-year study program (in a two-year mad dash) at the University of Colorado. I needed to do one semester of student teaching somewhere, anywhere, in order to graduate and acquire a teaching license. Mentors, like angels (so they say), can appear in unexpected ways. Mine arrived one afternoon in 1959 as I was looking anxiously for test results posted on the door of my Russian professor, Tatania Nennsberg. Libor Brom, a naturalized citizen and refugee from Communist Czechoslovakia three years earlier, looked over my shoulder and asked with a twinkle in his ever-mischievous eyes, "Aha! So you're being tortured by Tatania, are you?" Libor, as it turned out, was a graduate student and occasionally taught Russian at the university. What followed was a friendship that never became "palsie-walsie" (because Libor was the consummate professional), but rather was warm and respectful--above all, always inspiring. Libor was also teaching Russian at a Denver area high school, so he arranged for my student teaching under his tutelage. He also got me my first teaching job in the then-prestigious Jefferson County School system.

Libor taught me lots of things, but I've picked out three I consider worth relating here: (1) How to deal with self-important bureaucrats and bureaucracies at various levels, and (2) The vital importance of knowing how rare and precious American freedoms are, especially those we enjoy and take for granted in the U.S.A. (3) The importance of acquiring a permanent sense of humor and being able to use it either as a defensive weapon against oppressors, or as a crutch for those inevitable depressing moments that make up life.

(1) Bureaucrats and bureaucracies: The best way to condense this lesson is to relate how Libor, at the time I met him, was on legal eggshells or, stated differently, on his best behavior--he was waiting for his permanent residency from Immigration and Naturalization.* At the same time, he was committed to lead his high school Russian students on a summer tour of Europe in 1960. His residency terms specified that he could not leave the U.S.A. without permission and then only for approved emergency reasons, for a short period. Libor tried to negotiate an exception, but he was rebuffed.

*Before Libor fled his native land, he had been a practicing lawyer and was a high level, upcoming star in the central administration that directed the economics of Czechoslovakia, interpreting and applying the regulations that flowed from the country's Soviet masters. His wife was a diva "name" stage and film actress. But Libor could not convince his wife and small baby to flee with him, so he landed in Canada alone, eventually ending up in the U.S.A. Undoubtedly, Libor's sensitive position in the communist government of Czechoslovakia had much to do with the delicate way U.S. immigration authorities were handling his request for U.S. residency.

He seemed completely unfazed about this dilemma. He continued to make plans to lead his students on a triumphant tour of Europe. "But Libor, what about your travel restrictions. You don't have a passport. You can't get over the borders without one. Worse than that--you won't be able to get back into the U.S. You ought to be finding a substitute," I counseled gratuitously. "Not to worry, " he winked. "Here, I'll show you." From his briefcase he pulled out a legal-sized sheet of plain paper, on which he had typed his "vital statistics" above a very official sounding couple of lines that named him an "officially designated foreign relations appointee, employed by the University of Colorado, Boulder, to conduct academic research abroad in pursuit of . . . . "

Below this, he had listed each of his students' names, addresses, and the signatures of their parents--all very official looking: Neat, precise, and very official looking. Next to this he applied a red wax seal under his signature--rendered in his flamboyant, European-style, lawyer style. "I'll be concerned only at the first border we have to cross. But once I have the stamps, visas, and initials of the border customs officials, I'll have no problems from that point on. And if I am stopped by U.S. customs upon return, I know they'll be impressed (and not wanting to display their bewilderment) at my document full of customs stamps and entry visas--there's no official with courage enough to challenge the decisions of the officials in 10 European countries."

I worried about Libor for the next two months that summer. But one day in early September, on schedule, he was back and hadn't been in jail along the way! Over coffee at the student union, he pulled out that audacious document, now covered with dozens of foreign entry and exit visas--looking like a modern day Magna Carta. "It's a trick and attitude I learned from my days under Hitler and Stalin, but I'm sharing this with you, because you must learn to know the nature of bureaucracies."

