Open Letter To Utah Senator Robert Bennett

Dear Senator:

Last year you explained that deficit spending is a good thing when the economy is stalled. Well, of course, everyone knows that the ugly practice stirs up business. FDR taught us how to prime the pump. But Bob, that's no solution. The price in interest and devalued currency take a toll on the future health of the national economy and each individual's financial situation.

Yesterday - a day that will live in infamy - you and the other Utah representatives voted to increase the national debt ceiling cap to $9.62 trillion. You, a vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said, "The debt needs to be put into perspective. In real dollar terms, the debt is enormous, but it is a manageable portion of the nation's overall economic production, or gross national product."

The interest you refer to must be paid on money which doesn't exist as currency - it is credit. Your new debt ceiling of $9 trillion is more than 10 times larger than the total number of dollars in circulation.

Your numbers racket might bring you glory now, but wait for the history books.

On the subject of our detention center at Guantanamo Bay, you visited Gitmo for five hours and came away with an approving opinion in opposition to the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the British government.

Bob Bennett, won't you please come home?



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Saddam's trial is getting interestinger and interestinger. Witnesses claim to know at least 23 of the madman, murderer's victims to be alive and well, walking the streets of Baghdad.

* Wal-Mart sales are down for the month of May. The stock market has the shakes. Housing prices are in flux. This must be an election year.

* The Bushites talk about imposing sanctions on Iran. Have they no shame? Learn about the devastation of sanctions on innocoent Iraqis under Presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush. Your heart won't let you support another genocidal blockade of food and medicine.

* Uncle Sam is sending $5 million in relief aid for victims of the 6.3 quake in Indonesia. Much more is on the way from private sources and churches.


Meetings & Events

Bluff Street Traffic/Trauma Support Group - meets daily at 6 pm, Bluff and Sunset.


Help Wanted

Candidates to run for elected offices on the Anarchy Party ticket.

Vote counters for the November elections. Must know how to secure voting machines. ExFloridians need not apply.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

How Can Six Minus Two And One Half Still Be Six?

Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, was visited by Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. During the difficult time for the all of the visitors, the number of victims was addressed by camp officials and the Vatican. An estimated one and one half million people died, mostly Jews. Although a monstrous figure representing human lives lost, it is considerably smaller than the one the world believed from 1945 until the end of the cold war.

Recorded history had established four million killed at Auschwitz, with the total Holocaust figure set at six million victims. That calculation has been revised in the light of history.

At the end of World War Two, a Soviet commission investigated the camp and produced the figure of four million killed at Auschwitz. The confession of camp commandant Rudolf Hoess at the Nuremberg Trials substantiated the number. On May 8, 1945, the Russian newspaper Zvezda first reported the four million figure, which was then printed all over the world - and accepted as truth until 1990.

At the end of the cold war, historians rushed in for a look. They arrived at the much lower figure: one and one half million killed. So now the whole wide world - including Jewish university historians at Tel Aviv, Israel - uses the reduced number.

That is some relief for those who prefer to believe the now established truth: two and one half million people were not slaughtered after all. The new total Holocaust figure should be three and one half million, but we have gone more than 15 years still using the six million figure.

Why? The Holocaust is still a record for genocide, is it not? The communists in Cambodia killed "only" about two million.

The three-and-one-half-million-victim Holocaust is horrible enough for anyone to handle. The old six million figure just makes it worse.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* As a result of Shock & Awe, half the people of Iraq - women - will lose most of the civil rights that they enjoyed under Saddam, the madman.

* Divine Strake postponed indefinitely. Time to party.

* Everybody ( well, maybe not everybody) is going to Kanab this weekend. It seems to be a celebration of the right of elected representatives to proclaim the cherished values of a community. Period!

* St. George Smog Alert Department: "No smog seen today." The inspector has been quietly dismissed. He was looking for smog in all the wrong places.

* Thank goodness the Bush administration has the sense to out-source torturing prisoners. Somebody has to do the jobs Americans won't take.

* Our (your) president says he regrets saying: "Bring 'em on." Is that all he regrets? I mean, IS THAT ALL?

* A usually reliable source reported sighting a man riding on a Sun Tran bus in St. George. This turned out to be false. The man was the driver.



Help Wanted

Walk my dog mornings and evenings. Pay DOE. Must have own plastic bags. Call 688-0009.

Stuff envelopes. Unlimited potential, not MLM, small up-front investment. See you in
Worthen Park today after sundown.


Meetings & Events

Book signing at the Lil Prof's - Dr. Ira Longterm will exhibit his latest tome: "Wars, Depressions, Droughts, and Other Financial Opportunities." He or one of his staff will be present from 1:30 - 2 pm on Saturday, June 3.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

The Day Mensa Geniuses Invited Me To Their Table

Mensa members like to get together. They met in a mega book store every Saturday morning when I lived in Las Vegas. They must have watched me watching them because one day they called me over and invited me to sit at their table. I was stunned, honored and tried to think fast like they do. I declined, thanking them for their friendliness. I didn't want to get in over my head, you understand. What if they gave me a written test?

I already knew what I was missing by not joining in. I mean, I had eavesdropped for weeks, hoping to catch a brilliant gem or two, but that never happened. The inanities I heard disappointed me. Their elected leader, Terry _____, never showed up. Most of them were angry with him for not paying his dues. Mensa conversations often centered on people's foibles and predicaments - not the lofty stuff one might expect. One member was a census taker who bored the group with detailed accounts of his day. Another expounded each Saturday on why two women in the kitchen is not a good idea.

Their IQs are higher than your bowling average, but their interests don't correspond with their vaunted intelligence. I'd heard that, "Small minds talk about people, average minds discuss events, and great minds debate ideas." That's bogus. This is not the case with the 15 or 16 members of Mensa that I observed at the book store and the other dozen I have known elsewhere.

You can't call them a secret group. They'll wait only a few minutes for you to ask, "Pardon me, but could you be one of those genius Mensa people?" I mean, they will slip you the news, if not by direct statement then by the tiny orange pins they wear on their lapels when they are out on the town. They are not intellectual snobs, but want to be identified for their mental prowess.

Still, it isn't easy to get inside the organization. A Mensa man told me the FBI once tried to infiltrate Mensa while hunting for a nuclear spy. Agent after agent failed to get through the gates. They gave up after matching wits with the perceptive people at Mensa. (The spy got away.) It isn't easy to fake intelligence. Maybe you know that.

Mensa membership is no bed of roses. Geniuses can be excommunicated for doing something stupid such as falling in love with a nonmember or for speaking before thinking. A few have been reprimanded for having know-it-all attitudes.

What do they have that we don't have? High IQs.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* A usually reliable source claims that Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson was in town yesterday, and again pointed to the smog over St. George. He told doubters that they would see it when they believed it.

* Thou Shalt Not Loiter, according to St. George.

* Radio dude Michael Savage says, "Nobody can write like me." (And that includes I.)

* Osama bin Forgotten has four wives. How can this man hide forever?

* Go ahead, learn Spanish, but Chinese might open more doors for you.

* Al Gore told us that NAFTA would stop the flow of illegal immigrants.



Meeting and Events

Liars Anonymous meets every Saturday from 6 am until 11 pm at Kayenta Towers in Ivins.

The Conference of Displaced Snowbirds is scheduled for July 1 at Worthen Park.



Help wanted

Volunteers to work for a $10 million corporation. Must be willing to work hard. College degree preferred. References required. No smokers or drinkers. Call for an interview: 688-0044.

Washington County census taker to count the roundabouts. City car provided. Time and a half for overtime work.



Twenty-Years-From-Now News

Cazzie Taylor, the 8'4" Jazz rookie sensation, wants to be traded. He persists in staying home or in his hotel room to watch the first half on television. He insists that the second half is all the team needs of him to win. He'll play full games only if traded to Charlotte where he owns a bank, a shopping mall and a feng shui consulting studio.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

FBI. Don't You Dare Touch Our Royalty.

