Testudo's Tales

Vol. 10 No. 48 -- Right Idea, Wrong Place December 26, 2016 x= It is no secret that President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are not bosum buddies. Their rocky relationship got even rockier when the United States decided last week to abstain from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its continued settlement of areas it occupied after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. When this resolution came before the Security Council in the past, the U.S. exercised its veto. But now, the nations of the world are on record against Israel's aggressive expansionist policies. The timing of the American action is curious, coming less than one month before President Obama turns the keys to the White House over to Donald Trump. It is not surprising that the American abstention is being seen as President Obama's parting shot at Netanyahu. But it is also a very real expression of American concern over Israel's jingoistic policies toward the Palestinians. It is actually refreshing to see the United States slap the hand of its ungrateful and reckless beneficiary. The U.S. has paid - and continues to pay - a high price for its unwavering support of the Israel. As I have stated in this space in the past, I think there are times that the U.S. must demonstrate to the world that it can be even-handed in its dealings in the Middle East. That's hard to do when you give one of the sides in the conflict a virtual blank check. It becomes especially difficult when Israel behaves in a ruthless manner that seems to mock the very justification for that nation's creation. There are times when it is hard to distinguish the Palestinians of 2016 with the Jews of 1938. So yes, I am not particularly saddened by the American decision to allow the United Nations to hold Israel accountable for its bad behavior. However, waiting until one's administration is in its final days seems a particularly empty gesture. And is it potentially harmful in that this resolution could open up a whole new regime of sanctions against Israel that will only serve to harden its position. I am not a big fan of Netanyahu. However, he is right when he says "friends don't take friends to the Security Council." Now, congressional republicans are talking about defunding the United Nations, a move that would weaken America's moral standing in the world. President Obama's arrogant act of defiance - no matter how well deserved - may end up doing more harm than good.  It is just the kind of impetuous behavior that causes many to fear Obama's successor. And that certainly isn't the kind of note upon which this President wants to end his term of office. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 47 -- Carolina On My Mind December 18, 2016 x= In the late 1970s, there was a successful marketing campaign which proclaimed "I like calling North Carolina home." And from 1978 until I moved to Kansas in 1991, that's what I did - I called North Carolina home and I liked it. It was a nice place to raise a family. My only child was born there. Rocky Mount, located in the eastern part of the state, was called the "Red Carpet City" because of its reputation in welcoming newcomers. Even the bigger cities like Raleigh and Charlotte had a sort of hometown feel. There was a Mayberry mythology that one could easily buy into. As a working journalist at that time. I recognized the Tarheel State was a place of immense contradictions. It still had vestiges of the Old South - both the good and the bad - but it had also earned itself a national reputation as a progressive, modern state. It had a fabulous system of colleges, universities and vocational schools. However, most of its public schools were seriously deficient. It was home to active memberships for both the Ku Klux Klan and the Communist Workers Party. While conservative Jessie Helms served as the state's senior U.S. Senator, a black democrat named Daniel Blue was speaker of the the state House of Representatives. Back in those days, the republican party had begun to dismantle a century-long democratic state government hegemony. I actually worked for  Governor Jim Martin, only the second republican governor in the century and the first to be reelected. I've been gone from the Old Line State for 25 years now and I don't recognize the place. Republicans are now winning more elections than democrats and control the state legislature. If you had told me that would be the case in back in 1991, I would have said that's a good thing. However, the North Carolina republican party isn't the one I remember. It has not only shifted right of moderate Governor Martin, it appears to have shifted even farther right than the late Senator Helms could have imagined. The state found itself in a searing national spotlight when it passed the so-called "bathroom bill" that, literally, told transgendered individuals where they can go. (To be fair, the law was a reaction to an unnecessary provocation by the Obama administration, which insisted on making an issue where one had not been before.) These potty politics may have made the state's conservatives happy, but they also ignited a national backlash that resulted in a series of high-profile economic boycotts against the state. Many of the people who originally voted for the bill started having second thoughts. So did the people of North Carolina, who booted out republican Governor Pat McCrory in a tight, controversial election last month. Did the lawmakers take a cue from the people and moderate their behavior? To the contrary, they gathered in special session this past week and adopted a series of measures designed to curb the power of democratic Governor-elect Roy Cooper. While it is true that democrats have done something similar in the past to the republicans, these power-stripping measures were of an unprecedented scale. It is as if the legislature was thumbing its nose at the voters of the state - which, of course, it was. Two former governors I personally know, democrat Jim Hunt and republican Jim Martin, have publicly criticized this legislative coup d'etat. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people like me who "liked calling North Carolina home" who are wondering how a state once admired for its vision, vitality and moderation has been reduced to becoming a center of national scorn and derision. For anyone who has a Carolina connection, this sordid mess has been painful to watch. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 46 -- Dear President-elect Trump December 11, 2016 x= Congratulations on your election to the presidency. It must give you great personal satisfaction to know that you prevailed over the many naysayers who said you couldn't win. Admittedly, I was one of them and am willing to swallow my pride in acknowledging your victory. I can appreciate any frustration you may be feeling toward those who question the legitimacy of your election. Yes, your opponent won more popular votes. But you won in the Electoral College, something that will be reaffirmed later this month. Those are the rules and you won fair and square. I can even understand how you may bristle at reports that Vladimir Putin interfered in the election on your behalf. I, too, have those concerns. However, I am not questioning your desire for better relations with Russia. That was the position you took during the campaign and your election gives you the right to pursue that goal.  My concern is that there is strong evidence that the Russian government intervened in our election. If so, that is not only improper, it is also an act of war. And if I were in your position, I would not want any lingering doubts about the legitimacy of your election. Even in the best case scenario, doubts about the legitimacy of your election could be as harmful as, say, suggesting the Barack Obama was not an American citizen at the time of his election. And in a worst case scenario, it would leave open the question of whether this Russian espionage was carried out with the knowledge and blessing of your campaign. Remember, you did publicly ask the Russians to hack into Secretary Clinton's e-mail server. Perhaps that was just a joke. However, if this collusion was found to be true, it would be an act of treason and nothing short of the death penalty would be justified. If I were in your position, I'd cooperate with every investigation into this matter. I'd also support any and all election ballot recounts. That would be the sign of a confident and capable leader. It would also send a clear and uncompromising message to the Kremlin that you will not tolerate foreign intervention into the internal affairs of this nation. That's what great countries do -- stand on their principles and stand up against bullies like Putin. If I may be so bold, I'd like to offer one other suggestion. You have lately been dismissive of this nation's intelligence services. You questioned their conclusions about Russian election tampering and, inexplicably, have declined to take your daily national security briefings. While a healthy dose of skepticism is not a bad idea when gathering information from sources with whom you are unfamiliar, it would be a foolish act of hubris to ignore classified intelligence altogether. A bad decision made on incomplete information in a board room may negatively impact corporate profits. But one made in the Oval Office could have tragic implications for 325 million Americans and the 7.4 billion people who inhabit this planet. You were elected because a sufficient number of voters trust your judgment. Assuming that you, alone, have all the answers is an abuse of that trust. What does it hurt to listen? Thank you for taking a few moments to consider my thoughts. I may not have voted for you, but you will become my president on January 20. I wish you success as you take on your awesome responsibilities. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 45 -- The Blame Game December 3, 2016 x= If anyone had hope that the bitterness of the recent presidential election campaign might subside, this past week's Campaign Manager's Conference at Harvard's Kennedy School should disabuse you of that notion. As it has been described in several media, the top aides from the Trump and Clinton campaigns used that forum to hurl insults and accusations at one another - just like in the "good old days" of the campaign. I suppose that is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that there was one thing both sides could agree on: It's the media's fault. The Clintonites were furious that the media constantly gave Trump and his surrogates a forum to spew their venom. Curiously, the Trumpeters felt that same coverage was too pro-Clinton. Both the Trump and Clinton camps said too much time was spent covering scandals. In Clinton's case, that was her private e-mail server. In Trump's case, it was the Access Hollywood tape and almost anything the flamboyantly erratic candidate dispensed through his pie-hole.  To both the President-elect and the President-not-elect, a simple piece of advice: If you want the media to stop reporting bad stuff about you, then stop doing the bad stuff. It's easy to slam the media for not doing its job. However, the fact remains that the media did, in fact, do its job. Often ignored is the fact that media spent countless hours and column inches covering the issues of this campaign.  They also did their job when it came to fact-checking the claims of the candidates. When the media suggest that a candidate has been less than truthful - Mr. Trump comes to mind - that is not media bias. It is good journalism. When the media show how a candidate's version of the truth is constantly shifting - Mrs. Clinton comes to mind - that is also good journalism. And let's stop complaining about the polls.  Guess what? Most were accurate within their stated margins of errors. Don't forget that Clinton, as predicted, won the popular vote. If you have a problem with Trump winning because of the Electoral College, then your beef is with the nation's Founders and not the media. It all comes down to this: Even with its flaws, the media did a pretty good job of showing the American people the true nature of the man and woman who fought tooth-and-nail to become our next president. If the Clintonites and the Trumpeters do not like what they have seen and heard, then I respectfully suggest that they shut their mouths and stop looking in the mirror. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 44 -- An Uneasy Feast November 24, 2016 x= As more than 300 million Americans gather with family and friends today around the dinner table, there is one great unspoken fear - that a discussion of the recent presidential election could result in a food fight. You may have noticed that many news outlets have run not-necessarily tongue-in-cheek stories this week about the dangers of bringing up politics at this year's holiday feast. It may be tempting to calm the nerves of rattled parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews by saying that we all can be thankful for one thing, that the election is over.  However, that is not true. The real election - the one that really counts - occurs on December 19 when the Electoral College meets. And with Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by almost two million votes nationally, there is a move afoot to convince Trump electors who are not bound by law to vote for him to switch their ballots to reflect the national will.  This political Hail Mary - or is it a Hail Hillary - is not likely to succeed because people chosen to be electors are the most faithful of the party faithful. But let's suppose these electors succumb to this pressure and switch their votes to Clinton. She would legally - and some suggest morally - become the President of the United States. But at what cost? Like it or not, under the Constitution as it now stands, Donald Trump is the President-elect. Replacing him at this point would be tantamount to staging a coup-d'etat. Considering the mood of some of Trump supporters, such a move would be an open invitation for a civil war. I'm not talking about a metaphorical civil war where family feuds reach alarmingly new heights. It would be a guns blazing, people dying and chaos in the streets civil war. Ironically, this means that having Donald Trump become our next president is really not the worst thing that can happen.  And since, as I said, the likelihood of Trump electors throwing the nation into a death spiral is slim, then there really is something we can all be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 43 -- How We Roll November 11, 2016 x= It has been three days since the people of the United States of America in their collective wisdom elected Donald J. Trump to become the nation's 45th president. To be more accurate, of the more than 120 million people who voted for president last Tuesday, 47.4 percent of them cast their ballots for the businessman-celebrity. As of the current count, that was approximately 400,000 votes less than his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As was the case 16 years ago in Bush v. Gore, the Republican won the presidency on the basis of getting a majority of the votes in the Electoral College. Unlike the days of Bush v. Gore, we have people marching in the streets protesting the outcome of the election. To be fair, the 2000 election took 38 days to resolve and much of the protest energy was expenditure in the period prior to the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of Bush. But once the matter was decided, people went home and gave the president-elect an opportunity to earn their trust. Of course, their has never been a president-elect quite like Trump. He won the presidency by appealing to the inner-most fears of the American people. And he was aided by an opponent who has more baggage than Samsonite. After the first street protests against the election appeared just hours after Clinton's concession speech, I was compelling to speak my mind on Facebook. "Am I happy about the outcome of the election?," I wrote. "No. But I believe in American democracy. I believe that when I find myself on the losing side, it is my responsibility to become a part of a loyal opposition. In that role, I wish the winners success, I help where I can - and I watch them like a hawk. That is how we roll in the United States." On this Veteran's Day, we dishonor the people who are serving or have served, as well as the nation as a whole, if we think chanting slogans and setting fires in the streets is the proper response to being on the losing side of a democratic election. If it was, then I missed my opportunity to protest Villanova's buzzer-beating shot to defeat my alma matter North Carolina in the NCAA men's basketball championship game last April. The current street protests make just as much sense as that ridiculous scenario. The election is over. Trump won and Clinton loss. Let the man go about forming his new administration without this sidewalk strurm and drang. Wish him success. Offer to help him succeed. Then watch him like a hawk. That's how we roll in the United States of America. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 42 -- Wednesday's Choice November 5, 2016 x= This God-awful never-ending political campaign will limp to its much-anticipated conclusion on Tuesday - assuming that some Bush-Gore 2000 scenario doesn't rear its ugly head. But the rancor that has characterized Campaign 2016 will remain with us for some time. The 21st century is a time of great social upheaval. People, especially those in power, do not like change. It is easy to dismiss Donald Trump for the over bloated, bombastic and narcissistic buffoon he is. But we should not so easily dismiss his followers. Many of those people are our own friends, neighbors and relatives. They have hitched their stars to the Trump bandwagon for a reason. We should listen to what they say. While on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, Donald Trump's and Bernie Sanders' followers have something in common: They are disaffected with the political gridlock that infects the body politic. They are angry with those willing to accept the unacceptable status quo. The Trump and Sanders people are all about the demographic, social and cultural changes that are occurring in our evolving and increasingly diverse nation. The Trump people tend to resist this change out of fear of what it will mean for their station in life. To put it bluntly, the days of white male privilege are over and they see themselves as casualties. The Sanders crowd is impatient. They want to see change come more quickly and are willing to turn over the apple cart to hasten it. Left in the middle - which, in and of itself is a dwindling class - are people willing to sacrifice social progress and justice for just a little peace and quiet. To all I say change is coming. There is no stopping it. By mid-century, the United States will be a majority-minority nation. And if we are not willing to adjust to this new world order, we are destined for the dust bin of history. The first step on the road to accommodation is a willingness to compromise. Starting Wednesday morning, let's stop shouting and start listening. Democracy is not a blood-sport. It is a system where people of different backgrounds and interests reach common ground through compromise and negotiation.  Some will argue that compromise and negotiation are akin to selling out one's principles. But that can't be the case if our highest values are those that come from our most sacred documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If we truly believe that all men (and women) are created equal, want to create a more perfect union and wish to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, we need to stop and take a breath. And on Wednesday morning, let's stop talking past one another and start listening to what each of us has to say. If we make that choice on Wednesday, it will prove far more important than any choice we make on Tuesday. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 41 -- A Declaration of Conscience October 29, 2016 x= While doing research for an upcoming lecture in one of my journalism classes, I came across a declaration of conscience spoken on the floor of the United States Senate that is as relevant today as it was 66 years ago. The speech was made by Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) in response to the hysterical anti-communist tactics employed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) and the members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. As you read her words, it is easy to imagine that she is talking about the GOP of 2016. "Surely it is clear that this nation will continue to suffer as long as it is governed by the present ineffective Democratic Administration," Sen. Smith said. "Yet to displace it with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this nation." She went on to say, "The nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny -- Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear." Sen. Smith, the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress, would later run for president in 1964. She wasn't taken seriously, nor was her warning of 14 years earlier. That 1950 speech, now known as the "Declaration of Conscience," said that the basic principles of "Americanism" are the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest and the right of independent thought. She closed her remarks by saying that she doubted the GOP could win public office in a campaign based on making false and defamatory statements designed to damage the reputation of others. "I don't believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest," Sen. Smith said. I hope she was right. We will find out if that's the case on November 8th. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 40 -- The Whole Truth October 24, 2016 x= I am proud to call myself a journalist. I caught the journalism bug when I was in college. That was the time of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. It was a time when it seemed as if no one was telling the truth. Many chose to spin their version of reality. At times, it seemed as if there were no honest brokers out there. No one, that is, except for journalists. While typing that statement, I could hear the derision of many a reader. "Boy, that fellow really has drunk the Kool Aid," they were thinking. And yes, I have. That is because my definition of "journalism" is drastically different than theirs. Too many people mistake "media" and "punditry" for journalism. They want to paint journalists with a broad brush - ironically the same broad brush they say they object to being used when they are the ones being misrepresented. There are a lot of people who work in the "media" business. And many of them have little or nothing to do with journalism. To me, journalism is an exploration into the human condition. Ideally, it is a search for truth. Realistically, it is an attempt to gather perspectives from many individuals and to triangulate that information into a meaningful contextual narrative. To put it another way, it is an effort to tell the whole story. Unfortunately, many in American society today don't want the truth - or at least someone else's truth - to get into the way of good story. The Information Age has created an environment where there is practically an outlet for every point-of-view. The media have become segmented into a cacophony of competing ideologies, making it easier for people to retreat into comfort zones where their values go unchallenged. It is the job of a journalist is to intrude upon these spaces and present a fuller - yes, truer - picture of the world. As humorist Finley Peter Dunne of the Chicago Evening Post famously wrote in 1893, “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Yes, some so-called journalists do a lousy job. They let their their own biases, egos and/or greed color their work. But isn't that true of some in every profession? Just because someone challenges your beliefs by presenting an alternative perspective doesn't make him or her untruthful. For example, I recently wrote a book about the Eastern Shore in Maryland, my childhood home. In many ways, it is a love letter to a special place. But I take pride in being a journalist, which means that my narrative included many uncomfortable truths about the region's sometimes dark history. I wasn't going to the tell the story unless I was willing to tell the whole story. Could others have taken the same information and drawn different conclusions? Certainly they could. But that wouldn't make them or me any less truthful. When journalists do their job, they help us better understand ourselves by providing information in context. Contrary to what some politicians are saying these days, journalists are not the bad guys. Those who shield you from the whole truth are. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 39 -- Situational Ethics October 15, 2016 x= Ethics are our values in action. Situational ethics are when we choose to change or ignore our values to justify a certain action or belief. Campaign 2016 has caused a lot of Americans to engage in moral gymnastics to justify their support for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Significant evidence has emerged in the the last week that proves, in the very least, that Trump is a misogynist or, in a worse-case scenario, has engaged in serial sexual assaults. Trump's core supporters - an ever-dwindling group - say they are willing to overlook this character flaw because the alternative, Hillary Clinton, is far worse. Democrats, in particular, just cannot understand that way of thinking. But here's the rub: Many of the people who condemn Trump for his immoral behavior are the same folks who, in the late 1990s, were willing to look the other way at the sexual predator tactics of President Bill Clinton. There are two facts about the former president that are not in dispute: He twice lied under oath while giving sworn depositions in the Paula Jones case and that he engaged in sexual activity in the workplace with a subordinate. Both should have been enough to have had Bill Clinton removed from office. While Hillary Clinton should not be held responsible for the sins of her husband, the fact remains that for reasons only she can understand, she served as an enabler to her deeply flawed husband. She also attacked the women who, under different circumstances, she would today defend as victims. Now, the tables are flipped. Trump supporters, quick to condemn the Clintons, are willing to dismiss what may prove to be their candidate's criminal behavior. How thick is the irony? In the world in which I live, what's good for the goose is also good for the gander. I've made my decision to endorse Hillary Clinton for a variety of reasons discussed in my last post to this blog. But do not for a New York minute believe that I forgive her or her lecherous husband for their unethical and immoral behavior. Ultimately, my vote for her is out of a belief that her soul is far more redeemable than her bullying, lying and delusional opponent. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 38 -- I've Heard Enough October 8, 2016 x= As one who strongly believes that our values should drive our actions, I can no longer remain silent about my choice for President of the United States. It had been my intention to withhold my endorsement until the completion of the presidential debates. I have not hidden the fact that I do not like either of the nominees of the two major parties.  I have even gone so far as to state that there are virtually no circumstances under which I could, in good conscience, cast my ballot for Donald Trump. He is unqualified, undisciplined and, at times, unhinged. And as we have also learned this weekend, he is a vile sexual predator. Since the release of the 2005 "hot mic" comments, Trump's supporters have been trying to sell the nation a false equivalence; the notion that Trump's approach toward women is no worse than that of former President Bill Clinton. Even if one accepts that proposition as being true, what is the relevance? Bill Clinton is not on the ballot. By taking Trump off the table, I am left with three options: Vote for Hillary Clinton, vote for a third-party candidate or not vote at all. Until recently, I strongly considered the Libertarian option. But Gary Johnson appears to be no more qualified to become president than Trump. When Johnson couldn't answer questions suitable for junior high school civics students, he exposed his ignorance. While voting for Johnson provides an option to register a protest vote, I am not one for making meaningless symbolic gestures. Then there is the third option. To me, not voting is not an option. The price for enjoying the freedoms we have under our system of government involves meeting certain civic responsibilities. One of those is voting, even when the options appear unpalatable. How can we ask our leaders to make difficult decisions if we are not willing to do so ourselves? So, that leaves Hillary Clinton. To suggest that she is a flawed candidate is an understatement. I don't trust her. I don't even like her. There is also a real possibility that her baggage eventually could be her undoing. But I also believe that she is not reckless and that she takes a measured, carefully calculated approach when confronted with problems. She also can articulate her position on various public policy issues in more than 140 characters. That she is not in the back pocket of Vladimir Putin is a plus. No, I do not agree with a lot of what Hillary professes. But I do not disagree with her broad goals of social justice, economic equity and America's global leadership. No, I do not like Hillary Clinton. But I love my country and the principles on which it was founded.  We may not realize our goal for establishing "a more perfect union" in my lifetime. But, in the context of this election, the path to that outcome is clear. Barring further "October surprises" that dramatically affect the trajectory of this campaign, I will cast my ballot for Hillary Clinton on November 8. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 37 -- Debate #1 to Clinton September 26, 2016 x= When it comes to specifics and substance, Hillary Clinton clearly bested Donald Trump in tonight's first presidential debate.  But the real question is, will it make any difference? Clinton pushed a personal narrative of being someone from a modest background to become a champion for the little guy. Trump's narrative was that of a self-made man - if getting $17 million in start-up money from daddy is being self-made -- who can bring business common sense to the running of government. It was on that latter point that I found Trump's message troubling. Does he really think that America's foreign policy and defense strategy should handled on a cash and carry basis? Do we really want to rearm Japan? Should we continue to maintain NATO, the world's most successful alliance, on a for-profit basis? When it came to discussing race relations, Trump attempted to shift the debate to "law and order" and the so-called rising tide of crime in America. Unfortunately, facts are pesky things. Serious crime in the United States has been in a steady decline for some time now. But that's OK, Trump didn't really offer any solutions other than to return to unconstitutional police tactics. And when he said that he has established excellent relations with African-Americans over the past "little while," well, that pretty much says it all. While I am not certain how the country can possibly pay for Clinton's economic plans, at least she articulated them. I wasn't certain whether I feel sorry for Lester Holt or am angry for his lack of backbone. One thing I am sure of: There should be no more debate moderators from NBC News. Another thing I am sure of: I seriously doubt tonight's debate changed the minds of many voters. With few variations, both Clinton and Trump sang from the same sheet music they have been using for the past year. However, the debate may have helped energize Clinton's base. For 90-plus minutes, Donald Trump reminded them how much they have to lose if he wins. ponseXrsø That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 36 -- There Goes the Bride September 17, 2016 x= One week from today, my daughter and only child will marry a bright loving young man and, in doing so, set out on an adventure of a lifetime. Practically every parent faces this moment with a sense of joy, dread, relief, satisfaction, exhilaration and depression. And if you are the parent of a daughter, there's the added realization that you and you child will no longer share the last name. (Not always true, but that still happens more often than not.) I don't claim to have been the greatest dad. Not even in the top 100. But as I have seen my little girl flower into the confident and compassionate woman she is, I know that I couldn't have been all that bad a dad. I've been blessed to have been close to my daughter. The tragic loss of her mother nine years ago may have brought us closer together as adults than as father and daughter. The only real sadness I have as her wedding day approaches is the realization that her mother is not here. She would have thrived in this moment. It is a moment when the bonds between mothers and daughters are strongest. Fortunately, my daughter has been getting wise counsel from her stepmother, future mother-in-law and her aunts. She is approaching this special day with the happiness and enthusiasm it commands. As for me, I'm doing fine. I'm not exactly sure what I am supposed to be feeling. I suspect that was well articulated in the two Steve Martin movies, Father of the Bride. All I know is that my daughter has chosen well, that her mother would be proud, and that I am proud to be her father. And unlike my mother, who asked my wife about grandchildren the day before our wedding, I plan to restrain myself when it comes to that subject. For now, at least. ponseXrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 35 -- Fifteen Years in the Shadow of Terror September 11, 2016 x= I have always been struck by the irony of my experience on the morning of September 11, 2001. On that particular morning, I had gotten an early start and began working out of my home office shortly before 7:00 a.m. Central time. I was only three weeks away from the deadline for submitting second edition revisions to the public relations textbook I had written with colleague Chuck Marsh. On that morning, I was in "editing mode" - no TV, radio or music. I had to concentrate on my work. The goal I had set for myself that day was to finish my revisions on Chapter 12. Successful, I drove into my campus office around 8:30 a.m. My car radio wasn't on - I was listening to a Jim Croce CD. That's why I was unaware of the drama taking place in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania until I overheard two colleagues talking about planes crashing into buildings. It wasn't until I had time to comprehend the events of that tragic morning that I also realized that I would have to revise my revisions to Chapter 12, which ironically focused on crisis communications. That's my 9/11 story. Everyone of a certain age has his or her own. Much like November 22, 1963, that day was seared into our memories. While 15 years have passed,  many of those images have not dimmed. Of course, we now have a decade and one-half of perspective to place those events into context. We knew the world had changed on that fateful morning, but I doubt that anyone could have envisioned the America we have become for better or worse. We are still engaged in a war against terror and there is no end in sight. The brief respite we had from partisan politics immediately after the attacks has devolved into the blood sport we are witnessing this campaign year. On this 15th anniversary of the day the world changed for all of us who survived, we would do well to honor the memory of those who didn't by returning to the civility and mutual respect we all too briefly embraced in the shadow of terror. ponseXrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 34 -- Not Buying It September 3, 2016 x= There's a new twist in this miserable experience we call Campaign 2016. The FBI yesterday released its notes