I've had several occasions to apply Libor's principles over the years and today they underlie my "attitude" when bureaucrats seem to unreasonably rely on power and domination. It's an attitude I find I'm applying with increasing frequency these days--especially living on the border with Mexico. It has to do with these tense days of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act--it has to do with fear, in other words. The very thing Libor came to know and finally fled in 1956. A few of my critics have called my handling of pushy Federal Border agents audacious ("why challenge them--you'll get yourself on a list" they counsel)--but it all goes back to Libor Brom's influence.

(2) The importance of recognizing our rare and vital freedoms: This is rather directly connected with Item #1 above. Libor's experiences under the Nazi and Communist heels were filled with fear, foreboding, and terror--experiences few native-born citizens have ever known. Our sessions were rarely just to "hang out" in today's vernacular. We were both too busy for that luxury; in addition, Libor had also acquired a sense of urgency about life, wanting to relish each moment in his newly adopted country. So when we did get together, it was to carry out "serious" matters, such as our discussions about his PhD research, about academic areas in which I was having difficulties. During these sessions, Libor was master at evoking my sense of shame that I didn't know enough detail, both historical and content, about the U.S. Constitution. I learned all about "socialism" which Libor fiercely opposed. "It's not natural, Grant. Its proponents pander to the people, but it's for one thing only: to acquire raw personal and institutional power. Believe me! I was once an official in a communist regime charged with acquiring power, by means of pseudo-legal means, for my bosses and indirectly for myself." That's when Libor was overcome with the immorality of his lifestyle and decided to flee.

(3) Having a sense of humor: "Bureaucrats in general, but especially authoritarians, are a humorless lot, " Libor taught me. "Have you ever seen editorial humor in their media? Of course, not, because their editorial commentary deals with praise for the regime--not their excesses; in effect, humor is outlawed in authoritarian regimes. The only humor, if you can call it that, is when a dictatorship expresses ridicule and humiliation for its enemies--anyone suspected of opposition. Whenever you encounter a humorless bureaucrat, watch out," Libor counseled. "They've come to think of themselves as very important--beyond criticism or humor." Having been forbidden to laugh for most of his life, now Libor found great satisfaction in learning and telling jokes--especially ones that poked fun at bureaucrats and self-important academicians. He could always be counted on to be the gadfly at the few social events we attended with him, especially if politicians, puffed-up professors, or pretentious PhD candidates were around.

No great American novel here!

Only in the interest of "full disclosure" so that you may appreciate my early interest in writing, as well as to demonstrate that I suffer from little shame 48 years later, I place before you the actual first page of six of a short story titled "The Intensity of Blue," along with my very first, well deserved pink slips.

It was October 1957, the year of the Soviet Sputnik, which must have been beaming down dumb rays at me in Germany.

The only training underlying this strained juvenile labor consisted of three years of high school English at New Mexico Military Institute, Roswell, New Mexico, 1951-1954. I probably was also inspired by something I had read somewhere in a Writer's Guide.

In case you're having to squint to read the above reproduction, let me assist. It opens:

Stumbling down the pathway in the dark, Derreck felt as though his psyche was ripping itself loose. This time there was no doubt . . . it was inevitable. He knew he could not withstand the pressures this time. With a feeling of relief at this realization, he fell forward against the outline which he assumed must be a doorway. "Open this damned door! I know you hear me. Someone answer . . . now!" A pause and an eternity. Hallo . . . who?" The voice was faint but it was there.

ENOUGH ALREADY! NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO ENDURE MORE THAN THIS. If the editors of Playboy and Redbook made it this far in my six-page submission, they should have sued me for wasting their time . . . instead of returning a polite rejection.