As you know by now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Louisiana Congressman Jefferson's office on Capitol Hill. Documents were seized and are under scrutiny pending prosecution. The action brought immediate protests from leaders Republican Dennis Hastert and Democrat Nancy Pelosi. These two claim the House of Representatives is immune to office searches because of the doctrine of separation of powers.

Maybe yes; maybe no. When Senator Joe McCarthy was investigating an office in the executive branch, President Eisenhower stopped everything. He ordered no files be opened for any authorized peeks from one branch of government to the other. No one challenged his action.

The public was denied the data, not just Congress. This is our FBI that is gathering data in our office. We pay them to do that. Let all branches of government be honest and open with nothing to hide. If Jefferson is corrupt and taking bribes, we deserve to know all about it.

The FBI is the investigator, who do Hastert and Pelosi think they are?


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* About a quarter of a century ago, a representative of the U.S. Treasury spoke to The House of Representatives in full session. He told the history of American currency and coin. He held up a tray of gold coins which had been in use from the beginning of our nation. He carried the tray to the first row and suggested they pass it around so that each honorable member could have a closer look. By the time the tray was handed to the last lawmaker, 14 coins were missing. No effort was made to retrieve the coins from our royalty. Later, the treasury official said, "While there is no honor among thieves, there are thieves among the honorable."

* Senator Bob Bennett visited Gitmo for five hours and returned home with a glowing report. He doesn't see what others see, he hears not the cries of men held for four years without a charge of any crime and no legal defense. Bunker Busting Bob is a war hawk, a rubber stamp for Bush and Cheney, and arrogant with power.

* St. George smog turned up missing this morning.


Twenty-Years-From-Now News

The municipal swimming pools are now open seven days a week, but the golf courses are closed on Sundays.

Federal officials are concerned that most illegal immigrants crossing our border appear to be Asian, not Mexican.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Hey, Hey, What Do You say? Do Away With CIA

The cloak and dagger, intelligence gathering organization of the federal government is too automomous for American principles. From its inception, the CIA-lovers have insisted that the spooks and spies operate independently. They say that for the agency to report to any department of government would make it unobjective in its findings and its work.

With the Soviet KGB as a model of fear, Congress went along with CIA demands and required only something called: "oversight." The term never meant much more than merely accepting the CIA's version of its operations.

Whether the chief executive has any control of the CIA has always been a difficult question, with the likely answer being "no."

Yes, the group has operated independently. They have committed acts which no elected or unelected official of the U.S. government can do - legally. If this is right and proper, then show me in the Constitution!

Everybody knows the CIA tried to murder Cuba's murderer, Fidel Castro, about eight times. They were in involved in assassinations in South Viet Nam, especially President Diem. The CIA organized a coup and ousted the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. He died during the fighting and we were told it was a suicide. The CIA toppled the president of Iran and installed the Shah. The agency helped Saddam Hussein overthrow Iraq's president and install Saddam to leadership. To be sure, there are more such cases, known and unknown. Most nations in the news - Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia, Italy, Greece, El Salvador - have been the scenes of CIA "engineers."

Decent Americans cannot support unelected, unaccountable international meddlers to dictate our foreign policy, and certainly not if assassinations are part of the procedure.

Congress should investigate the CIA with a promise to terminate the outfit if the findings are repulsive.


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Don't tell me Haliburton will build the wall on our southern border. Another no bid deal?

* Ban the death penalty except for one crime: Apathy.

* Israeli strategy has long aimed to instill civil war between Palestinians. ("Get them to terrorize each other instead of us.") Hamas and Fatah are really going at it now with guns and bombs. The late Prime Minister Begin would be pleased. Sharon, too, but the plight of the displaced Palestinians is made worse by civil strife.

* Hey. Whatever happened to that "peace dividend from winning the Cold War?"


Help Wanted

Smog inspector for City of St. George. Night shift.

Shills to ride Sun Tran buses.

A few good, strong men for Loiter Patrol.


Meetings and Events

Ad hoc traffic abatement committee. BYOB.
Room 3 at Main Library
Mondays at 7 pm

We Miss California
Holiday Inn by the pool
Noons, everyday

We Were Young And Middle Class
Social at Worthen Park
Saturday at 1 pm


Twenty Years From Now News

Modern oil shale technology has elevated Utah to rank as the second largest oil producer in the world. Meanwhile, Utah's governor continues to deny that the state possesses weapons of mass destruction and refuses to allow further UN inspections.

Millions of destitute retirees from the United States continue to sneak across the border into Mexico, seeking accomodations they can afford. Former President George W. Bush defends them saying, "The border crossers are just moving into residences that Mexicans won't take."


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

The French Will Always Be With Us

Flag-waving patriots are determined to hate the French, to punish them, shun them, and reject all things French. They want to sever our "tired, old relationship." We are urged to call French men "frogs." The women aren't so bad - actually quite nice. You might say goregeous or magnifique. You know what I mean. Monique, Simone, Gigi, Nichole, Brigitte, and Collette come to mind. Oo la la.

Let's see, where were we? Um. Oh. France wanted us to wait for the UN inspectors, led by that French-acting Hans Blix, to complete the search in Iraq before we did the Shock & Awe. The hapless Blix couldn't find one weapon of mass destruction, all the while Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld knew right where they were. The Secretary of State informed the UN Security Council - in a major speech on television - as to the number, size, shape, color, nature, and location of the WMD in Iraq.

Cancel the French fries and the Bordeaux. Close the French doors. Say no to everything French, including the language: avoid liason, rendezvous, bouquet, eclair, perfume, enterprise, cafe, romance, republic, and liberty. Coup de grace those into le garbage.

Rugged Yanks scoff at the cowardly behavior of those continental wimps and enjoy humor at their expense. We hear that the French have two choices when confronted by a hostile enemy: 1.) Run and hide 2.) Surrender and collaborate. They've grown romantic and soft, but to their credit, the French have an impressive history of military service to their homeland.

Just as the Italian warriors of the last century were timid compared to the Roman legions of Caesar, the modern French seem to be wary of war after centuries of bloody conflicts. Under Napolean Bonaparte, France conquered Europe, Eygpt, and Russia. When the French army entered Moscow, they found a city already torched and scorched by the Russian defenders. The French forces struggled to survive the winter and lost more than 400,000 men to combat, hunger and cold before retreating home.

Napolean's France paid a terrible price for his triumphs, but he never expressed remorse for the fallen. Mothers, fathers and countrymen suffered the bitter sorrow with no consolations from the emperor.

The First World War was extremely costly for all participants, and the worst of the fighting was on French soil. Most of the casualties were named Pierre, Charles and Maurice. From 1914 to 1918, French parents sacrificed one and one-half million sons to the business of war. Such a staggering death toll would do a number on any people and pump pacifist ideas into the genes.

Pacifism has become a national ideal with the French, who have been reluctant to engage in battle since about 1940. While feeling safe and secure behind their "impregnable" Maginot Line, the French watched Herr Hitler march around the fortification and defeat a half-hearted French army in no time at all. The advancing Germans took more than a million French POWs in two weeks of "fighting." The French did not fire a single shot in defense of Paris.

Consider what the fate of geography did to the French. With imperialist Great Britain only 60 miles across the channel and militarist Germany on their eastern border, France has suffered from insomnia. Who could rest living between Bloody Englishmen and Huns? Smack dab in the middle. They finally resorted to the white flag, or the yellow one, when threatened.

The modern French love peace, detest war and worked hard to stop our invasion of Iraq. Why don't we forgive them? How about a rapprochement/ (Another great French term.) The warm friendship we've had with France since 1776 is worth handling with care.

A mature and civilized people, the French excel in the art of diplomacyy - what the world needs now. They oppose us at times, but they will always be with us.

Merci to the French for their vital assistance in our American revolution, that sweet deal called the Louisiana Purchase, the Statue of Liberty, the City of New Orleans, the finest words in our vocabulary and beau coup cultural gifts to our society. Viva la France.

We'll always have Paris.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Lord, we don't need another mountain. Or another federal agency. But we could use one more - an agency a bureau, an office - to monitor talk radio and mete out punishment to the detected lies of the usual suspects. Punishments could be: 1.) One month's suspension for a truth twister or a half-truth. 2.) A week in Gitmo (on the inside) for a lie or untruth.