from its interviews with Hillary Clinton about her improper use of a private e-mail server. As you may recall, the FBI decided not to charge her with mishandling classified information, but did roundly criticize her reckless handling of highly sensitive material. And like previous attempts to explain her actions, her FBI interview just doesn't ring true. The newest wrinkle in this saga is Hillary's claim that she never received any training on the handling of classified information. Considering that she lived in the White House for eight years as First Lady and spent another eight years as a U.S. Senator, this claim is almost laughable. Some may claim that e-mail technology is so relatively new that her lack of technological knowledge is understandable. Anyone paying attention to the Iran-Contra hearings 30 years ago would remember that Lt. Col. Oliver North got in trouble, in part, because government e-mails are part of the public record. In fact, I am certain Clinton was thinking of Oliver North when she installed the private server. Every politician from City Hall to the White House knows that e-mails on public servers are discoverable. It wasn't convenience that motivated Clinton to create the private e-mail server. It was a desire for secrecy - an instinct that has always marked her public life. (Remember those behind-closed-doors health care meetings early in her husband's administration?) Another disturbing aspect of her FBI interview is the number of times she said "I don't remember." Granted, if this were an issue being raised for the first time, such an answer would be understandable. But this issue has been swirling about for more than a year. Does anyone really believe that she hasn't had an exhaustive review of her actions and potential liabilities? For goodness sake, the woman is a lawyer. Such a review would be her natural inclination. At a time America is desperately seeking an alternative to the train wreck that is Donald Trump, the Democrats have given us a pathological liar. And the irony is that if she had told the truth in the first place, the e-mail scandal would no longer be an issue. ponseXrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 33 -- The Third Option August 31, 2016 x= As we approach Labor Day, the start of the home stretch in Campaign 2016, I am like millions of fellow Americans -- unhappy with the choices we have been given and unsure if I am even going to vote at all. I have chronicled in previous posts why I do not like either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Nor am I satisfied that this election has to come down to choosing between the lesser of two evils. That is why I am beginning to do my homework on a third, albeit little-mentioned option: The Libertarians. That party's presidential (Gary Johnson) and vice presidential (William Weld) nominees are former Republican governors elected in predominantly Democratic states. Johnson and Weld are talking about things that neither Donald or Hillary have mentioned. These include attacking wasteful spending, term limits, and protection of civil liberties. They believe the tax code should be amended so it is more equitable. Instead of building a wall or just flinging America's doors wide open, the Libertarian approach to immigration is a more effective, efficient and humane system of screening immigrants. I don't know that I want to vote for these guys - but I am not ready to dismiss them as being on the margins of American political debate. Right now, Johnson is third in the presidential race with 10 percent supporting his candidacy. With approximately 140 million Americans registered to vote, that means approximately 14 million Americans support Johnson and Weld. That should be sufficient to include Johnson in the upcoming presidential debates. And if the Commission on Presidential Debates were to do so, that would be a game changer. I think the more people hear from Johnson, the more competitive he will become. I also believe his inclusion in the race would result in mass defections from both candidates -- although I believe that Trump would be hurt more than Clinton. If we believe in democracy and letting the people decide, then present them with the third option. Let Johnson join the debates. ponseXrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 32 -- Cowardly Lyin' August 17, 2016 x= Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's administration wants to hear citizen concerns about his 4 percent budget cuts to some organizations providing Medicaid services -- but only at a distance. The state has canceled a series of five public hearings designed to gather federally mandated feedback that were set to run August 22-26. Governor Sunhine's administration called off the hearings after recently getting roughed up by Republicans and Democrats in a legislative oversight committee hearing. Of course, that's not the reason cited for the cancellations. A state spokesperson said the hearings were canceled to make it easier for citizens to email their complaints to the state. That is a lie. Coming off of a primary election in which several conservative ideologues lost their legislative seats to more moderate candidates, Governor Sunshine wants to avoid the highly publicize tongue lashing it deserves for mismanaging state finances.  KanCare, the Brownback administration's privatized response to Obamacare, has been a miserable failure. According to Tim Carpenter, writing in the Topeka Capitol-Journal, critics have complained that the three managed-care insurance companies that administer the program have been too slow in processing claims and have had an inordinate amount of claim denials. At the heart of this controversy has been Governor Sunshine's implementation of a 21st century form of "Voodoo Economics." The administration's tax cuts have not generated the booming economy the governor predicted. Instead, quite the opposite has happened. State tax revenues are spiraling downward, causing Brownback to make cuts in health care, education and road maintenance funding. Of course, he will deny there have been cuts and will use creative bookkeeping to support his claim. However, in a nod to the Wizard of Oz - another Kansas legend not based in truth - the governor's explanation amounts a case of cowardly lyin'. Governor Sunshine is the most unpopular governor in the nation. He is also faced with the prospects of continued voter backlash during legislative elections in November. The last thing he needs is five days of negative news coverage emanating from the now-canceled public hearings. So, just like money in the state treasury, Governor Sunshine has wished them away. In another nod to L. Frank Baum, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. When it comes to Governor Sunshine, it's all smoke and mirrors. ponseXrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 31 -- Republican Death Spiral August 10, 2016 x= The Republican Party - the party of Abraham Lincoln - is in a death spiral and there's little anyone can do about it. Even if yesterday's Second Amendment comment by Donald Trump was, as Speaker Paul Ryan suggested, "a joke gone bad," it is still a part of a continuing habit of reckless, unscripted utterances by a man seeking the presidency. Time after time, Donald Trump says his words are being misinterpreted. You know what? That sort of thing happens all the time.  Sometimes people use poor word choices that skew or muddle their intended meaning. The problem is that Trump is hardly a first-time offender. I've lost count of the number of times the Republican nominee has had to walk back a racist, sexist or just plain stupid comment. What's different now is that, for the first time, the polls are suggesting that the American people have had enough of Trump's behavior. The gap between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton is widening - especially in important battleground states that Trump has to win if he is going to be president. It is not even Labor Day and pundits are projecting a historic Clinton landslide. This is all the more amazing when one considers that Clinton is the weakest and most disliked front-runner in American history. Richard Nixon was viewed more favorably. Even today, when most of the focus is on Trump's nod toward violence against his opponent, Clinton is on the defensive for e-mails that suggest she mixed Clinton Foundation business with State Department business. If any other Republican were on the ballot, she would be in deep trouble. But her guardian angel is one Donald J. (for Jackass) Trump. If the Republican establishment could replace him on the ticket, it would. But doing so would discount the votes Trump received in winning the nomination and would rip the party to shreds. Party leaders like Paul Ryan are forced to wear the thin veil of party unity by publicly supporting Trump. Its much like the situation Dwight Eisenhower faced with the demagogue Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Ike publicly gave lukewarm support to his "fellow" Republican while furiously working behind the scenes to derail him. But make no mistake: No matter what you think of his politics, Paul Ryan is a serious man who loves his country and its institutions. He dislikes Donald Trump and what he has done by co-opting the Republican Party. Ryan may yet find reason to divorce himself the loose cannon from Manhattan. However, Ryan's biggest challenge comes November 9, the day after the election. The damage that Donald Trump has done to the Republican Party could result in a conservative-moderate schism much like the ones that destroyed the Federalists and Whigs in the 19th century. Right now, the only person who can save the Republican Party is Hillary Clinton. As history has shown us, the woman who would be president has an uncanny ability to shoot herself in the foot. And, as noted, we are still weeks away from Labor Day. But even if - God forbid - Trump wins the presidency, the political home that the Republican party has been for fiscal conservatives and libertarians will be in shambles. And all of the Kings horses and all of the King's men may not be able to put it back together again. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 30 -- The Business Plot August 7, 2016 x= There has been a lot of teeth gnashing - not totally unjustified - about the state of American democracy.  Congress is perpetually deadlocked and voters have been been given a choice of the two-least trusted and most unpopular presidential nominees in our history. Some wonder if the very institutions of government will collapse under this mountain of apathetic hostility. Before you retreat to your bunker, it is important to remember that this isn't the first time we've faced these challenges. I just recently learned from a friend of an alleged plot to seize the U.S. Government during the height of the Great Depression. This plot - which some historians consider a hoax - centered around U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most decorated soldiers in American history. By the end of his career, Butler received 19 medals - five for heroism and two Congressional Medals of Honor. After World War I, Butler became an outspoken critic of wars. In many ways, his concerns about the unholy alliance between the military and industry mirrored those later expressed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 1960 Farewell Address. Nevertheless, Butler was a loyal American. That's why he was shocked in 1933 when a group of American businessmen suggested he become the leader an army of disgruntled army veterans in an effort to overthrow the government led by newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt. These business leaders feared FDR's expanded use of government as an implement for social change. They thought their new president was, at best, a socialist and, at worst, a communist. They figured that Butler, himself a critic of FDR, could galvanize the more than 43,000 WWI veterans who had been violently turned back during the Bonus March protests of 1932. The business leaders allegedly wanted to install Butler as a dictator, in much the same fashion of Hitler and Mussolini. Butler wanted no part of a coup and spilled the beans in secret testimony before a congressional committee. Everyone Butler identified with the plot denied its existence. As with everything in Washington, the secret discussions soon became public knowledge. The New York Times said that it was a hoax and that Butler was just trying to burnish his own reputation. However, many people still believe Butler told the truth. The consensus among historians is that while there probably was no so-called Business Plot to overthrow Roosevelt, it is likely that there had been some preliminary conversations about installing a fascist regime in the White House before the idea was abandoned. The United States has survived the Revolution, the Civil War, two world wars and misadventures in Vietnam and Iraq. We even survived the Cola Wars. And now you know that we also survived the Business Plot of 1933. If we've done all that, I am confident that we can survive Hillary and Donald. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 29 -- The Democratic Convention July 28, 2016 x= The Democrats at convention this week had an opportunity to contrast Donald Trump's angry vision of America with one that is more aspirational. For the most part, they succeeded. The week got off to a bumpy start when internal Democratic National Committee memos were leaked to the media. Those memos showed that Bernie Sanders was right - that the DNC's leadership was biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. At first, the DNC tried to deflect the matter by saying it was most likely the Russians who hacked their computers. That may be so, but it didn't change the fact that the memos substantiated Sanders' case. However, the Clinton forces moved quickly to appease Sanders supporters by setting adrift DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and by going out of the way to praise the grumpy old man from Vermont. Ironically, Trump, himself, helped these Clinton misdirection efforts by stupidly suggesting that the Russians should hack into Hillary's computers to find the so-called missing e-mails. (The man who had advocated for Americans to commit war crimes now lent his support to foreign espionage.) The whole episode left everyone wondering who needed an effective firewall the most, the DNC or Trump's mouth. By the second day of the convention, the Democrats effectively eliminated the leaked e-mail distraction and focused on the rebranding of Hillary as a passionate change agent. This is in contrast to the Republicans, who took three days to sloppily dispose of the controversy surrounding Melania Trump's plagiarized keynote speech. And while there are still divisions within both parties, the Democrats did a much better job of presenting a united front than did the Republicans. Clinton's chief antagonist, Bernie Sanders, spoke on her behalf and urged his followers to support her. Trump's chief opponent, Ted Cruz, used his moment in the spotlight to widen the schism within the GOP. Trump's most effective champions on the podium were his children. But their advocacy for their father paled in comparison to the support given Hillary Clinton by Michele and Barack Obama. They painted a much more personal and hopeful vision of the future. To his credit, vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine was extremely effective in mocking Trump's "believe me" mantra in a disarming way. As for the lady at the top of the ticket, Clinton effectively played to her strengths and exposed Donald Trump's considerable weaknesses. Her acceptance speech artfully straddled her need to show toughness while showing compassion. (Ironically, that is the same divide George W. Bush tried to bridge in his 2000 acceptance speech.) Truth be told, nothing said over the past two weeks will change the minds of the core supporters of either candidate. It's likely that they listened to their candidate and ignored the other. For people like me who have serious doubts about both candidates, it's going take more convincing before we determine how -- and if -- we will vote. And it is still July, with 102 days remaining until the general election. That's an eternity in presidential politics. In this crazy year, we have come to expect the unexpected. And if Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson can get his poll numbers high enough to forge a spot in the upcoming debates, all bets are off. However, one thing is clear: This week's Democratic message of hope and American exceptionalism played much better among undecideds and neutrals than did last week's negative and fear-filled visions of the Republicans. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 28 -- The Republican Convention July 21, 2016 x= As I write this, confetti and balloons are floating down from the ceiling of the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump tonight delivered a stem winder of an acceptance speech. He told the delegates and a national television audience "I am your voice." There's no doubt that for many Americans, that statement rang true. And for even the skeptical, some of the nominee's points may have had merit. However,  Trump's voice does not sound to me like the American voices I hear. Yes, Americans are frustrated by the nation's partisan gridlock. However, I heard nothing tonight to suggest that Trump is guy to close that divide. Yes, Americans want a stable economy. But all we were served tonight is a banquet-full of proposals to fix roads, schools, infrastructure and our manufacturing base. There was no mention of how we will pay for it after President Trump cuts taxes. (You can ask almost any Kansan how Governor Brownback's reckless tax cuts have ravaged this state's economy.) Mr. Tump says he is "this year's law and order candidate." However, Americans want more than law and order. They also want justice - real justice where rich, corrupt bankers go to jail and where persons of color can have faith in a criminal justice system that often fails to protect them. This is not to dismiss Trump as a formidable force in this campaign. He clearly has tapped into a well of frustration among Americans fearful of an uncertain future. The United States in the 21st century is being transformed by an interconnected global economy and evolving into an increasingly diverse nation. Trump represents a reaction to these forces of change similar to the nativist movements of late 19th and early 20th centuries. When Trump says he wants to "make America great again," that is coded language for clinging to an idealize past that is more myth than reality. America not only survived those nativist movements, but actually advanced the quality of life for all her citizens. That's a more positive vision of America - one lacking tonight in Cleveland. Next week, we will hear from the Democrats in Philadelphia. I am certainly not ready to drink their Kool-Aid. My skepticism of Hillary Clinton justifiably runs deep. Tonight, Donald Trump presented the Democrats with a real opportunity to contrast his angry message with a more hopeful view of America's future. But I won't hold my breathe. That certainly hasn't been the tone of the campaign so far. We will see. I'll get back to you on that next Thursday night. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 27 -- Something is Rotten in Kansas July 13, 2016 x= With apologies to William Shakespeare, something is rotten in Kansas. Secretary of State Kris Kobach and the state board that oversees elections yesterday took an action that, in effect, purged 17,000 qualified people from the state's voter registration rolls. According to the Lawrence-Journal World, "The action by the Kansas Rules and Regulations Board — which one opponent called “appalling” — affects people who attempted to register at a local motor vehicle office but did not provide proof of U.S. citizenship." This was in response to a federal court ruling in May that said the state cannot enforce its proof of citizenship law on people who registered under provisions of the National Voter Registration Act - the so-called “motor voter” law. The 17,000 voters affected by the board's ruling can vote in federal elections, but will remain barred from voting in state and local elections. At the heart of this issue is the requirement that individuals present a birth certificate at the time they register to vote. The state law was enacted to end voter fraud -- a problem of which no evidence exists. It's real purpose is voter suppression. The birth certificate requirement will most likely affect young and poor voters, people most likely to vote Democratic. This requirement adds a costly and time-consuming step to the voter registration process, the acquisition of a birth certificate. Do you have a copy of your birth certificate? I have a driver's license, a U.S. passport and other documentation that I am a red-blooded American. But I am not certain I have a birth certificate. I suspect that is commonplace among many Kansans. What is next for Kobach? Is he going to demand proof that all voters be certified as having a pure Aryan bloodline? The timing of the board's actions are suspicious, coming with little advanced notice and in time to deny people their inalienable right to cast ballots at the start of the advanced voting period for next month's primary. If justice is to be done in this matter, the federal court should overturn this ridiculous and un-American ruling, appoint a court-master to oversee state elections, hold Kobach in contempt of court and slap his sorry self into a prison cell. Kansas has a dillusional governor who refuses to acknowledge the damaging effects his tax cuts are having on the state's well-being, a legislature content with making war on elementary, secondary and higher education, and state elections officials content in denying the most basic of democratic freedoms to thousands of citizens. Indeed, something is rotten in Kansas. And those responsible for the current sorry state of affairs are working overtime to fix the voting process before the voters have a chance to replace them with new, common-sense leadership. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 26 -- Step Back America July 10, 2016 x= If the Kennedy assassination occurred in 2016 instead of 1963, it is very likely that there would be significantly less speculation as to who shot the president. Back in 1963, Abraham Zapruder was the only person with a camera at the right place and time to document the shooting, itself. But his camera wasn't focused on the Texas School Book Depository or the infamous grassy knoll. Today, practically everyone on the motorcade route would have been in possession of a phone/camera, significantly increasing the odds that someone would have provided definitive proof of what actually happened in Dealy Plaza. Omnipresent cameras have dramatically altered our perceptions of reality. The Rodney King incident in 1992 was one of the first times that millions of people got to see an unfiltered view of police work - and they didn't like what they saw. But that was just a taste of today, where practically everyone has a phone that doubles as camera. The Michael Brown shooting in St. Louis in 2014 was just one of a wave of citizen-documented confrontations that ended in the death of someone at the hands of police. Most police use-of-force situations are justified and dictated by well-established policies. Clearly, some of them are not. Two questionable and camera-documented police shootings this week resulted in nationwide protests against police violence. They also were used as an excuse by a deranged sniper to killed five Dallas police officers and wound seven other officers and two civilians. Ironically, the Dallas police were in the process of protecting the rights of citizens to protest against the police when ambush occurred. Thanks to technology, we are all able to bear witness to events as they unfold. This is known as citizen-journalism, where the citizens, themselves, provide content. However, it is the lack of context that often differentiates the citizen-journalist from the professional journalist. Journalism is about more than providing raw, unedited images taken from one perspective. It is about gathering facts and images from a wide range of perspectives and placing them into a meaningful context. That is why journalists are unpopular to so many - people do not like it when that meaningful context conflicts with that they believe - or want to believe - is the truth. There is no way any video of a police officer shooting another human being is going to look good. Nor should it, less it becomes commonplace. However, appropriate context should always be sought before a rush to judgment. Make no mistake, the last thing the America people want are hair-trigger cops. But that works both ways. The police deserve and should expect time to assemble and disseminate all pertinent facts before people take to the streets and ratchet-up tensions through ill-conceived civil disobedience designed to place the people and the police in direct confrontation. I don't like what I have seen. It is clear that police need to be proactive in bridging the widening gap between themselves and the people they are sworn to protect. But it has to work both ways if it is to work at all. Ironically, Dallas police had become a model of community outreach, only to become the victims of a maniac in the night. Dallas is a cautionary example of what can happen when people forget that true communication does not take place without a willingness to listen to what the other person says. This is true regardless of whether one wears blue or does not. Step back America and take a deep breath. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 25 -- Verbal Gymnastics July 6, 2016 x= Is it possible that Hillary Clinton is a little bit pregnant? No, it is not. Pregnancy is a binary condition - either you are or you are not. So is violating the Espionage Act - either you have or you haven't. FBI Director - and America's foremost linguistic gymnast - James Comey yesterday said - and this is an exact quote - that "there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes involving the handling of classified information." In the same sentence, Comey completed a Mary Lou Rettonesque verbal somersault by concluding "our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." That must come as news to the Martha Stewart, who was sent to prison for less in her insider trading case. Clinton apologists can't say the difference between the two is that Stewart lied to authorities and Clinton did not. The first half of Comer's statement dealt with the technical wizardry FBI forensic specialists engaged in to recover e-mails that Clinton's cronies thought they had - in violation of government records laws - deleted. And even if she didn't lie to the FBI - and that's a big "if" - there is absolutely positively no doubt that she has been lying to the American people for the past 18 months. If she wasn't lying, then why did her story constantly change? Comer went to great pains to explain that even unintentional release of classified information is a crime. "There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation," he said. Comer said there is no clear precedent for prosecuting someone under these circumstances. How could there be? When was the last time a presumptive presidential nominee of either major party was under criminal investigation during his or her campaign? However, there are volumes of precedents for indicting individuals for even less evidence. I think James Comey is the basketball referee who is unwilling to blow the whistle at the end of the game out of fear that he will decide the outcome. This announcement came just days after former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch conducted  - in their own words - an improper meeting on a airport tarmac. It also came just hours - yes, hours - after the former Secretary of State was interrogated by FBI agents. Talk about a rush to judgment. Even Yellow Dog Democrats admit that the optics in this case stink. However, there is still time to restore public faith in the FBI and the Justice Department - both of which have history of political expediency under both Republican and Democrat administrations. Secretary Clinton should be judged by a panel of her peers. At the very least, let a grand jury of her fellow Americans sit in judgment of what Comer called "extremely careless... handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." And let's not forget that Comer also said, "To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions." But then, in another semantic back flip, the FBI director said, "But that is not what we are deciding now." Excuse me. By taking no action - not even recommending the functional equivalent of a slap on the wrist for Clinton's criminal and dangerous disregard of her duties - that is exactly what he is doing. By narrowly defining his responsibility to uphold the law, James Comer has given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States - including one Donald J. Trump. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 24 -- The Lost Spirit of '76 July 3, 2016 x= Independence Day 2016 marks the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It is also the 40th anniversary of the nation's bicentennial celebration. Gerald Ford was president at the time, facing an electoral challenge from former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. In 1976, not only did the nation want to celebrate, it needed to celebrate. The country had been through more than a decade of trauma, including the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam war and Watergate. The nation's 200th birthday offered an opportunity for Americans to forget their recent miseries and focus on the history and values that made our nation the envy of the world. Much of the day was spent watching celebrations around the country live on television. There were tall ships in New York harbor, a concert featuring the Boston Pops Orchestra orchestra with Arthur Fielder, and, of course, fireworks. Everyone has his or her own memories of that day. My bicentennial memory centers on pickles. Yes, pickles. Jan and I had been married for less than a year and were living in a small garage-top apartment in Milledgeville, Georgia. The temperature on July 4, 1976, in middle Georgia was near 100 - somehow making it a perfect day to pickle cucumbers. Did I mention that the apartment wasn't air conditioned? The pickling and canning process - involving boiling water which, in turn makes steam - turned our little apartment into a sauna. I had never been so hot in my life - neither before or after. However, they were the best pickles I had ever tasted and the sweet memory of our first Fourth as a married couple has long outlasted any discomfort of the day. I'd like to think that America's 240th birthday would be a joyous as our 200th. However, that is not the case. The nation is bitterly divided and has been for at least two decades. Unlike 1976, when two basically good men vied for the presidency, this year's general election will feature what the polls have documented as the two most distrusted and disliked major party nominees in history. Perhaps I am waxing nostalgic, remembering the good and conveniently forgetting the bad. But we seemed more united in purpose and spirit then than now. We have lost the spirit of '76 and neither path we choose this November appears likely to reclaim it, either. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 23 -- Brownback's Ponzi Scheme June 23, 2016 x= According to Investopedia, which describes itself as "the largest financial education website in the world," a Ponzi scheme is defined as "a fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return with little risk to investors. The Ponzi scheme generates returns for older investors by acquiring new investors. This scam actually yields the promised returns to earlier investors, as long as there are more new investors. These schemes usually collapse on themselves when the new investments stop." Do you know what that sounds like? Try Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's approach to budgeting. With the end of the fiscal year just eight days away and the state's bank accounts depleted, Sam the Sham yesterday convinced the State Finance Council to "temporarily" borrow $900 million dollars from future state spending to fill the budget gap. He also moved to delay payments to schools, prisons, and the state highway transportation fund to shore up the state's faltering budget. In a rare act of candor, Senate President Susan Wagel (R-Wichita) said the Governor's move was like "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic." But just in case you are wondering if the Senate president had finally discovered that Brownback is really the Wizard of Oz and that we should pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, think again. The Wicked Witch of the West quickly destroyed that notion by saying the answer was to make further cuts in an already butchered state budget. One can understand why she feels the way she does. Wagel is 63, meaning she likely will no longer be in the legislature in 20 years when the state's failure to take care of its children's education, the public's health and the state's economic infrastructure makes this state the Mississippi of the Midwest. (I have nothing against Mississippi, per se. However, that state's short-sighted leadership has placed the state at or near the bottom of most quality of life indicators.) As I write this, Kansas legislators are returning to Topeka for a special session to solve a self-inflicted financial crisis involving the schools. The state Supreme Court, having run out of patience with lawmakers, has given them until July 1 to come up with the constitutionally defensible plan for funding public schools. Not surprisingly, the answer for some of these so-called leaders is to fix the Supreme Court by limiting its powers rather than fix the real problem, the state's failing schools. At a time the world sees the dysfunction of Congress of the United States in full flower - as I write this, House Democrats are staging a sit-in to force a vote on gun control legislation - a look at state government in Kansas evokes a even greater level of disgust. A great nation and a great state should not conduct business through the use of blue smoke and mirrors. And why do magicians use blue smoke and mirrors? They do it to create a diversion to cover what's really going on. One hopes that the voters see through these diversions in November and return sanity to this state's governance. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 22 -- We've Seen This Before June 14, 2016 x= A lone gunman with an agenda known only to himself guns down 49 innocent and unsuspecting victims. The American people are stunned and left to wonder why such horror had been visited upon them. Sounds familiar? Most people will immediately think about last weekend's massacre at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. However, people of a certain age will remember that it was 50 summers ago - August 1, 1966 - that we first experienced the unsettling and mind-numbing shock that follows a mass murder. On that day, we learned that the new face of evil was an otherwise clean-cut engineering student named Charles Whitman. For reasons known only to himself, Whitman killed his wife and mother in his home and climbed to the observation deck on what is known as the Texas Tower on the University of Texas campus. Armed with several weapons, including a high-powered rife and 700 rounds of ammunition, Whitman started shooting unsuspecting people from his perch 27 stories above Austin. By the time police at great risk ended the carnage by killing Whitman, the deranged gunman had shot 49 people, killing 16 of them. At the time, the Texas Tower Massacre did not generate a public debate over gun control. That is probably because the weapons Whitman possessed were rather ordinary, much like guns a hunter or someone at target practice on a gun range might use. Another reason a gun debate did not follow was because everyone thought that Charles Whitman was an aberration. Surely, this sort of thing couldn't happen again. But it has - over and over and over and over again. In a sickening cycle of rage and carnage, the same horrific headlines about senseless slaughter keep landing on our doorsteps. But unlike 50 summers ago, the weapons of mass murder are more sophisticated and deadly. No one uses a semi-automatic assault rifle to hunt deer. That weapon is used to hunt people. Yet efforts to curtail the use of assault rifles and high volume ammunition magazines are repeatedly crushed by so-called Second Amendment advocates. No one argues a citizen's right to bear arms. But should they have the right to have weapons of mass destruction - something the Founders could not have imagined two centuries ago? It is both sad and shocking that after the slaughter of small children in Newtown, Connecticut, that we, as a people, could not come to a solution that would protect Second Amendment rights and help us preserve the most basic of human rights - the right to live. Instead, our response was to make it easier to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. Hello?  