The strained style and unrevealed plot line are almost as bad as those of a fellow frosh's creative writing exercise I was asked to critique in an English course in 1959 (it was a bit like asking two village idiots to critique each other's essays). His literary jewel began, "Cruising lazily at the bottom of the Amazon River, a yellow submarine had no intention of surfacing until . . . . "

Now that short story was also an eye-opener, which explains why English teachers either get prematurely grey or acquire permanent, peculiar facial tics.

Early biases revealed

What's behind the facade? Knowing a little bit about a commentator's biases helps in reading between his lines.

FLASHBACK! To the then-unknown village of Evergreen (later made famous in as the hometown of John Hinckley, President Reagan's wannabe assassin) above the Coors Beer factory in Golden--a 25-minute run in second gear up to 7,300 feet in my VW beetle. From atop, we were a stone's throw from the now-infamous Rocky Flats nuclear bomb-making plant, and a few miles farther down the road to the "Red Campus" as the liberal arts college at the University of Colorado in Boulder was aptly named.

Summer 1961: Evergreen High School. I was given the run of the temporary building that would be my exclusive domain. As a recent CU graduate in International Relations (with German and Russian language minors) and now a new hire of the sprawling Denver-area school district, Jefferson County had assigned me the mission to set up the first foreign language program in this obscure little community. I wasn't able to spend any money, but my enthusiasm overcame that little problem. I spent the summer ordering teaching materials from the USSR's massive propaganda bookstore and jury-rigging a make-shift "language lab" from the odds and ends I was able to cobble together from various sources--using some enlisted savvy I had acquired during my four years as a Russian Language intelligence specialist.

My first year was a mixed bag: fortunately, it included the immense satisfaction that came from bright, enthusiastic students with the guts to enroll in a completely voluntary language course. However, although I had the creme de la creme of students, I caught flak from three directions that made the year difficult: (1) A few parents who thought I might be teaching their kids Marxism (by using Soviet published language textbooks) and (2) most of my teacher-colleagues whose newly acquired radical teachers' union (the American Federation of Teachers) I refused to join. (3) My principal, Mr. Lee, cast a doubtful eye toward me when I refused "voluntary" duty as "chaperones" at local school sports events; for this obstinacy, I was in danger of Mr. Lee rating me unfavorably on my end-of-year report. He relented only when I won a Title VII graduate scholarship in advanced Russian language at the University of Indiana for 1962-1963 (with a follow-on exchange stint at the University of Moscow).

Although I tended to be instinctively conservative, JFK's inaugural speech "Ask not what your country . . . " had already infected my idealistic nature. That, added to the talk-radio buzz, which was awash in controversy about Vietnam (then, no one had the foggiest idea where this odd place name was to be found in an atlas, but there was plenty anti-war, pro-democracy rhetoric to rival today's ranting), all led me to believe I should do my "duty" for JFK and country (again), this time as an Air Force pilot. After having passed the aptitude tests and flight physical, my Denver recruiter confirmed acceptance for undergraduate pilot training after completion of officer candidate school in San Antonio. My long cherished dream of strapping a Roman candle onto my backside for fun and glory had been realized!

So goodbye to teaching, goodbye to Indiana and Moscow Universities, and h-e-l-l-o to the wild blue yonder! Ah, but little did I know (until just before pinning on my "brown bar" a few months later) about the onerous euphemism "exigencies of the service"-- which was unceremoniously applied by an overworked personnel assignment captain who, with a couple of key strokes on his IBM punch card system, removed me from pilot training and simultaneously transferred me into the "intelligence career field." Over my passioned protest, he reminded me: "Your services are more urgent as a Russian linguist." So much for fun and glory! So it was either back to teaching at the bare subsistence rate of $1,100 a year, or taking my chances as a wimpy "intel weanie."

Shaggy dog story?

This falls into the category of trivia writing. I include this "shaggy dog" tribute here only because I recalled that several people, after reading it in a local English language newspaper, urged me to "take up writing." I hadn't ever been much of a "dog person" until Harry, my best pal, begged me to adopt Black Dog. The day he died turned out to be unexpectedly traumatic. After burying my furry pal, I worried how I was going to break the news to Harry, so I sat down and penned this while sobbing inconsolably.