* Heed the words of our president: "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

* Smog? What smog?


For Sale

Orrin Hatch power neckties, a dollar a dozen. Worn only once.

Overheard

In a super market, a man asked the store manager where to find the health foods. The manager pointed to the spot, and the man asked: "Does that mean your other products aren't healthful?"


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Borders, Walls or Alternatives

Even the president is talking about building a wall to keep out the aliens who do jobs Americans refuse. Apparently, most of us believe we need a wall or we'll soon be overrun by another 12 million hard-working felons.

This wall idea makes you think of the Wall of China, the Maginot Line, the Berlin Wall, or the apartheid wall the Israelis are building to carve up Palestine. Most of them make you feel negative and knot up your tummy.

The poet Robert Frost asked, "What are we walling in and what are we walling out?" Enforcing the national border is the purpose, and walls do seem harsh. Consider the alternatives and all the possible repercussions if the border crisis gets ugly.

Cuba shoots people trying to get out, and Mexico shoots Latin Americans sneaking in. Many in Congress chide Mexico for not preventing their citizens from sneaking over the border. Do they expect Mexican border guards to fire on them? If this situation worsens, an illegal immigrant might be shot at from both sides.

Shooting at border-crossers is a reality. Last week, Mexican soldiers shot a Mexican at their southern border, by mistake. They mistook the man for a Guatemalan.

Why not consult and negotiate for better solutions? Excalation of tensions brings potential violence, which must be avoided at all costs.

Peace and understanding.



Thoughts While Jay Walking

* Look back on the building of the imaginary "Bridge to the 21st Century," which former president Bill Clinton made popular. It was constructed by aliens, outsource-engineered in India, and paid for the old fashioned way: we charged it.

* General Michael Hayden, the candidate to head the CIA, told Congress that the eavesdropping program is legal. Oh yeah? We'll see about that, Hayden's not a judge.

* Sean Hannity is as funny as Rush. On May 19, he said: "I'm going to read this important report to you about progress in Iraq because you'll never see it in the mainstream press." Then Sean read from the pages of USA TODAY.

* Yesterday we couldn't spell oligarchy and now we live in one.

* Smog in St. George: Too cloudy to see, but you know it's there.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

They Tried to Warn Us

In their farewell remarks, past presidents of our great nation gave us their most heartfelt and serious advice. We remember their words, have we betrayed their hopes?

We did not keep free stay of entangling foreign alliances, as George Washington vigorously cautioned us to do.

John Quincy Adams added a corollary with his, "We shouldn't go around the world searching for monsters to destroy."

Jamees Monroe left office telling us to mind our own business and protect our Western Hemisphere by keeping other nations out of the area - Monroe Doctrine.

Woodrow Wilson regretted his own decision to enter the First World War and hoped that Americans would "not develop a habit of war."

Those wise foreign policy pronouncements of respected presidents are now mere words, causing no thought whatsoever. If we had taken their advice, imagine our blessed America today, the city on the hill, basking in peace and prosperity.

Herbert Hoover left office beseaching his countrymen to be "rugged individualists." Five years later his people were covered by the mandatory Social Security blanket.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt told us to never fear, but the past five years, fear has been the mode of national life.

Presidents had lots to say about banking institutions and corporate power. Thomas Jefferson warned that if banks were allowed too much control, the people would become poor and without housing. He said, "Banks can be more dangerous to a free people than standing armies."

James Garfield said: "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."

Andrew Jackson agreed with the dangers of centralized money institutions and threw out the national bank, which was the forerunner of the all powerful Federal Reserve System under which we struggle now.

Abraham Lincoln held similar convictions regarding the institution of banking. Some say he paid with his life, for those beliefs.

James Madison pointed out the effects of corporate lobbying early in our republic.

"We do not wish to destroy corporations," President Theodore Roosevelt said, "but we do wish to make them subserve the public good."

Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his famous warning about the "military-industrial complex." How prophetic; how unheeded!

John F. Kennedy was addressing the subject of monetary reform when he told an audience at Columbia University: "The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy Americans' freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizens of this plight." JFK died 10 days later.

Ronald Reagan wanted us to preserve the federalist union. "Appreciate states' rights," he asked. But a people who aren't paying attention can't do that.

Of course, we should have valued all of those dedicated chief executives. Like children who listen but don't hear, we are having to learn the lessons the hard way. The life of America is at stake as a result of our weakness, the Constitution is hanging by the proverbial thread, but are we enjoying life or what?


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* The Council on Foreign Relations ( don't you love them?) is suggesting that Uncle Sam grant $20 billion to Mexico as sort of a modern Marshall Plan. The Carlyle Group is going around the country promoting the idea. Kissinger is in that group, so is George Bush Sr. Oh, why not? Just start the presses and print them up as much as they want. Charge them for the paper and ink. No hurry to pay for that.

* Let's review:

1.) We defied the UN in order to make war on Iraq for defying the UN.

2.) We made war on Iraq because it threatened to make war on others.

* Dr. Ira Longterm, our economic consultant, is hawking his book: IT DON'T PAY TO BE POOR.

* When we liberate Mexico the invasion will be called: "Operation Whole Enchilada."


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Take Mexico, Please

Here's an idea whose time has come: Invade Mexico.

Preemptive war is an American tradition. We have evolved from a republic to a democracy and now a full-fledged empire. With soldiers already stationed in 130 countries, we can have it all, just like Bogey and Bacall.

Start with Mexico. No one can claim that we're too good to invade our neighbor. In the last half-century, we have sent our armies - with no declarations of war - to Iraq (twice), Lebanon, Grenada, Korea, Somalia, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and some places I forget.

Mexico has oil. She is rich in natural resources; poor in standard of living. They have no middle class because Mexico is a republic ruled by oligarchies - which is the same reason for our middle class demise.The land is fertile for agriculture and mining. There are two seacoasts and a variety of climates and terrain.

The Mexican people are productive, but their system is malfunctioning and corrupt. Those in the USA seem to want amnesty, desperately. Fine, we'll grant amnesty to ALL Mexicans. They can have immediate citizenship. The people will throw flowers and cheer our liberating soldiers entering Mexico City. Immediately after dancing in the streets, Congress will grant statehood to every Mexican state. Each will become one of the United States of America. Call it an annexation, if it makes you feel any better. This will be good for everyone.

No nation on earth can top Mexico for potential in peace and prosperity for the citizens - of the new states of America.

President George W. Bush is the perfect leader to pull this off. He can say, "So many of you want to live in America. Mission accomplished."

The new United States will be a major oil exporter, the border problem is solved, and NAFTA is passe. Good bye peso, hello Yankee Dollar. We can all get along.

Okay, Padre?



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* H. L. Mencken said, "The only way to make our system work is to shoot the 50 worst congressmen every year." That used to be funny.

* The Governor of Utah will be host to the President of Mexico. Keep Fox occupied and distracted. His visit will be an opportune time for our surprise incursion and conquest of the oil-rich land south of the border.

* The depleted uranium (DU) genocide continues to sicken friend and foe alike in Iraq and Afghanistan, without any public protest or even a casual awareness.

* When a member of Congress loses an election, where does he go? Home? Wrong! He or she keeps his residence and goes to work for as a lobbyist. More money, less hassle, and a continuation of the "good" life. Some former candidates for president have gone to work for lobbies representing foreign governments.

* Our constitutional republic was only a couple of years old when James Madison pointed out the blatant influence of corporate money in Congress. If he could see us now.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

I Could Have Gone Down In History

Y'all would know my name if I had done the right thing, way down south, way back when. With a bit more conviction and a lot more courage, I would have made history.

The first day I was in the South was in June of 1952. As a college student going downtown, I stepped onto a city bus in New Orleans and took a seat in the back.

Instant eruption!

The bus driver shouted at me to take a seat in the front. He cussed me out, long before cussing was cool. His outburst surprised and bewildered me, causing me to hesitate and try to understand the situation.