Remember Charles Whitman? Until we as a people - including our brothers and sisters who see any reasonable restriction on gun sales as an assault on the Second Amendment - come to a compromise that will, at the very least, make it difficult to obtain these weapons of mass destruction, we will continue to relive the horror we first witnessed in 1966. For those who believe in American exceptionalism - including a certain loudmouth candidate for President of the United States - how can we make such a claim when we permit this kind of senseless slaughter to continue? Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 21 -- Pick Your Poison June 11, 2016 x= Is this really the best America can do? Hillary Rotweiler Clinton versus Donald "J for Jackass" Trump in 2016 has as much appeal as picking sides in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. We have never seen a general election match-up between two candidates with such a low level of public approval and such a high level of conceit. The selection of the next President of the United States has been reduced to picking the lesser of two evils. The Democrats are going to nominate Ms. Clinton, who first rode into the public office on the coat tails of her husband's infidelity. She had a particularly undistinguished run as Secretary of State. If I were running against her, the first thing I'd do is resurrect her famous 2008 attack against then-Senator Obama. "It's three o'clock in the morning," the spot would start. "The telephone rings. It's Benghazi on the line. But Secretary Clinton is too busy deleting e-mails from her illegal server to take the call." (OK - Even I know that's a bit over the top.) And what can you say about Donald Trump? It is as if we are watching the filming of "Death Wish VI," with Trump playing the role of architect-vigilante Paul Kersey on a mission to kill the Republican Party.  This election is so screwed up that a poll released today shows Clinton leading Trump in decidedly Red State Kansas.  The real danger is that a low voter turnout might swing the election. At first blush, that would seem to favor Trump because he has been attracting voters to the polls who, in the past, have sat out elections.  However, the real wild cards are the Libertarian and Green Party candidates. I suspect that many people are thinking of casting their vote for these marginal candidates as an alternative to voting for two mainstream party nominees they detest. While it is unlikely that Gary Johnson (L) or Jill Stein (G) will carry any states, they may play the same spoiler role as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader did in past elections. We are five months from voting and America is already sick of this campaign.  And who wouldn't be, when the election of the next president comes down to three words: Pick your poison? Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 20 -- Don't Ask, Please Flush May 27, 2016 x= Donald Shaw, my former academic adviser at the University of North Carolina, is a co-author of what is known as the Agenda-Setting Hypothesis. Simply put, the media do not tell us what to think, but they tell us what to think about. In other words, the media sets the agenda. That is why politicians, corporations and your local fund-raising charity spend so much time courting the attention of journalists. We are seeing this process at work in the current debate over transsexuals' access to the bathrooms of their choice. The issue first got a lot of attention when the North Carolina legislature felt compelled to raise an issue that very few people neither thought nor cared about. In compelling transgenders to use the potty indicated on their birth certificates, the Tarheel Toilet Brigade raised a national stink. Next thing you know, the Obama administration doubled down and said local school systems will have to respect transgender choices or face a cutoff of federal funding. That, in turn, brought out the indignation of conservative politicians across the land, including the dim-witted speaker of the Kansas house and the original Wicked Witch of the West, the president of the Kansas Senate. Now they want to join in the potty patrol, as well.  That is why transgender politics are at the top of the American agenda. Much more important issues, such a congressional funding of Zika virus prevention, have been shoved to the back burner. Why you may ask? The answer is politics. The republicans and democrats have the same problem, the most unpopular presidential nominees in American history. For Hillary and Donald, each other's best chance of election is the electorate's hate for the other. Transgender bathroom access is what is known as a "wedge issue" - not to be confused with a "wedgie issue." By placing such a polarizing issue at the head of the American agenda, each party is hoping to invigorate an otherwise apathetic base. Success in November's election will be determined by each party's ability to get its base voters out to the polls. George W. Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2012 played this game very well and won elections they might otherwise have lost. So that is why American politics have gone in the toilet. Bill Clinton tried to skirt the gays in the military issue with his infamous "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Perhaps the resolution to the current contrived crisis is a new policy: "Don't ask, please flush." Let's move on to more substantive and less crappy issues. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 19 -- Regrets? Yes. Apology? No. May 23, 2016 x= President Obama will travel to Hiroshima, Japan, this week. His visit to the first city to suffer the consequences of a nuclear attack is part of an effort to stress the strong ties that exist today between the United States and its World War II adversary. The President will talk about the importance of maintaining a strong relationship with what has become one of this nation's strongest allies.  This is especially important in light of an increasing Chinese military build-up. Obama may even express regret about the carnage that came out of the war - especially to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  However, he will not apologize for America's use of atomic bombs in 1945. Nor should he. There have been countless attempts at revising history - especially among the Japanese. That narrative claims that the Japanese had already been beaten and were near surrender when President Truman ordered the use of the weapon. They say that the atomic bombings were more about impressing the Russians than beating the enemy. The preponderance of evidence suggests otherwise. The Japanese military was running the show and its leaders were showing no sign of giving up.  They believed that the carnage from an invasion of the home islands would be more than the Americans could stomach. Perhaps they were correct - but that's not the point. The United States had created a swift and certain means to put an end to a brutal regime that had waged a war of aggression, first against China and then against the United States. The Japanese conduct during the war - rape, torture, beheadings and forced starvation - is well documented. We were engaged in total war. Any action to bring it to a swift conclusion was ethically justified. An invasion of Japan would have resulted in a million American causalities and many times more among the Japanese. Any conclusion short of a complete capitulation by the Japanese would, in an of itself, have been immoral. After all, this was a racially motivated war of aggression that Japan launched against China and the rest of southeast Asia. Japan had allied itself with Hitler and Mussolini. Nothing less than the future of western civilization was a stake. America's current adversaries, particularly Iran and Russia, are quick to note that the United States is the only nation to use nuclear weapons during war. While that's true, they neglect to mention that it helped to bring a swift and just end to a conflict that claimed 73 million lives. That's a legacy one should embrace. It does not require an apology. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 18 -- Robin Hoods In Reverse May 19, 2016 x= What is the job of government? It is to protect its citizens, to see that they are properly educated, to build and maintain the public infrastructure and to provide for the general welfare of the people.  Except in Kansas, where the primary purpose of the government has been redefined.  Here in Kansas, we take from the poor and give to the rich - Robin Hood in reverse.  The conservative zealots who run this state try to deny citizens their most basic democratic right to vote in the name of ballot security. They place the most vulnerable under humiliating conditions for receiving public assistance. And they claim to be Christians. Yesterday, Governor Sam Brownback, hypocrite in chief, signed onto to $97 million in budget cuts to fill a gap he and his fellow zealots created. Were the cuts evenly spread throughout state government? Of course not. He targeted higher education, Medicaid and the state highway fund. I'm sure he would have taken money from widows and orphans if he could have found a line item associated with them. And here's the rub: Brownback took funds from colleges, universities and community colleges - institutions that are absolutely essential to economic growth. He took money from the highway fund, another key element in economic growth. Face it, Brownie: Economic growth occurs when you have a well-educated workforce and a well-maintained infrastructure. Sam the Sham had a chance to soften the blow through a line item veto of a measure that specifically targeted the University of Kansas and Kansas State University for higher cuts than other educational institutions. Instead, he bought into the ludicrous assumption that the state's two largest universities should be punished for raising research funds that smaller schools can't. This logic ignores the fact that research universities actually contribute to the state's economic growth. Let's not forget that Brownback is refusing to accept federal dollars for Medicare because of his opposition to Obamacare. Nor should we forget that Brownback had to make these cuts because our spineless legislators for a second straight year failed to comply with their constitutional responsibility to pass a balanced budget. They were neither willing to make politically damaging cuts to state services or to admit they had gone too far in 2012 in cutting state taxes. That act of cowardice, alone, should disqualify state lawmakers from standing for office this November.  