2/25/1992 on the finca

Remembering Black Dog

Harry’s dog died this morning. His name was Black Dog. I inherited Black Dog when Harry left for Panama last September. Black Dog was part German Shepherd and something else.

Black Dog adopted me, because he was Harry’s dog and at the beginning, Black Dog wasn’t at all sure I was going to work out. But somehow he and I soon came to see eye to eye, and we grew to understand each other completely. Maybe it was because the fist night after Harry had gone, Black Dog refused to sleep in his new doghouse, but leaped through a partially open window of our car where he apparently felt more at home and secure.

Black Dog use to look me long and unflinchingly in the eyes—that’s when we talked--sometimes for several minutes at a time. When we couldn't see each other, he used his voice, as best he could, in imitation of sounds he thought I’d understand. And I usually did.

After Black Dog decided I might work out after all, he quickly marked out his territory around our two acres, into which no one could pass without his or my permission. He was big enough to back up his claim if he ever had to. But Black Dog never physically attacked a soul--he never had to, because he knew his own strength. His method was all in the "show" he put on, whenever necessary. Oh, one time there was a wide-eyed boy on a Vespa (Black Dog hated the sound of them) who claimed that he was nipped on the heel of his tennis shoe—I knew that was possible, because Black Dog knew just how to take a delicate nip when he wanted to be seen as “vicious.” But after discussing it with the teenager, it seems the “nip” never penetrated the shoe, no matter how hard we both examined it. So the youngster was out of a new pair of Nikes that day!

Black Dog showed his appreciation for our bond in many ways. He was always by my side, even when it thundered—a sound that otherwise turned him into quivering jelly and sent him diving for the nearest thing he could hide under.

He never demanded anything. He just was. He loved people. He loved other animals. He didn’t even mind when the chickens and neighbor dogs sneaked off with his food when he wasn’t looking. In fact, Black Dog became famous among his animal friends as a connoisseur of find food--my wife, whom Black Dog also won over very quickly, went to great lengths every day to prepare something special for this special guy—something from the garden, along with chicken livers, juicy bones, and cooked with this and the other. And when the smaller dogs taunted him fiercely while they stole his food, he just took it in stride--he never growled or showed a mean streak. I’m sure those little thieves thought Black Dog was just a tad dim, but they didn’t know him.

Black Dog was always smiling, his long, sloppy tongue hanging out--he was already ready to run with me in sheet joy. He loved to show off too-he was a born comic. He loved to chase the tiny lizards, ears flopping, his long tail straight up, quivering with comic excitement. Of course, they always eluded him.

Oh yeah, he dreamed of the day he'd finally catch a buzzard—he didn’t know how or when, but he was certain it would happen some day. There was one ol’ buzzard that used to tease him almost every week. It'd swoop down from its height to about 30 feet or so, and circle slowly until Black Dog couldn’t stand it any more—he’d leap off after it in 10-foot bounds, chasing and barking with unlimited joy at that ol’ buzzard who, when he tired of the game, would head up and out, leaving Black Dog staring up into the sky for several minutes, trying to figure out how he'd do it better next time.

Someone poisoned Black Dog. I don’t know why. I guess whoever did it must be suffering great pain, so they thought they’d find some relief by snuffing out the life of a healthy, uncomplicated, innocent creature.

I'm sorry old guy. I guess I let you down. When you dragged yourself to your feet this morning and tried to wag your tail and smile at me, I knew you must have been in great pain. You tried hard to hang on--even under the vet’s frantic, last-minute efforts. And even then, you didn’t whimper or complain as your life forces came pouring out of you in my arms.

I'm glad you didn't die last night alone, old fellow, but that you hung on until this morning to let me share your death with you, to say goodbye. It was the last real thing you had to share with me. And I know you’d have said goodbye to Harry too, if you'd known how to find him in time.

