Politicians talk a good game when it comes to patriotism. They’ll chant “USA! USA!” They’ll push amendments to outlaw burning the American flag. They’ll make long speeches about Homeland Security. They’ll wear little lapel pins.

But when push comes to shove, and politicians in Congress are given the chance to ensure the survival of a living symbol of the United States of America, what do they do? They take out their guns, aim and fire.

Yesterday, a slim majority of member of the United States House of Representatives voted for H.R. 3824, an attack upon the landmark law that brought the American bald eagle back from the brink of extinction. Without the Endangered Species Act, the American bald eagle would probably not exist any more, except on the backs of our quarters and as a graphic on Republican web sites promoting corporate pollution.

I’ve seen the American bald eagle fly, and I think that it is worth protecting. 229 members of the House of Representatives disagree. They voted yesterday to seriously weaken the protection of endangered species like the American bald eagle. They did it for the sake of profits for big business.

This issue of genuine patriotism, of love for the real homeland, is not purely partisan. Yes, most of the votes to attack the Endangered Species Act came from Republicans, but a large number of Democrats took part in the attack too. Yes, most of the votes to defend the Endangered Species Act came from Democrats, but some Republicans joined in that defense.

On both sides, those who broke party ranks deserve our attention. The Democrats who voted for H R 3824 deserve particular condemnation. After all, if these Democrats had voted against the radical measure, H R 3824 would have been stopped. The Republicans who voted against H R 3824 deserve our thanks. Both groups are listed below. Check it, to see if your representative in Congress is there.

Democrats who shamefully voted to attack the Endangered Species Act:

Neil Abercrombie, of Hawaii

Joe Baca, of California

John Barrow, of Georgia

Marion Berry, of Arkansas

Sanford Bishop, of Georgia

Dan Boren, of Oklahoma

Allen Boyd, of Florida

Dennis Cardoza, of California

James Costa, of California

Jerry Costello, of Illinois

Bud Cramer, of Alabama

Henry Cuellar, of Texas

Artur Davis, of Alabama

Lincoln Davis, of Tennessee

Chet Edwards, of Texas

Harold Ford Jr., of Tennessee

Stephanie Herseth, of South Dakota

Ruben Hinojosa, of Texas

Tim Holden, of Pennsylvania

James Marshall, of Georgia

James Matheson, of Utah

Mike McIntyre, of North Carolina

Charles Melancon, of Louisiana

Allan Mollohan, of West Virginia

John Murtha, of Pennsylvania

Solomon Ortiz, of Texas

John Peterson, of Minnesota

Earl Pomeroy, of North Dakota

Mike Ross, of Arkansas

John Salazar, of Colorado

David Scott, of Georgia

Ike Skelton, of Missouri

John Tanner, of Tennessee

Gene Taylor, of Mississippi

Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi

Albert Wynn, of Maryland

Republicans who did the right thing, and voted to defend the Endangered Species Act:

Charles Bass, of New Hampshire

Judy Biggert, of Illinois

Sherwood Boehlert, of New York

Jeb Bradley, of New Hampshire

Michael Castle, of Delaware

Tom Davis, of Virginia

Vernon Ehlers, of Michigan

Michael Ferguson, of New Jersey

Michael Fitzpatrick, of Pennsylvania

Mark Foley, of Florida

Rodney Frelingheysen, of New Jersey

James Gerlach, of Pennsylvania

Wayne Gilchrest, of Maryland

Nancy Johnson, of Connecticut

Timothy Johnson, of Illinois

Sue Kelly, of New York

Mark Steven Kirk, of Illinois

Ray LaHood, of Illinois

LaTourette, of Ohio

James Leach, of Iowa

LoBiondo, of New Jersey

Todd Platts, of Pennsylvania

James Ramstad, of Minnesota

David Reichert, of Washington

James Saxton,of New Jersey

John Schwarz, of Michigan

E. Clay Shaw, of Florida

Christopher Shays, of Connecticut

Rob Simmons, of Connecticut

Christopher Smith, of New Jersey

Fred Upton, of Michigan

James Walsh, of New York

Curt Weldon, of Pennsylvania

Frank Wolf, of Virginia

John Kerry’s political organization leftover from 2004 sends me an e-mail imploring:

Dear James, Incompetence. Indictments. Misguided policies. Misplaced priorities. Hour by hour, the Republicans who control Washington give us more reasons to pour our hearts and souls into winning the 2006 elections. The bottom line: If we want to change America’s course, we’ve got to change the face of Congress. Senator Robert C. Byrd has been working mightily to move our country in a new direction. Right now — with the clock ticking toward the midnight tonight deadline — you have a special opportunity to help his campaign. Make a contribution. Keeping America’s Promise is focusing its attention on Senator Byrd and three other key Senate candidates. Thousands of people have already stepped forward to help. It’s not too late for you to join them. But, you’ve got to act fast. Make a contribution.

