How Refreshing

Believing Wong Way was
sending wrong message, it has
been renamed Wong Street.

How refreshing to have a President who knows when to keep quiet and mind his own business. This controversy in Iran really is none of our business and Obama is wise indeed to stay out of it and let the Iranians work it out for themselves. What makes it all the better is the frustration it seems to be causing Republicans who somehow cannot conceive of letting sleeping dogs or other countries alone. They are all coming out strong about how we should be taking sides and denouncing the current Iranian regime thus, of course, compounding the problem. McCain in particular has come out with particularly strong denunciations of the Iranian government, making accusations that cannot but reinforce Iranian beliefs that we are determined on regime change for them. “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” is not a message we need to send at the moment. I’m somewhat surprised that McCain has not suggested an immediate attack. But will the Republicans let Obama conduct his foreign policy before they insist we take military action against a regime that is no threat to us? Mindless, predictable, Republican twits, every one of them.

So what’s with Obama anyway? It has just been announced that tomorrow he will send a memo allowing the same sex partners of Federal employees the same rights as heterosexual couples already have. This is a fine thing but very confusing, at least to me. Remember that just last Friday there was a big stink about his administration defending the asinine Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and especially about the disgusting language that was used in defending it. This new plan certainly does not seem to be very consistent with DOMA. Was it just a mistake? Will Obama actually keep his word and eventually do away with it? For the most part Obama does great things, but then he seems to do something that seems completely out of character. For example, the White House is resisting making the list of visitors available. This seems very strange to me and I see no reason for it. Some say Obama, like all Presidents, just wants to preserve as much power as possible, but in this case that would seem to me to be so petty as to be unworthy of such motivation.

The one thing, above all others, that has me questioning Obama, is his apparent disinterest in investigating the war crimes of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice et al. These crimes were so blatant, and there is so much evidence, and they were so horrible, I simply cannot believe that Obama is not going to hold these ghouls accountable. But so far there is no indication that he will, he just keeps wiggling out of his constitutional responsibility by “looking to the future.” If he persists in ignoring his duty to investigate and prosecute these criminals, nothing else he can do, no matter how wonderful, can make up for it. You cannot just let bygones be bygones when it comes to crimes so heinous, so deliberate, so completely wrong. This is more than just a matter of law, it strikes at the very basis of morality and justice.

Every ten days or so I speak on the phone with my friend in Tempe. He lives, as I do, surrounded mostly by right-wingers, and we commiserate with each other on that score. But as he is about my age we also discuss problems of growing old. It is said that 20% of the population has 80% of the illnesses. Unhappily, my friend falls into that 20%, whereas I, for whatever reason do not. He is thinking of getting a button made that says “I’m a 20 per-center and proud of it,” as he has fought the good fight for a long time. I feel guilty that I seem to be so much better off (I’m knocking on wood as I speak). In any case we have been thinking of bumper stickers for the elderly. While the possibilities are endless: “Driver Falling Apart,” “Driver Protected by Medicare,” “Beware, Octogenarian,” “Forgot Where I was Going,” and so on, we have more or less agreed that “Deteriorating Graciously” would be the most suitable.

LKBIQ:
“Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”
Louis De Bernieres

TILT:
Merkeets have no body fat and must forage daily.