Thank you, Black Dog. You taught me a lot in six months. You brought life to our lives. And if there is anything else after this go-around, I hope you finally corner that ol’ black buzzard--and when you do, I know you’ll probably let him go, being the gentle soul you are.

A journalist's internship

Fast forward to 1986 after my retirement to the private, self-employed sector:

That year, to my surprise, the National Journalism Center, a conservative journalism "finishing school" in Washington, D.C., awarded me a paid, full-time, 3-month fellowship for the winter session. Their selection decision was based on an unclassified summary of a thesis ("The Future of Ostpolitik") I wrote in 1974 to graduate from an advanced national intelligence university run by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Despite the fact that by 1986 the thesis was completely outdated and had lost any relevancy to the political situation in Europe, the NJC selection committee apparently liked it for its very unorthodox presentation usually forbidden in an academic environment. It was essentially a 150-page chronology of fictional world-wide newspaper reporting on how the USSR diplomatically neutralized and then militarily occupied West Germany. Although the prediction I posited in those pages made a big "hit" inside the intelligence community in 1974--I was notified months later at my post in Southeast Asia, that it had been named the "most significant" thesis among my class of 200 officers-- by 1986 it must have read like a cheap, thoroughly ridiculous, failed attempt to emulate Nostradamus.

Thank God the NJC selection committee wasn't evaluating my candidacy on the basis of the essay's relevancy! So I took a "sabbatical" from my business in Central America and threw my suitcase onto an unmade bunk in the Center's downtown "hostel" occupied by three guys who had just completed their stints and were clearing out in advance of the fast approaching Christmas holidays. From the first day of classes it was clear that I was senior (by about 20 years) among the six fellows (two of whom were recent coed grads). However, the resident faculty, Chris and Mal, the director (a nationally syndicated journalist), M. Stanton Evans, as well as my classmates made it clear that my age seniority bore no privileges; I ran just as many "gofer" errands, made just as many pots of coffee, and withstood just as many critiques--some scathing--of my writing exercises.

To complete the terms of my fellowship, the NJC set me up during the last month of my term to do some "real" journalism with the Times of the Americas (defunct sometime in the mid-1990s), a distinguished weekly journal-in-exile in D.C. after Castro threw it and its CIA-connected editors, Carl and Clarence Moore, out of Havana in 1961. Jon Utley, the associate editor, made a game effort to put up with my linguistic observations that insisted his use of certain words, like "triumphant," in connection with communist-backed guerrilla gains in Central America, amounted to a subtle acquiescence to Marxist terminology. Nevertheless, Jon was patient, while managing to convince me I was not the fount of journalistic wisdom I thought the NJC had recently empowered me with. This brief month-long stint did have an interesting conclusion. It served, by means I can only attribute to Clarence's still active Company networking, as the basis for a "quiet, off-site, spontaneous" interview by a Company agent, conducted on a cold March evening over a bottle of wine in a small Georgetown bistro specializing in pasta.

The Company's interest in me evidently centered on the fact I lived and worked in Central America, a region that was suffering from the considerable turmoil caused by Daniel Ortega's Sandinistas and their alliance with the USSR and Cuba. Fortunately or not, I must not have impressed my interviewer, for I was not put on the payroll. However, I must have been considered a "source," because a few months after returning home, I received an urgent phone request to facilitate a "fellow journalist" in connecting with John Hall, a rancher in northern Costa Rica and a well-known collaborator with the anti-communist contras in Nicaragua.

Although I was courteous to my "fellow journalist" who arrived a couple days later, I distressed him considerably when I confessed that I had absolutely no more palanca with Mr. Hall than he did--on top of that, I was unable to even be a reliable guide to Mr. Hall's ranch, since I had never been there myself! (To tell the truth, the evening I met my "fellow journalist" in a cheap Costa Rican hotel room, I had a foreboding about him and was only too glad to be able to beg off this "mission.") The disappointment I caused surely must have clinched my unsuitability as a Company asset.