I was naive about civil disobedience - although Hubert H. Humphrey was my senator in Minnesota - or I might have recognized the opportunity. I should have stayed put in the back of the bus. Instead, I scurried to the front, taking a seat directly behind the driver. The name on his sun visor identified him as Jim, his last name must have been Crow. His eyes caught mine in the mirror. He said, "Are you from the North or what? Whites sit up front and Negroes in the rear. We have two races down here."

There was my chance to do right and make a difference. I could have preempted Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. That celebrated event was three years after my bus experience, which also preceded sit-ins, Freedom Riders, the Little Rock school desegregation, Martin Luther King Jr., and most civil rights legislation.

I should have seized the moment.

I, Jerry, should have been the first white to refuse to move to the front of the bus. The driver would have called the cops to drag me from the bus using snarling dogs, tear gas and night sticks. I might have emerged from a grilling in the New Orleans Police Station with swollen eyes and bruises all over my body. TIME, LIFE and LOOK would have flashed my face and message: "Tear Down This Wall."

My civil disobedience would have been a big factor in the hot national election campaign of 1952. Brave and progressive candidates would have sought my endorsement. My own political career would have been a natural consequence, and I would be a public servant, even now.

Some slick lawyers would have represented me pro bono before the U.S. Supreme Court to win one for civil liberty. The President of the United States would have sent troops to escort me to the back of the bus.

My message might have initiated a call to end segregation. I would have sipped water from the fountains under the signs: COLORED ONLY, just to make a point. I would have entered the side door of a movie theatre and climbed the stairs to a balcony (dubbed "Nigger Heaven") with the non-whites.

Who knows? With a honky striking the first blow against Jim Crow laws, the whites in the South might have embraced the idea. The nuisance of separating the races might have ended with more harmony and good will. Many whites felt uneasy about the separate-but-equal segregation, because equal it wasn't. Whites needed to be freed from the guilt as much as the other race needed a fair deal.

Segregation was messy and expensive in many ways. Messy, for its unequal provisions and rules, and costly to maintain due to the dual facilities so often necessary.

The system was ripe for a fall in 1952. Everybody knows that the black people resisted and finally forced an end to racial segregation in public facilities. Too bad for the whites. The accomplishment should have been theirs. After all, segregation was the crude, cruel creature of white society.

I missed the bus to history. If I had defied the system in the summer of '52, there would be Jerry statues all over Dixie. Mine would be a household name.

You never would have heard of Rosa Parks.


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Smog advisory for St. George: Stay indoors until noon, and tell your relatives back home about the difficulties in breathing. Stop the growth and remember that, in this one case, the end justifies the means.

* Ecuador is nationalizing its oil industry and expelling the American Occidental Oil Company.

* Bolivia is instituting land reform to enable poor folks to own property. The program will give government land to the poor. This reminds you of the plan of our Senator Bob Bennett, which likely will deliver government land to real estate developers. Think about it.

* Venezuela's President Chavez is planning to sell F-16 fighter planes to Iran. Isn't that what we get for being the world's leading arms merchant?

* The Washington County Sheriff's search for stragglers from the middle class has been disbanded. They are feared to be lost - vanished without a trace.


Overheard

A group of 10 German tourists shopping in a convenience store knew no English. One of them asked the cashier, "Zion Park?" Several others said, "Starbucks, Starbucks."

Twenty-Years-From-Now News

The Federal Aviation Agency is expected to release a comprehensive impact analysis and tentative approval report regarding the proposed St. George airport. The holdup has been the study to determine the effect on smog conditions.

A spokesperson for the garment industry told Chamber of Commerce members gathered at the new Dixie Convention Center that the average price for a man's suit is $2,900. (The same price as an ounce of gold.)

St. George Mayor Dan McCarthy is running for governor of Utah. McCarthy is known as "Roundabout Man," but he's campaigning on the slogan: "He stopped loitering in its tracks."


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Another Whopper

One of the propaganda whoppers heard before the second war on Iraq was: "He gassed his own people." Hearing this charge for the first time, some folks automatically thought of the Waco Compound, where a leader of a nation did just that.

The diabolical lie targeted Saddam Hussein in a memorable and effective fabrication - propaganda ploy. Saddam was accused then, and in his trial now, of gassings the Kurds, who were not really his people considering how they resisted integration into Iraq and have long agitated for independence and revolted to establish their own nation. The Kurds have been in an incessant insurrection.

Yes, the Kurds in Iraq were gassed, but Saddam is not to blame. The unfortunate action took place during the long Iraq-Iran war when Iranian soldiers advanced across the border of Iraq into Halabja in Kurdish territory.

Iranian gas killed the Kurds!

The U.S. Army War College sent investigators to check out the stories and find the truth. They reported that the gas used was not mustard gas, as employed by Iraq. The gas found in the corpses was that used by the Iranian Army - phosphine gas.

In the terrible war between Iran and Iraq, both sides used gas on the battlefield. Mustard gas by Iraq; phosphine gas by Iran.

At the time of the investigation, U.S. policy supported Saddam's Iraq. After we became Saddam's enemy, the War College report was ignored and passed over by the Shock & Awe people - for obvious and devious reasons.

The report of the Army War College was published in "Iraq Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East," by the Strategic Studies Institute.

More proof that Saddam didn't gas his own is revealed by senior CIA policy analyst Thomas Pelletiere, who went to Halabja and verified that the gassing was done inadvertently during a battle between the Iraqi and Iranian armies in which the insurgent Kurds were fighting alongside the Iranians.

Now, with Saddam on trial for this specific "crime," we can watch and see if the judge and court allows the Army War College report to be submitted as defense evidence.


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Daily smog report: The Rocky Anderson stuff is thick today. Maybe you shouldn't move to St. George!

* On this date in 1979, President Jimmy Carter successfully defended himself from a killer rabbit swimming near his boat. He swings a mean oar.

* The good people trying to prevent the Divine Strake explosion at the Nevada test site should embrace their compatriots working to ban depleted uranium (DU) in Iraq.

* Watch for it: the WIN button is coming back soon.

* Medicare patients who are dying spend less time in the hospital in Utah than in any other state. Draw your own conclusions from that statistic.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

War Is Sell

The Bush administration admitted it paid $240,000 to Armstrong Williams, a Los Angeles radio talk host, to promote No Child Left Behind. If they would use taxpayers' money to do that, wouldn't they use payola to push another of their unpopular programs, such as war?

Think about that when you turn on the radio and hear the orchestra. Rush Limbaugh: "We lose more lives on the highway than in Iraq." Michael Savage: "Let's nuke 'em." Sean Hannity: "War saves lives."

War is sell, and so is peace.


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Bring the liberators home.

* End foreign aid.

* Outlaw lobbies' contributions to political campaigns.

* Repeal NAFTA.

* Restore tariffs.

* Reindustrialize the USA.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Crime and Punishment

Our nation's prisons are full. We're building more, and some states are sending inmates to private, commercial jail houses. This is a major expenditure of taxpayers' funds.

Don't we overdo the incarceration solution to crime? In most cases, it's no solution.

Why imprison a criminal who's not dangerous? If Don, The Swindler, never hurt anyone, then let him stay free, but make him pay hefty fines for his crimes. An inmate is not productive, except for the old making of license plates, and will only deteriorate behind bars.

Many ex-cons say that prison is a school for crime. Let allow all, except those criminals who are hazardous to our health and safety, skip that school. Such a plan would reduce the facilities and the necessary personnel by some huge amount, representing permanent and perennial savings for taxpayers.

Judges can determine who are the dangerous convicts and sentence them to prison. The other criminals can pay back their victims and society by working and relinquishing portions of their earnings as fines.

Crime requires punishment, but not always behind bars.


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Smog hovers and covers St. George this morning. Tell the world and slow the growth.

* Florida Governor Jeb Bush is receiving attention as a potential candidate for living in the White House. We'd better do a preemptive strike to prevent any more of this. How about a law against southern governors running for president? Carter, Clinton and Bush - enough!

* President Bush said it again yesterday: "We haven't been attacked on American soil since 9/11." He might as well say: "Bring 'em on."