Will someone help me understand this message? Let’s take a closer look.

“Senator Robert C. Byrd has been working mightily to move our country in a new direction.”

Yesterday, Senator Robert C. Byrd cast his vote to install John Roberts as Chief Justice for a life term. That’s certainly a new direction, but it’s not the direction I had in mind.

George W. Bush has put in place a new environmental rule allowing hot spots of excessive mercury pollution to appear throughout the country. Local residents would have absolutely no say about the placement of these mercury pollution hotspots, and would only be able to choose to flee their homes from the health risk, selling their property at drastically reduced rates. That’s the kind of market-based solution that belongs in a Charles Dickens novel, not in America. A bill, S.J. Res 20, would have overturned the Bush Mercury Hotspot Rule, but it failed by a slim majority of 51. Senator Byrd didn’t vote for S.J. Res 20, and so took this country in a new direction, but not the direction I had in mind.

By voting for Senate Bill 256 this year, Senator Byrd helped to make it harder for average people who run into hard times to keep even the most basic of assets when they run into already rich megacreditors who want just a bit more profit. Senator Byrd has moved to protect the high-profit, high-rate consumer credit industry against people struggling to get by. That’s an inversion of any reasonable person’s moral compass. Sen. Byrd has chosen corporations over people. That’s certainly a new direction, but it’s not the direction I had in mind.

Senator Byrd hasn’t bothered to add his support to Senate Bill 14, which would raise the minimum wage from its current 55-year inflation-adjusted low. As inflation rises ever higher due to increased fuel costs, the minimum wage will continue to break new records as it crashes ever downwards in its real value. That’s certainly a new direction, but it’s not the direction I had in mind.

“Right now — with the clock ticking toward the midnight tonight deadline — you have a special opportunity to help his campaign. Make a contribution…. You’ve got to act fast. Make a contribution.”

Midnight tonight deadline? Deadline? What deadline? Robert Byrd announced just three days ago that he would run for re-election to the Senate in 2006, so it’s not as though citizens won’t have the chance to contribute to his campaign. There’s no deadline for that; people have a full year left to do that. I most certainly do not have to act fast.

So what’s the deadline? Who wants me to act fast, and for what reason? What happens at midnight tonight?

Well, gee, it’s the end of September tonight, which means it’s also the end of the third quarter of the year, which means… right, got it. FEC reports on campaign contributions are tallied by quarter. The link in that e-mail from John Kerry doesn’t go to Robert Byrd’s campaign website; it goes to a website for “Keeping America’s Promise,” a political action commitee (PAC) run by John Kerry. The “Keeping America’s Promise” PAC exists to collect campaign contributions from people like you or me, bundle them together, and hand them over to John Kerry so he can in turn hand money over to candidates like Senator Byrd. Candidates like Senator Byrd then write a thank you note, not to you, but to John Kerry.

John Kerry has a deadline of tonight, not you. He wants Senator Byrd’s support for some reason or another (gosh, election 2008 comes to mind), and to that end he’d like to be able to demonstrate that his PAC provided helpful money to Senator Byrd in the third quarter. That’s your helpful money, but you don’t get the credit. You are the tool to increase John Kerry’s glory, and it’s for this mission that the clock is ticking. It’s for this purpose that you’ve got to act fast.

“The bottom line: If we want to change America’s course, we’ve got to change the face of Congress.”

Keeping Robert Byrd in West Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat for another 6 years, on top of the 48 years he’s held the seat, is not the way to change the face of Congress. If we want to change America’s course, and John Kerry think’s he’s the man to do it, he’s going to have to hire a new copy editor.

The energy crisis we’re in isn’t just about oil. A coffee joint in my home town of Durham, NC put up a sign yesterday explaining that because of increased transportation costs, they’ve had to increase the price of a cup of coffee by 10%.

Are you seeing anything like this happen in your neck of the woods?

On his blog, my friend Bob shows his handiness installing a new sink — something I don’t think I could manage. But last night I did manage to fix the pneumatic closing mechanism for my front screen door. To finish the job, I needed new screws to match some old ones, but that were about half an inch longer. I naively thought I’d just bring the old screw with me and match it to some new screw over at Lowe’s. Ha ha ha. Sweet holy Jesus, I had no idea there were so many screws in the world. Sheet metal, heavy metal, woodworking, wood vole, self-drilling, carriage bolt, pram flange, bleagh! And then there were the sizes for each type. Inches, metric, and some number-dash-number ones. My eyes swam over all the possibilities and I had no idea where to begin. So I just stood there for a moment, stymied.