In sum, the NJC fellowship experience exposed me, however briefly, to the unique Washington political and journalistic environment, which continues to exert a strange allure that I somehow feel must be realized. Any comment?

REMINDER: If some posts seem to leave you "hanging," they often depend on a foregoing entry or more, so try scrolling toward the bottom and working your way up--it's the way blogs work.

Where am I supposed to take this?

This is the opening salvo of an experiment which I hope will help determine whether I should, at this late stage of life, pursue writing in a serious way that some say I should have done decades ago. If you'd care to take the time, I'd be extremely grateful for your criticism.

Fair warning, however: except for the introductory paragraphs of this blog, I don't intend it to become a sentimental, self-indulgent review of yet another unfulfilled life of "quiet desperation." Should it degenerate into that, I hope you'll scream (at me). I do have strong views on lots of subjects, so I suspect I'll vent some of them here--hopefully in a useful and thoughtful way--but I honestly have no idea where this might lead me (or you). Therefore, there will be no warranties for this blog's content, nor any tangible prizes awarded for your valuable feedback.

My initial idea for using this blog is to allow prospective editors, think-tanks, and others to have a first-hand, real-time look at me and my writing. This New Era medium seems a lot more current, interactive and, in my case, more honest and authentic than submitting a resume or portfolio of clippings. Whether I am able to realize this goal remains to be seen.

Here's where I am today! After having achieved the "advanced" age of 69 only yesterday (how did it happen so fast?) and having returned to the U.S. A. a few years ago after a long, self-employed business stint in Central America, I managed to effectively alienate the entire real estate industry (brokers, agents, lenders, developers, and others) in my adopted small desert town (40,000) in the Arizona Sonoran desert. I did this after our local paper featured on its front pages my views castigating the industry for their complicity in "stampeding" people into the present real estate "bubble" that has infected even our otherwise obscure corner of the planet.

Shortly thereafter, playing the gadfly, I also managed to alienate about 60 percent of the local population (we are an overwhelmingly "military town") via an op-ed piece that suggested career military retirees have been riding a lavish gravy train that inevitably must be modified in order to release needed money in support of the new generation of active duty warriors. One retiree, a comfortable full colonel, whom I asked to review my op-ed before submitting it for publication, was appalled; he actually threatened to "black ball" me, if I went forward with it. Well, I did . . . and so did he.

Therefore, having (characteristically) shot myself in the foot--twice, this time--it's time to look for new avenues. "Retire!" you say? No, not by a long shot. The boys at the local VFW and Foreign Legion clubs and I simply don't read off the same page . . . they're happy to play bingo and tell each other tall tales about "the good ol' days." I'm not there . . . not yet.

Is there something being hidden under a bushel basket? Over the years, several well meaning friends, relatives, and mentors have insisted that I have a natural, albeit latent, talent for writing. The first major clue came in September 1966 when, to my surprise, the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, wanted to publish in its quarterly journal my idealistic essay entitled "A Code of Ethics for Air Force Officers." I submitted this "award-winning" paper to the faculty of the junior officers' school ("Squadron Officer School") to fulfill the final writing assignment required of aspiring young officers assigned to this 3-month "career development" school.

The essay revealed the very idealistic side of me; in it I tried to justify the need for a "nuclear age ethics code" that Air Force officers could use to gauge their personal and professional temperament in their decision-making process. It was marked by lots of enthusiasm but, looking back, suffered in the lack of lucidity of the 10-point (maybe it was more or less points--it doesn't really matter) code I struggled to craft.

In response to the publication that followed after I was back at my intelligence duties in San Antonio, several officers, some who were flying global Cold War missions in B-52's that carried very real nuclear weapons, wrote me essentially unsympathetic letters, suggesting what I could do with my code. No question about it--those intimidating letters put my budding writing career, such as it was, on hold.