* The birth rate is falling in the United States, so how will fewer workers afford to pay for future Social Security recipients? They can't. Better invite the illegals in.

* Divine Strake might be strake but it won't be so divine if the wind is blowing this way.

* The U.S. Senate voted to give "us" a tax cut of $70 billion, which means a higher national debt, as you well know. There ought to be a rule: Every tax cut has to include a spending cut, and each new expenditure has to be with a raise in taxes.

* General Michael Hayden, the man President Bush nominated to head the CIA snoop & spook shop, does have the experience. He ran the controversial eavesdropping operation, which paid phone companies for customers' records. Only Qwest refused the government. The biggies - Bell South and AT&T - cooperated fully (and took the payments.) Three cheers for Qwest.

* Bring the liberators home.

* We, the people, started under a monarchy, set up a republic, drifted into democracy, then an empire, now almost an oligarchy, and a dictatorship will follow.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Intellectuals, What Do they Know?

Smear Thomas Jefferson. They've been at it since the super libertarian dared to express his ideas. His self-government philosophy frightened a certain category of people during his time, as they do in ours. Those who prefer government to liberty work hard to discredit Jefferson - even if they have to attack his character. Slandering the man has been an avocation, if not a living, for many intellectuals.

Major biographies by Dumas Malone, William Stern Randall and Joseph Ellis have addressed Jefferson's alleged affair with his slave woman, Sally Hemings, contending that "he was too good for that, and Sally's offspring were fathered by Jefferson's nephew, the promiscous Peter Carr."

The late Fawn Brodie, a serial-assassin biographer, wrote: "Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History," in 1974. She insisted that Tom had bedded down with Sally, his deceased wife's half- sister. That's the same author who attempted an expose of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith, in her earlier book, "No Man Knows My History." Her book was quickly debunked by a Mormon writer with: "No M'am, That's Not History."

Brodie claimed that Jefferson had Sally in mind when he wrote to describe the curvy and hilly scenery while travelling in France. Sally was eight years old at the time and living in Virginia. No wonder the silly biographer gets no respect from the biographers Randall, Ellis and Malone.

The use of DNA testing to "prove" Jefferson sired Eston, one of Sally's children, has caught the major newspapers and university professors in an ironic trap. That is, for two centuries Jefferson detractors have contended that Sally's first son, Tommy, was the president's offspring. They said he resembled Jefferson and even played the violin. How ironic now, to have the genetic scientists deny that young Tom could have been old Tom's son.

The oops factor is always a possibility in the science realm, as even the trusted carbon dating is under skeptical review. Show me the theory upon which you base your facts. DNA is still just a theory and might stand for DO NOT ASSUME. Don't jump to conclusions, but wait 20 years, you might have a different point of view.

Intellectuals do not know that Jefferson was Eston's daddy, but everybody knows he was the father of liberty. No DNA is needed for that.

"Thomas Jefferson was the greatest man in the last 1,000 years," wrote columnist George Will.

Close enough, George. Thomas Jefferson, R.I.P.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Where did the middle class go? Rush Limbaugh says: "They were successful and moved up to the upper class." (He's funny even when he's not trying.) They lost their jobs and their shirts. They went south.

* The cost of money just rose again. The Fed's interest rates were raised and banks are already raising their prime rates. The Federal Reserve Board runs the economy in a way similar to a guy named Schacht in Nazi Germany. He was one of the reasons Nazis disgusted us. To think that government would direct the economy - horrors!

* How could we afford World War Two, when we were still in the Great Depression? Banks who had no money for home loans or even small business loans suddenly could provide cash and credit for both guns and bread. How? We think we can explain it to you, but you'll have to ask.

* Our government is protesting to the World Trade Organization, claiming that European governments are giving financial support to Airbus, the airplane manufacturer. That's unfair and illegal competition, according to the Bush administration. But our home industry, Boeing, receives certain favors and tax breaks from Washington. So what's the deal?

* The real Oil-for-Food scandal involves so many American corporations (read Harper's magazine) that it's not a popular topic with the neocon crowd anymore. Of course, the "scandal" was just a smokescreen to cover the genocidal sanctions on Iraq. It worked. Who can tell you anything about the sanctions?

* China's currency deceptions and manipulations are done at the expense of the Yankee Dollar. Some members of Congress want to act on this, but King George says, "No." He thinks the Chinese are wonderful as trading partners.

* Who's war is this? Bush's War? Rummy's War? Probably Cheney's War.

Twenty-Years-From-Now News

The capital of Utah has been moved to Hurricane - lock, stock and barrel. Both Utah Governor Dan McCarthy and veteran lawmakers are excited about the relocation. "A better climate for public servants and bureaucrats. At last, we'll get something accomplished," the governor said. The old capital in Salt Lake City is being remodeled to accomodate a new Wal-Mart Bank and Credit Card Headquarters.

IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Why Don't They Make Mirrors Like They Used To?

Dearie, do you remember glass milk bottles topped with cream at your door in the morning, boys wearing knickers, the telephone operator asking the number you want to call, and computer-free motels that gave you the key in five minutes? Then, dearie, you're much older than I.

Those were the days, my friend, when they pumped your gas, wiped your windshield and checked your tires. "Keep the change," we said. Now, you do everything yourself and go inside to pay. All they give you is a handy tip jar next to the cash register.

Yesterday, life was such an easy game to play. Stress was slight and everything was simple. Nowadays, even nostalgia used to be better. Something's wrong, all right. We ought to retrieve the best ways of the good old days.

Technology, ugh! Civilization, take it away. Take back your VCRs, plastic cards, DVDs, ATMs, IPODs, car alarms, cell phones, voice mail, sprinkler systems, chemical spraying, computer addiction, remote car locks, e-mail, faxes, fast foods, insurance clerks playing doctor, doctors who won't leave their offices, and mirrors that reflect false images (as if we had wrinkles or something.)

Even the world of sports is phfftt. Basketball players dunked only in warm-ups because it was too showy and against the rules. Football players played both defense and offense - as in life - and quarterbacks called the plays, not coaches sitting from a perch above the field. Baseball players spit on the ball, not the umpire.

Let's lament what we lost and promote a return to unencumbered living. Just you wait. The old will become new again. Throwing away this trash will bring relief.

There is hope. Already, ATT is experimenting with a telephone system where the caller is greeted by an operator who asks the number and places the call. They call it a new idea.

Look forward to the past.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Light to moderate smog in the lower areas.

* If illegal immigrants get amnesty and become citizens of the United States, who will do the jobs Americans won't do?

* Gold scoots up to $700 an ounce. Even fool's gold is valued higher than Federal Reserve Notes.
* Senator Hatch is vigorously expressing his worries about the upcoming non-nuke blast, which has nuke implications, rescheduled for June 23. Hatch's efforts are quite lame, but heroic compared with the complicity of Bunker Buster Bob Bennett. Both senators ought to be badgering Bush, Cheney, Frist, and Hastert. Washington needs Dixie consciousness and awareness of Downwinders' concerns.

* The Bush administration, and especially Secretary of State Rice, keep mentioning sanctions against Iran. That takes a lot of cold hearted guts, after what the sanctions did to the innocent weak and young in Iraq, during peace time. More than a million Iraqis died in a decade from starvation and lack of medical supplies, blockaded by the UN (Great Britain and US.)

* The FDA claims that green tea has none of the properties and benefits we hear about from health advocates. If someone is lying, you know who it is. Or if someone is mistaken, you still know which is which.

* Senator Hillary says that President Bush has charisma. That's strange, our usually reliable sources told us that W. had a charisma bypass.

* Please don't laugh, I'm just reporting this, George W. says, "I can't do anything about gas prices because those are determined by the free market."

* Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, the first official to identify smog in Dixie, has included in his budget a $20,000 expenditure for a portrait of himself. Who's surprised? Ego propels most public servants into office. Why would they lose it there?


Twenty-Years-From-Now News

Utah will become the fifth state annexed by Mexico effective 2026. The public referendum to approve the change of national allegiance passed by 51%. Only Spanish and Chinese will be spoken here next year. Chinese will be only at Wal-Mart.