As I looked vaguely about I noticed that my peers in the screw-and-nail aisle were moving with purpose and certainty, while I remained stock-still and slack-jawed. The task at hand quickly shifted from Finding the Screw to Demonstrating Manhood. In order to accomplish the latter, I found myself theatrically inspecting the largest carriage bolts I could find, turning them over in my hand with an eyebrow cocked, as if I were judging a melon. But I wasn’t thinking about the bolt. I was thinking, “hmmm… is my eyebrow cocked convincingly? Or should it be furrowed? Can you furrow and cock and the same time? Is this what it feels like for women to shop for swimwear? Why the hell are you fondling this carriage bolt?”

Indeed, why the hell was I fondling that carriage bolt? In order to avoid looking ridiculous, I had apparently decided to act ridiculously. And I’m not alone in this; even though my friend Bob did a great job with his sink, he too reported feeling out of place in the plumbing aisle looking for the right sort of PVC pipe. Bob was wearing flip-flops at the time, and we all know real plumbers don’t wear flip flops.

It took a great deal of resolve for me to suck it up, turn to the staff guy in the apron and utter the words, “I’m having trouble finding a screw in this size. Could you give me a hand?” He did just that, nobody cocked an eyebrow or furrowed a brow about it, I got the right screw for the job, and I went home and fixed the damn door. But the morning after, I think to myself that if I reacted in such a confoundingly conformist way to the task of picking out a 2-inch piece of hardware, how would I react when challenged to make the right public decision when the stakes weren’t so negligible? How would you?

How, oh how, would the Republicans have us get rid of crime?

Republican Former Secretary of Education William Bennett has an answer. Just get rid of the black babies, he says. No kidding. Here’s what Bill Bennett had to say on Good Morning America today:

“If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”

Understand the context of this statement: There was a study recently that attributed the drop in violent crime over the last ten years to the availability of legal abortion. The idea is that because people have fewer unwanted children, there are fewer people who are growing up with the severe emotional baggage of not being wanted by their parents. Fewer emotionally maladjusted young people therefore has led to less crime, the theory suggests.

Notice that the study said nothing about black people.

So why did Bill Bennett mention black babies in particular?

It seems that Bill Bennett assumes that it’s the black babies that are making all the problems. Apparently, in Bill Bennett’s mind, if you abort all the black babies, you get a drop in crime. If you abort all the white babies, there’s no drop in crime, however.

Bill Bennett said later that, of course, aborting all black babies is a reprehensible idea. But, he said the reason it’s reprehensible is that abortion is wrong. He never repudiated the idea that getting rid of black people in particular would be the best way to reduce the crime rate.

Bill Bennett is the guy who wrote The Book of Virtues, a tome in which he presumes to preach to all of America about what moral values everybody should follow.

A few years after The Book of Virtues came out, it was revealed that Bill Bennett is a compulsive gambler who spends and loses amounts of money at casinos. People at the time questioned why Mr. Bennett didn’t include squandering wealth as one of the virtues in his book.

Now, I find myself wanting a different question answered. Does Bill Bennett plan to come out with a new edition of The Book of Virtues with a chapter about how virtuous it is to practice racial bigotry?

Preach what you practice, Bill Bennett, or stop preaching.

What is a nation? Some literalists associate a nation with only a political entity, such as the United States of America. The USA has seen quite a bit of this sort of nationalism lately, expressed in the unfortunate priorities of the defense of American turf with little regard to the defense of the democratic ideals with which the American nation was founded.

There are others, however, who have a more creative and positive vision of nationhood. They see that there are many models of nationhood that exist within the mind, and overlap each other, with boundaries criss-crossing boundaries. Among these are the people behind Salmon Nation. They declare:

” When you declare your citizenship in Salmon Nation, you are joining a community of people across the region who feel that our natural boundaries define our identity as much as our political boundaries. So, we are not just citizens of California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia or Alaska — we are citizens of Salmon Nation.”

A nation defined by salmon? Why not? Salmon once formed the economic foundation of the entire region. The natural history of salmon is at the core of what it means to be in the Pacific Northwest, regardless of the political nation in which one resides. All the states and provinces in the Northwest are suffering as the salmon suffers from overfishing, habitat degradation, and pollution. From a certain perspective, Salmon Nation makes a lot more sense than nationality distinguished according to when and how one escaped the kings and queens of England.