Overheard

"What will you have," asked the waiter of an expectant mother seated in a cafe.

"Probably a boy," she replied.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Not Your Daddy's USA

Our president is threatening to veto a bill to outlaw torture, millions of foreigners violate our borders, parents are buying armor for their loved ones serving in Iraq, our military uses depleted uranium tipped shells, corporation lobbies finance our elected representatives' campaigns, we drive right by homeless people who "choose to live like that," the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (an agency of the U.S. government) subsidizes American factories who move overseas, illegal aliens go on strike, prominent members of Congress are behind bars, we send women - even mothers- into combat, our justice system is often unjust, civility is disappearing, colleges are graduating illiterates, we outsource good jobs, privacy is endangered, the discredited NAFTA/GATT scams proliferate, foreign nations lobby the U.S. Congress, the Pentagon orders amputees back to their stations in Iraq, the middle class is vanishing, health insurance is not an option for 50 million citizens, and the home of the brave knows no fear of pesticides, herbicides, microwaves, cell phones, diesel fumes, mercury, plutonium, sodium fluoride, or sugar. Oh, the boss wants to send us to Mars.

Our grandparents wouldn't recognize the place.


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Smog in the sky. Or is it a mushroom cloud?

* Proud CIA alumni: Noriega, Saddam, bin Laden.

* Bird Flu is coming on strong. Fear is mounting. A vaccine is on the way and if Uncle Sam (who isn't always very bright) makes it mandatory, I'll fly the coop. A friend of mine was killed by the Swine Flu shot, although no one died of that "disease." Long lines of people (no doctors) waited patiently for those deadly shots. This was another example of your government in action.

* Zacarius Moussaoui was convicted and sentenced to life although he committed no crime. Now he says he lied when he confessed to trying to be a terrorist. Let's pardon the character for that non-crime and then send him up the river for perjury. Most of us want him behind bars, and now we have a valid crime to charge him with.

* We bomb it. Haliburton rebuilds it. We pay for both.

* At a local wedding reception, the first tune the dance band played was "I Will Survive."

* Violence and chaos are on the rise again in Iraq. I hope Ann Coulter goes back soon. We need another book from her explaining the rosy scene that she witnesses.

* We should not forget that in 1952 four major oil companies were fined by the Justice Department for overcharging the federal government on oil shipped to Europe under the Marshall Plan.

* The Bush people are steamed over Iran's switch from dollars to Euros in their oil sales transactions. This might be a major factor in our dispute with the Iranians.

IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

A Great Republic With Snoops And Spooks?

The Central Intelligence Agency is about to have a new leader. President Bush has chosen General Michael Hayden. Congress has both strong supporters and detractors of this man. His credentials are impressive, for sure. He defends the administration's eavesdropping program so he'll fit right in with the liberty sacrificing attitude which prevails.

Why the CIA anyway? When the agency was formed under President Harry Truman back in the late forties, Truman asked the British to help us organize the new office. They sent over none other than the famous and later to be infamous Kim Philby. He was head of the British Secret Service at the time. Philby was the major influence and planner of the organization, according to mainstream history, and he also interviewed many of the initial agents hired by the group.

Kim Philby returned to his post in Great Britain, but soon was under investigation for espionage. The British had delayed in acting against Philby because they had their usual trouble believing unpleasant facts.

The heat turned up too high for his comfort, so he boarded a one-way flight from London to Moscow on the very day the world learned of his Communist identity. He wrote a book bragging about his betrayal of his homeland, was interviewed by doting fellow travelers over a span of at least twenty years, died a hero in Moscow, and buried there next to a large statue of himself which commemorated his service to the socialist cause.

About a decade after the CIA was formed, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Chairman of the Senate Internal Security Committee, had completed his authorized investigation of U.S. Army personnel at Fort Monmouth. He told a bevy of reporters on television that his next stop would be the CIA. He said, "I have reason to believe the agency is crawling with Reds."

Look back on that. CIA department head Aldrich Ames is in prison for being a double agent for the Moscow Communists. He's not the only one who was caught. And yes, the agency has been involved in some very strange activities from drug traffic to assassinations here and overseas.

Apparently McCarthy was onto something. There have been Reds discovered and uncovered in the ranks of the CIA. Don't you suppose that Kim Philby had a hand in selecting Communists for the agency to hire?

Consider just three examples of the false data the CIA has given to our federal government.

1.) CIA warned of Russian strength at the time they were so weak that they tried the policies of Perestroika and Glasnost. Our spies were exactly wrong in their assessments.

2,) CIA conspired and bribed thugs to mess up the government of Iran, overthrowing the president and leading to a subsequent revolt against the Shah. Then they reported that all was well. The hostage crisis followed. The hate for us by Iranians still smolders.

3.) CIA gave false information about WMD to President Bush, Vice President Cheney and then Secretary of State Powell. (For some strange reason, our president pinned a Medal of Freedom on the chest of then CIA Director George Tenet after Bush said he had received faulty intelligence.)

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt kept us free without thousands and thousands of institutionalized snoops, spooks, meddlers, bribers, assassins, torturers and trouble makers.

Good bye CIA. Good will to all nations.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* President Bush tells graduating college students that America should not be protectionist in its trade policies. He said we should welcome competition. Bush ought to sell that concept to the Chinese and Japanese. Our trade deficits would diminish if those two Asian nations truly opened their markets to us. They are the protectionists, protecting their home producers. We are neglectists, neglecting our own producers and calling it free trade, open markets.

* The "A day without aliens" might inspire copy cats such as "A day without shopkeepers." Anyone can play the game.

* The oldest man buried in the Westminster Abbey cemetary lived 152 years. Dear hearts, he was a vegetarian.

* Be wary of the Bilderbergers, the secret society of international elites who meet every year to decide who-knows-what about you-know-who. Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller are regulars in the group - what more do you need to know? Talk about spooky!

* Wal-Mart, I mean China, is a close oil trading partner with Iran. This complicates our squabble with Iran because China is our major supplier of junk as well as being our "sugar daddy." We can't afford to irk them.

* China, I mean Wal-Mart, remains on top of retailing, but Target is increasing its sales at a fast clip.

* See Jose cross the border. See Jose work, See Jose go on strike.

* After listening to the radio for three hours today, I have to wonder whether Rush really does have half his brain tied behind his back.


Twenty Years From Now News:

Chairman Hu of the People's Republic of China announced his acceptance of U.S. President Jeb Bush's offer to take ownership of the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Park and Zion Park to satisfy China's $6 trillion holding of our treasury bonds.

The nation's snowbirds are finally represented in Congress by recently elected Representative at large John Stockton. The Snowbird Council plans to step up demands for statehood.

Number one on the Hit Parade last week was: "Who Would Buddha Bomb?"

IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Love Your Country, But Watch Your Government.

He's at it again, ma. Uncle Sam is playing with fire at the Nevada Test Site.

Divine Strake will be showing near you, if the wind is right. June 2, 2006 is a date that might go down in history.

Uncle Sam does his thing, regardless of what you think or feel. People in Dixie must have learned this. The monstrous explosion at the test site won't be nuclear, not exactly. This depends on what is stirred up from previous tests - about which Senator Hatch is publicly pleading for signed assurances. Would you be assured by any government statement? Probably not, if you examined the past.

I recall President Eisenhower telling a press conference that the U.S. had no aircraft spy missions anywhere, despite Russian claims of shooting one down. About a day later, American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shown on Moscow newscasts and booked for a trial. Then, Preident Ike admitted the charge was true. Americans walked around in a daze for days. They muttered, "Our president lied, the government lied to us." What a shock. The people had been lied to, but more successfully, many times before the U2 flight incident.

Not only do they lie, they don't give a damn. I'm reminded of the military experiments on American soldiers in the 1960s. In June of 2003, the Pentagon declassified reports on Project 112 and Project SHAD (shipboard hazard and defense.) The tests were designed to identify American military vulnerability to chemical and biological weaponry. During the tests, large numbers of soldiers - who were not aware they were being used - were exposed to toxic substance and suffered consequences to their health.