The point of Salmon Nation is not to form an insurrection against the United States and Canada. Rather, the point is to help protect the salmon and open people’s minds so that they can see that some problems cross international political borders. The solutions for those problems can cross political borders too.

What many people forget is that the Northwest isn’t the only place where salmon are in trouble. There are Atlantic salmon as well as Pacific salmon. In the watersheds around the Great Lakes, for example, exotic species like lampreys and zebra mussels are affecting aquatic ecosystems in a way that is harming local salmon populations.

Could communities in the East band together to join Salmon Nation, or their own equivalent?

You’d think that for a lifetime appointment to the top legal job in the entire nation, there would be higher standards. Apparently not. All it takes to be Chief Justice is to have friends in high places, along with the patience to sit and smile and say next to nothing while being asked important questions about your qualifications for the job.

John Roberts has been confirmed as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and given his age, America will have to suffer under him for quite some time.

Some Democrats in the Senate stood firm and demanded actual information about the experience and professional history of John Roberts. Other Democrats caved in, and voted for the shadow of John Roberts. “All right”, they said. “Turn down our requests for relevant information. Don’t answer our questions. Keep the snow job coming. Whatever you want, President Bush. Yes, sir, we’ll vote your way with next to no information. Can we have our doggie treats now?”

Here is a list of the spineless caucus of Democratic wimps in the United States Senate who played lapdog for Bush once again and voted to confirm John Roberts sight unseen:

Max Baucus, Montana
Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico
Robert Byrd, West Virginia
Thomas Carper, Delaware
Kent Conrad, North Dakota
Christopher Dodd, Connecticut
Byron Dorgan, North Dakota
Russell Feingold, Wisconsin
Timothy Johnson, South Dakota
Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
Patrick Leahy, Vermont
Carl Levin, Michigan
Joseph Lieberman, Connecticut
Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas
Patty Murray, Washington
Ben Nelson, Nebraska
Bill Nelson, Florida
Mark Pryor, Arkansas
John Rockefeller, West Virginia
Ken Salazar, Colorado
Ron Wyden, Oregon

Oh, and then there’s Independent James Jeffords of Vermont. He voted to approve Roberts too. Why don’t you go back to being a Republican, Jeffords? Fat lot of good you’re doing as an Independent.

As you can see by clicking on the links for the name of each of these lily-livered Democrats, we’re keeping track of the legislative records of every member of the U.S. Senate. Come re-election time, we’ll determine our support for each Senate Democrat accordingly. Many Senate Democrats, it seems, are doing more harm than good.

The National Snow and Ice Center, in cooperation with NASA, has gathered and is now presenting data on the state of the Arctic ice cap. A graph and picture (to the right, courtesy of the New York Times) says it all:

As Ralph pointed out a few days ago, the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap is self-reinforcing, with dark water absorbing heat that used to be reflected off of Arctic ice. More heat, more melting, more heat, more melting. And, right…rising sea levels.

The Department of Geosciences Environmental Studies Laboratory at the University of Arizona has calculated what a rise in sea level will do to the world’s coastlines. With a one-meter rise, New Orleans and surrounding areas of Louisiana will become part of the Gulf of Mexico. Kiss huge swaths of the Netherlands goodbye. Southern Florida? Gone.

Yeah, yeah, blah, blah. You see, this is all the work of pointy-headed intellectuals, who we know tended to vote for John Kerry. And the report was covered by the New York Times. So we know this is just more liberal bias, right? Right. I strongly recommend you buy some beachfront property to show those scientist eggheads where to shove it. Why, I notice that just $1,125,000 will buy you a 4-bedroom co-op in Coral Gables. Go for it!

Over the last four years, the Bush Administration has used the excuse of war to cover up its activities, hiding what ought to be public information from open view. For the longest time, the Republicans in the White House wouldn’t allow photographs of flag-draped coffins to be taken, saying that allowing such photographs might reveal vital strategic information to the enemy. President Bush sent a message out to government bureaucrats that their efforts to stymie legal Freedom of Information Act requests for public records would be supported by the White House. The number of classified documents has skyrocketed, as the Bush Administration has sought to keep all sorts of public information hidden from the American people.

Always, the excuse was that if the White House shared information with the American people, then enemies might get hold of it and find some way to use the information against the United States in some very creative, implausible, way.

Now, we find out that, all the while, American soldiers have been taking photographs on the battlefield, and uploading them to private web sites in exchange for porn. The photographs taken by the soldiers are of Iraqis and Afghans that they’ve killed. Often, the corpses of the dead Iraqis and Afghans are put into poses for the sake of the camera. Other times, the soldiers are taking pictures of body parts of people who have been blown apart.