Fifty such tests were conducted on 5,800 U.S. troops. The substances included the deadly sarin gas. GOOD MEDICINE provided printed details of the test in the fall of 2003.

This all falls in line with the earlier tests by the U.S. Health Service and the Atomic Energy Commission giving low doses of radiation to mentally ill children, and LSD to selected individuals without their consent, and biological weapons sprayed over St. Louis, San Francisco and New York.

A grand total of seven members of Congress urged an investigation into the crimes, while all others sat silent.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* St. George smog is not bad today, but the mosquitoes!

* People are talking behind the aliens' backs - in English, you know. So many folks are concerned about how many residents should be allowed to live in a house. Folks, this is the land of liberty, sweet liberty. Who should have the power to erode that? If you want to set a limit on the number of individuals living in your place, you can do so. Don't expect us to throw away the blessings of liberty just because you don't like the looks of something.

* How much will a visit to the doctor cost when nobody can afford health insurance?

* Overheard on an elevator in Las Vegas: "My fiance inherited $30,000, and she immediately scheduled plastic surgery on her nose." "She going to blow it, isn't she?"

* With another preemptive war looming in the Middle East, maybe we should clamor for a preemptive impeachment.

* Twenty-years-from-now news: NASA announced plans for a one-way trip to the sun. The $90 trillion project is bolstered by the successful Mars expedition which has yielded many benefits, such as

* They did a face transplant in France and an Asian nation, giving new meaning to the old: "Put on a happy face."

* On Mike McGary's "Open Mike" on KDXU today, a caller pointed out that our schools prepare students to be employees, not entrepreneurs, and it's a mistake. Amen, brother.

IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE

All You Need to Know

All you need to know about the following:

Fidel's communist Cuba shoots citizens trying to leave.

Mexico shoots people crossing its southern border.

China's slave labor camps produce gadgets sold in big box stores in the USA.

Taiwan has not asked us for money or assistance in half a century.

Wal-Mart surreptitiously buys life insurance policies on a select few employees without the employees' knowledge. These "dead peasant" insurance policies are an additional source of revenue for the popular giant.

IRS enforces an income tax law that is voluntary as written and signed. The IRS tax chief in Phoenix told KDWN radio in Las Vegas, "The income tax is voluntary, but if you don't volunteer, we will prosecute you."

Fluoridation of municipal water uses sodium fluoride, a well-known rat poison.

Great Britain will do whatever we ask them to do.

Israel bulldozes the homes of relatives of terrorist suspects - more than 4,000 so far. The Israel Supreme Court approved of both the army's torturing of suspects and use of human shields (Palestinians) in hostile search operations.

Palestine - until recently, graduates more doctors, teachers and engineers than any nation in the Middle East.

Florida - humidity

Congresspersons - they set their own salaries

CIA - won't discuss drug traffic and murder activities

Federal Reserve System - never been audited

Singapore - cleanliness is mandated

South Africa - race bias against whites

India - coming on strong in commerce

Germany and France - yesterday, life was such an easy game to play

USA - everyone wants to live here



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* No St. George smog report today - can't see out.

* Today's front page of the chain newspaper in St. George resembles a metropolitan paper: Deputy pleads guilty in sex scandal, and city treasurer of Santa Clara accused of embezzlement.

* The Bush administration has snubbed the president of Taiwan by denying access for stop-overs in New York and San Francisco. Taiwan, long a friend and an ally, deserve better treatment than we give Communist China, but it's the other way around.

* Reports come in here of spottings of middle class people seen on the streets of St. George. I'll believe it when I see it, although there might be one or two, here and there.

* Senator Bob Bennett brags that the Bush tax cuts have boosted the economy. Well, Bob, that's what tax cuts do. The money sent into the economy creates new demands and suppliers. But the price is that the interest on the money (which has to be borrowed) represents a new cost which has to be paid and the dollar will be devaluated even further. Tax cuts defy reason without reduced spending. People should know, too, that the tax cuts went to the top levels of income earners. The rich actually did get richer; the poor did get poorer. The middle class? You don't have them to kick around anymore, Bob.

* Convicted conspirator Zacarius Moussaoui got a life sentence instead of death. (The news almost killed Sean Hannity.) The bad guy has no police record, never committed a crime, but went to jail for what he's thinking. That could set a precedent resulting in a more totalitarian state.

* Thanks to THE SPECTRUM for furnishing us with front page details on the deviant and gross sex crimes of a deputy at the Purgatory Correctional Facility. I guess that's what community newspapers are for. Oh, it's a chain newspaper!

* Twenty-years-from-now news: Dixie has more roundabouts than snowbirds.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE

Gas Gougers Galore

Yes, it's a scam from top to bottom. $75 a barrel oil; $3 a gallon gas. You don't have to be paranoid, although it helps.

My old habit in another city was to go to breakfast with a business friend at 7 am every Monday. We began to notice the same group meeting at a table in the back room each time. The group was made up of owners of about a dozen local gas stations. I knew one of them quite well, and I asked him why he meets with his competitors. Without any hesitation he answered, "To set our prices for the coming week."

Yet, you hear the man-on-the-street defend the local dealers by insisting that prices come from the top down. The truth is the gas and oil folks avoid competition at all levels.

The industry finds reasons to raise prices all along the line. If we read of an oil tanker sinking 500 miles from our coast this morning, the gas and oil fuel wholesalers will raise their prices tomorrow, in anticipation of higher prices.

How can anyone still believe the market determines the price of oil and gas when there is an OPEC which restricts the production and distribution of the products?

They're all fixers! Producers, distributors and retailers. Exxon, Texaco, Chevron and Freddies' Fuel and Fast Food.

The market - like you - is not free.

The corporations, by their lobbies, are in virtual collusion with the guvmint. They have violated, abrogated, revoked, and buried the law of supply and demand. The market is controlled and managed. A free market delivers competitive prices. These prices are set.

Then we have the obscene, special tax breaks for the oil giants. Plus, the favored treatment in any number of applications. For instance, Exxon pays no royalties on the gas and oil resulting from these natural resources taken from the Gulf of Mexico. Outrageous.

Promise yourself that you'll learn the facts and get to the bottom of this ripoff. Then you'll pressure your public servants to reestablish competition and exalt the law of supply and demand. It's the American way.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Moderate to heavy smog again today. Watch out for particulates. Pass it on to friends in Ohio.

* We invite Bunker Buster Bob Bennett, our senator who has so much enthusiasm for advancing our military capabilities, to attend a picnic in St. George at Pioneer Park on June 2nd. That's the date of the planned explosion at the Nevada Test Site. Try to be there by nine in the morning, Bob. You might be the only one in the park, or outdoors, because you know we won't be there. Orrin will be under his desk at the Senate Office Building in Washington, so it's up to you, Bob. You'll be the only public servant to be sacrificed. Your failure to attend the event might bring charges of hypocrisy, which we - of course - know to be untrue.

* Not far from St. George, a cowboy watches over his herd while riding his horse and talking on a cell phone. The stunning sight flung me into the new century. Willie Nelson might write a country hit: "I'm a Cell Phone Cowboy."

* What's our leader's middle name. Does the W stand for War?

* Here's my solution to the alien (notice that it's not illegal immigrants) dilemma. Congress must write this new draft bill: All male aliens, without visitors' visas, between the ages of 20 and 45 must serve in the U.S. Army for two years. An honorable discharge would earn automatic full citizenship. All other aliens must follow the existing laws.

* Overheard in a cafe: "Never let friends teach you a foreign language. They'll teach you all the bad words first."

* Did you know aliens were bussed into New Orleans to work in post-Katrina clean-up and rebuilding, to take jobs Americans won't do?

* The Iraq venture is good for yet another reason: If we pump oil there, we won't have to pump it at home.

* The late, great Ayn Rand suggested that citizens challenge every new proposal with the question: "At whose expense?" This should be interpreted to mean cost in liberty, not just dollars.

IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.

Let's Use Our Secret Weapon Next Time

We'll be there with our aircraft carriers, B1, B2 and B52 bombers, helicopters, missiles, drone craft, Delta Force, Rangers, Green Beret, CIA sabotage, tanks, cluster bombs, bunker busters, and smart bombs. Also, we have nuclear weapons in case things get rough. Oh, we do have stockpiles of Sarin gas and anthrax.

But all that is not enough to win against terrorists and tyrants who threaten us with weapons of mass destruction. We'll have to do a number on their terrible ideas and attitudes too. Thank heaven we can wage a special kind of war with our new secret weapon, the Intelligent Bomb. This new weapon is so effective that it renders Smart Bombs dumb.

Intelligent Bombs explode with good will, friendliness, respect for all cultures, egality, and compassion. The enemy's hate is reduced to rubble in short time. The fall-out causes serious and positive reactions to human life within a wide radius.

When we are done blowing up an enemy's buildings and facilities, creating millions of refugees, and producing more terrorists than we kill, we can move in and assault their thinking. Operation Attitude Adjustment.

We have unlimited materials with which to create this secret weapon. We need the resolve to use it. Our Intelligent Bombs shall take them by surprise and permanently disarm them.

Once we locate the targets, our secret weapon will relentlessly pound enemy strongholds of hate, bad attitudes and outright dumb ideas. There will be surgical strikes at hearts and minds - with a minimum of collateral damage - to eradicate the real causes of terrorism.

We'll smoke out the reasons they are willing to kill themselves to kill some of us. Whatever that reason might be, we'll find it and kill it. Dropping conventional bombs and firing missiles never eliminates terrorism. And they are not acts of patriotism!

Let's build giant stockpiles of Intelligent Bombs and unleash them in a withering flurry on Iran, Syria and others whom might be evil-doers. That will shock them and put them in awe.


Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Smog, crowds, scorpions, loiterers, golfer proliferation, water shortage, China/Wal-Mart stores (not one, but two) and smiling people telling you to have a nice day. So stay home. You have roots there.

* The illegal immigrant protest was a mixed success. But wait a minute. Isn't illegal immigrant an oxymoron? Aliens is a better term.

* Bolivia is doing what several developing nations have done. They are nationalizing their natural resources. Gas and oil. Foreign oil companies are being forced out, including Exxon.

* The national drop-out rate in high schools is not encouraging in a nation which is numero uno (it's time to go bilingual) in so many fields. How are we going to maintain high proficiency if we don't know nothin?

* The snowbirds, aka earth angels, are gone. They'd better hurry back if they know what's good for them (us.) We could build a nine foot statue to the Unknown Snowbird and set it in one of our notorious roundabouts.

* For God's sake, and ours, impress on our leaders to stop the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil explosion planned at the Nevada Test Site on June 2nd. Radiation could be broadcast as a result, and this could become a downwind deja vu.

IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE

Bipartisan Treason

John F. Kennedy would be a Republican if he were here today. When a friend suggested that the Democrats of the fifties and sixties were less liberal than now and akin to the current Republicans, I was stunned. I almost laughed in his face. Then I started to think, he was right.

The Democrats of two decades ago - Harry Truman, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Sam Rayburn, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert H. Humphrey, Lyndon Jonhson, John Kennedy - were all doing things that Republicans do now.

Consider major issues such as budget deficits and spending increases. Hey big spender, no one could match Senator Humphrey. He would be comfortable with the trillion-dollar dreamers in the GOP today. As for reckless budgeteering, popular Republican President Ronald Reagan gets the prize for submitting budgets larger than those proposed by spendthrift Democrats in congress. He managed to tack $2 trillion onto the national debt. Well, of course, Reagan had been a Democrat for decades. He hailed Franklin Delano Roosevelt as his idol.

Here come the Bushites with their control of both houses of congress and a veto-challenged president delivering deficits in the half-a-trillion-dollar range. The Kennedy/Humphrey party worked hard, striving to commit such crimes against the republic, but they never came close to Bush. Both he and Kennedy pushed through tax cuts while spending more revenue than they collected. That's just fine with Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett, who says, "It's good to spend when the economy is sluggish."

"Everyone's a Keynesian now," President Nixon said, meaning that the once despised British socialist economist had won over his detractors. Lord John Maynard Keynes was the champion advocate of deficit spending to stimulate the economy. It's called pump priming.

Most Democrats of old supported Medicare, Headstart, Americorps, controls on agriculture, welfare programs, subsidies to businesses and ranchers, federal aid to education, government snooping, income redistribution, space explorations and federal encroachments galore. Then there is the endless maze of agencies and bureaus: FDA, FTC, SEC, OPIC, OSHA, FCC, BLM, EPA, FAA, DOE, NEA, etc. The GOP opposed the creation of those, but current Republican love them all.

In 1968, Alabama Governor George Wallace said, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties." He was right. More than a quarter of a century later, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader agree.

War. Did someone mention war? Make that plural. Republicans excoriated the opposing party for involving us in foreign wars. In the presidential election campaign of 1964, the GOP ran ads in newspapers displaying war photos of wounded GIs on the battlefield. They meant to shock you into voting against Democrats and their policies of interference, intervention and involvement. They pointed to the record of Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned on the slogan: "He kept us out of war." Later, after repeatedly promising: "Your sons will not die on foreign soil," FDR had plenty to do with meddling us into war against Japan and Germany. Blockading shipping and destroying submarines on the high seas are acts of war. And the Korean war was labeled "Truman's war," by Robert Taft, Republican Senate leader. The GOP pinned the Viet Nam war on President Johnson although President Eisenhower initially sent our military forces there.

Two can play the blame game. Republican presidents sent American forces to fight in Granada, Panama, Lebanon, Iraq - all without any declaration of war by congress, as mandated by the Constitution. FDR called that piece of paper "a horse and buggy document."

Globalism and internationalism seem to be mandatory in both camps. Foreign aid is a given. We give an annual $ 4 billion to Israel to "help it get on it's feet." Israel's neighbor, Egypt, receives $3 billion so that they are not slighted. We blow another $10 billion a year on several other nations around the world. Then, just to show how much we love them, we station soldiers in 128 countries.

The elephants have stolen the donkeys' clothes. The modern party-of-Lincoln folks are international meddlers, collectivist control freaks who pay attention to the Constitution only when it suits their purposes.

Democrats tweedle dee, Republicans tweedle dum. Tax and spend, intervene and interfere, make perpetual war, feed an obese government, and forget the principles of liberty.

Call it bipartisan treason.

When he was the Republican candidate for president, Senator Barry Goldwater said he was "A choice, not an echo." He lost big time and echoes continue.

Modern Republicans are clones, they're the me-too party. Why wouldn't John F. Kennedy be a Republican today? He could spend taxpayers' dollars almost as fast as they do, send soldiers and CIA operatives on the warpath here and there - as he did in Viet Nam and Cuba, interfere with the education system, order space flights (Bush wants to go to Mars,) and trample on states' rights, add to the socialist schemes, and even cuss like Vice President Dick Cheney.

Sure, JFK would fit right in.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Colin Powell has gone and done it now. He criticized the Bushites for sending too few troops to invade Iraq. Here comes the smear. Put him into the anti-American slot, along with six generals, ex-CIA spooks, journalists, and all the protesters. Colin, you're not supporting the troops.

* Those protesting illegal immigrants will have to learn that we're trying to integrate, not segregate in the USA. Joining together as a bloc frightens most Americans. We want them to be part of this overtaxed, overworked and overeating nation. If they don't learn English and blend with our culture, the native-born Scandinavians of Chicago and Minneapolis will carry out their threatened strike. I'm sure you can imagine what that would mean.

* We can feel safe about gas and oil prices with the president, vice president and secretary of state all former top executives in the industry. How could we be so lucky?

* President Bush calls himself "The Decider." Then who's "The Impeacher."

* The European Parliament investigated reported CIA flights over their continent since 9/11. They concluded that at least 1,000 flights, with an unknown number carrying kidnapped suspects of terrorism, were made to nations which condone torture.

* Why not a class-action impeachment/recall of Bob, Orrin, Dick, and W.?

* Don't forget to check the St. George smog, multiply by 10, and e-mail your family and friends.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.