This shameful photography exposes the immorality that war encourages - even when the President says that he’s waging war against “evildoers” in order to spread America’s values around the world.

However, here at home, the widespread traffic in two separate wars of corpse photography by American soldiers shows that the Bush Administration’s campaign of secrecy is a sham. When soldiers are taking battlefield photographs and uploading those photographs to pornographers, there is no security of battlefield strategy. The pictures could just as easily be uploaded to web sites surreptitiously run by Al Quaida.

When such images are in free flow from soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is absolutely no justification for withholding vital information from the American people. What good does it do to keep the facts of war from American citizens, when pornographers are already getting direct access to the battlefield?

The only security that we can now count on is the security that is enabled by an open government that tells us the whole truth about what’s going on. Fess up, Mr. Bush. No more secrets.

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Postscript: To review some of these photographs of corpse pornography and consider the implications for America’s moral justifications of the Iraq War, read our additional article on America’s gruesome crusade

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This morning, I came across a great statement that sums up why the Republicans’ policy of slashing taxes down to next to nothing is so dangerous:

“Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1927

Taxes are what we pay to get all the benefits that our government provides. When the Republicans tell us that we should shrink the government by creating radical reductions in taxes, they’re telling us that the experiment of civilized democracy is over, and that we are now all to fend for ourselves as individuals.

The catastrophe that Hurricane Katrina created in New Orleans has demonstrated that extreme tax cuts, and the radical reduction in government capability that they create, endanger civilization itself. Gone now is the illusion that we can all just get along fine without government. Sometimes, life throws something our way that is too powerful for us to deal with as individuals.

We need to come together in times of trouble, to join our resources to keep our democratic civilization alive. We need to pay our dues.

A couple nights ago, I met a young college student who had been in Afghanistan with the military not too long ago. We were at a meeting about military recruiting, and how to protect high school students from the unscrupulous methods military recruiters will use to meet their quotas for fresh meat for Bush’s wars.

It turns out that this guy had successfully applied for conscientious objector status, while still a member of the military. After seeing what war was really like in Afghanistan, he decided that he could not take part in war any longer. It’s tricky for someone who has enlisted in the military, and then had a realization of conscience, but achieving an honorable conscientious objector discharge is possible.

He referred me to a web site that was helpful to him in his efforts, and I pass it along to others who are in the military even though have come to realize that war is the wrong way to solve problems. It’s called Peace Out. If you’re in the military and looking for a way to do the right thing, or if you know someone else who is in that position, check out the site, and pass it along.

Another day, another indicted Republican politician.

Money laundering: I guess it’s just a Republican “moral values” thing I wouldn’t understand.

Mother Davis picks her teeth as she explains,

I had to try it. How could I see a box of breakfast cereal on the shelf with the name Organic Hemp Plus Granola and pass it up? Maybe that irresistable curiosity is what the Nature’s Path company is depending on when it offers its hemp cereal.

Now that I’ve got the Hemp Plus granola back home and have had a bowl, I still feel ambivalent about it all. Undoubtably, I have had a healthy little meal, with 600 miligrams of Omega 3 fatty acids, and 8 percent of my daily recommended allowance of iron.

But, is good nutrition all I expect from my breakfast? Opening the box of hemp cereal, I was struck by a strong oily smell reminiscent of the oil my mother used to lubricate her sewing machine. That’s not a smell that makes me hungry.

Eating the cereal, I had the creepy sensation of lots of little packets of oil being burst between my teeth. Those were the hemp seeds added to the granola, and slippery little buggers they are too.

I can’t say that the cereal tastes bad. It just tastes like fiber with some oily seeds added. Which is, I guess, what it is, plus a little organic evaporated cane juice to make it all a touch sweet.

I want to be healthy. Really, I do. I’m glad to see the ingredients in the hemp cereal were raised ethically. Really, I am. But what is it with hemp? I know, it’s got healthy fatty acids my body needs, but I never expected to eat hemp in my cereal. There are activists who are determined to show that industrial hemp is useful for just about everything. So, where will hemp turn up next? As a building material? Will someone show that hemp makes the best light bulb filaments? Will hemp next be promoted as an environmentally friendly, suds-free hand soap?

I’m not opposed to all this hempiness. I just can’t bring myself to be a strong promoter of a hempful life. The sex appeal that hemp has for some people leaves me with an unexplainable urge to watch CSPAN.

Part of me wonders whether the seeds in the cereal are still fertile. Is this a way to get the industrial hemp seeds into the country - with the rolled oats as organic compost material to plant right along with it? I’ll have to sprinkle some of this cereal in my garden to test this theory, I think.

Inch by inch, row by row,
Mother Davis