They are also the ones who passed Brownback's tax cuts for the wealthy in a sad and sick adherence to the disproved theory of supply-side economics. However, these same lawmakers will be back on the ballot this fall, singing empty phrases of how they champion the "little guy." If you are an alumnus of KU or KSU;  if your employment/business relies on an educated workforce and a sound state infrastructure; if you believe in equal opportunity and democracy; or if you are a compassionate human being who understands that helping the less fortunate is consistent with leading a moral and religious life; you know what you need to do. Come November, send these Robin Hoods in Reverse packing and return sanity to the governing of Brownbackistan. If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 17 -- The "R" Word May 15, 2016 x= When does one know when to retire? Does the fact one even raises the prospect of stepping away from the day-to-day workday grind suggest that time is at hand? It has certainly been a subject on my mind. Several colleagues have either retired or have indicated that they have a timetable for retirement. The fact that I am ending my 25th year at the University of Kansas serves as a reminder that I have been here a long time. I arrived in Lawrence in my late 30's. While getting a 30-year service pin is not out of the question, a 40-year pin is highly unlikely. When people ask me about retirement - and they do, you know - I have told them I want to continue working as long as I am in good health and still have the motivation to do the job well. When it comes to my health, I am trying to take better care of myself these days. Whether its enough to make up for decades of bad habits is anyone's guess. Fortunately, the only drug I abused was Coke - Diet Coke, to be exact. It turns out that just because a product has the word "Diet" attached to its name doesn't necessarily make it good for you. The greatest challenge I face involves the second part of the retirement equation, my drive. I've always been one to set career goals. Many times I have achieved them. Sometimes I have not. But on those occasions where I have fallen short, I have been able to keep the spark inside me alive by setting off after new challenges. However, as I get older, it is harder to keep that old pilot light lit. I can't help but wonder if I haven't already passed into the realm of diminishing returns. Self-doubt, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It has been my experience that people set themselves up for a fall when they get too cocky and start believing their own hyperbole. There's nothing like a little humility and insecurity to keep folks in bounds. However, when you reach your 60's, it is also natural to question whether you have enough left in the tank to set and achieve new goals. Will the effort be worth it? You wonder if you can still make a difference. And in those few dark moments that may creep into one's consciousness just before falling to sleep, you may even wonder if you have made any different at all.  I suspect that millions of Baby Boomers share these same thoughts as they transition into a new -- and final -- phase of their lives. I think I will have what it takes when the curtain rises on another school year in August.  But I don't know how many more years that will hold true. I hope that I have enough self-awareness to not linger on the stage too long. When my career ends, as it inevitably must, I want to be able to say that I left on my own terms. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 16 -- The Lure of Lawrence May 6, 2016 x= This week marks the end of my 25th year on the faculty of the University of Kansas. I received a service pin on Wednesday to prove it. Naturally, I've spent some time thinking about August 1991 when my family and I moved to Lawrence from North Carolina. I liked my 13 years in Carolina, but this place snack-dab in the middle of America has become my true home. It's really the first place where I've really felt at home since I left my native Maryland in 1974. I like the university, my colleagues, the students and my fellow Lawrencians. Not everyone "gets" Lawrence. It is not unusual for a town home to any leading university to be a bit off-kilter with the rest of the state. Certainly, the high concentration of well-educated individuals has something to do with it. But that, alone, doesn't explain the lure of Lawrence. Because of the nature of academia, a large percentage of the faculty and students living in Lawrence came here from somewhere else, bringing new ideas and different perspectives with them. That, in turn, results in a perpetual revival of the community. The fact that Lawrence was settled as an anti-slavery outpost in what became known as Bleeding Kansas has imprinted a sense of moral superiority in the community's DNA. And before one scoffs at the notion of this community's sense of social justice, one must remember that Lawrence's convictions were forged by the fires of atrocities committed by pro-slavery forces in 1856 and again in 1863. Sure, there are times that this town takes itself far too seriously. And sometimes the local political climate can be downright chilly if you are not a liberal Democrat. Still, there is some solace in knowing that Lawrence is one place in Kansas where the people are not willing to rubber-stamp the increasingly oppressive, regressive and bigoted policies emanating from Topeka. Many in the state call KU - situated on high ground known locally as Mount Oread - "Snob Hill." Sometimes, the inability to understand the Lawrence psychographic leads to jealousy and hostility. That includes state lawmakers, who recently approved budget provisions designed to punish the university for creatively working with the private sector to fund construction in the school's new Central District. (See Vol. 10, No. 6). The creation of a public-private partnership to fund construction - the very thing those same legislators claim to favor - was blocked in a mindless act of spite. Despite the hostility/jealousy coming from outside of  Douglas County, the facts are undeniable. Lawrence is frequently cited in lists of the nation's best small cities, best college towns, best local music scenes and best places for retirees. The city's new downtown library has received national recognition from librarians and architects alike. Among the notables who have called Lawrence home are Phog Allen, Erin Brockovich, William S. Burroughs, Wilt Chamberlain, Bob Dole, Ralph Houk, Langston Hughes, Bill James, Alf Landon, James Naismith, Sara Paretsky, Jim Ryun and Jim Thorpe.  In short, Lawrence is a really cool town to call home. And that I do. Twenty-five years after my family and I pulled up our roots to come to this special place, I know that doing so was one of the best decisions of my life. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 15 -- Living in a Bizzaro World April 29, 2016 x= When I was just a lad, I like to read what today are known as graphic novels. Heck, they were comic books. And the best of the lot was Superman. How could you not be a fan of the Man of Steel? After all, he was faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive and -- well, you know the rest.  And when you are the toughest dude this side of Krypton, one can just imagine how tough it was for the writers to come up with a new challenge every issue. Perhaps the most unusual - dare it say bizarre? - villain that Superman faced was Bizzaro, a sort of anti-Superman.  He had all the powers that our hero had and even wore the same blue tights and red cape. However, he was backwards, evil and butt-ugly. And his world was a lot like ours, except it was, well, backwards, evil and butt-ugly. I mention Bizzaro because it has occurred to me that we have somehow slipped into his dimension. How else can you explain the 2016 presidential campaign? How else can you explain how someone who is Don Rickle's evil twin could be the nominee of the Republican Party?  How is it that one of the Koch brothers may actually vote for Hillary Clinton? Does it make any sense that the two candidates most likely to face each other in the fall election are disliked and distrusted by a majority of voters? In fact, 40 percent of the voters in Trump's and Clinton's parties told the Gallup Poll that they would consider voting for the nominee of the other party. About a year ago, it was assumed that Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker would be battling it out for the nomination. Now, the only place you will find them is on the side of milk cartons. And how is it that Bernie Sanders, an aging wack-job socialist with hair almost as bad as Trump's, has become the darling of American youth?  I tell you, there must have been a disturbance in The Force. Perhaps there was a rip in the space-time continuum. Whatever it is, we have surely slipped into a Bizzaro Universe. Need more proof? The Chicago Cubs are favored to win this year's World Series. I rest my case. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 14 -- What Would Jesus Do? April 14, 2016 x= "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  That 36-word sentence taken from the Declaration of Independence is the moral justification for the creation of the United States of America. I invite every self-professed Christian conservative to read that document. After a thorough search of its text, nowhere did I find the phrase that said "except in North Carolina." I also invite those people to read the Constitution of the United States. It may surprise them to learn that the words Christian and Christ are nowhere to be found within that document. The United States of America is not a Christian nation. Nor is it Jewish, Muslim, Mormon nor, for that matter, atheist. However, it is an nation that guarantees religious freedom - and not just one particular view of it. There are so-called "religious freedom" bills propagating around the country in the same manner of a malignant cancer. This kind of legislation is not intended to preserve anyone's religious freedom. It is  designed to legalize discrimination and bigotry. As I have said in this space before, I do not understand nor to I desire to be either homosexual, bisexual or transsexual. Those lifestyles conflict with my own moral code. However, that same moral code recognizes that one, I do not have all the answers; two, that we live in a free society where people are allowed to make their own life choices; and three, that as long as someone's behavior does not create tangible harm to me or for the exercise of my own rights, that I don't really care what they do. I do care when others choose to systematically discriminate against people who are doing no harm and do so in my name. As a former resident of North Carolina, I am shocked and sickened by the recent behavior of its governor and legislature. (Frankly, I feel the same way about the governor and lawmakers here in Kansas.) Let me ask all champions of this 21st century bigotry one question: What would Jesus do? I'm certain that he would be saddened by your actions, as am I. However, he would forgive you for your sins. I will not. Xrs That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 13 -- We Get What We Deserve April 8, 2016 x= I have a friend and colleague who often reminds people that "democracy is messy." It is the consequence of giving people a voice in deciding whom they trust to lead. We'd like to think that we get to choose between a Lincoln and a Douglas, a Kennedy or a Nixon, and even a Carter or a Reagan. Unfortunately, our choices this election year are between a Trump or a Cruz and a Clinton or a Sanders. That's the equivalent of once having the pick from a fleet of luxury cars and now having to settle for the last used car on the lot. How is it possible that out of a nation a of 323 million people, we have come up with this sorry cast of characters as our final four candidates for the presidency? I suspect we have to look in a mirror to find the real culprits. We get what we deserve. When we ignore long-term implications in favor of short-term gains, we get a Sam Brownback as governor. Sam the Sham gave us tax cuts. To be more accurate, he gave those among us in the best position to pay taxes - and the ones who benefit the most from the services provided by those taxes - the biggest tax break. And what did we really get? How about one of the worst state economies in the country? And what about a system of elementary, secondary and higher education in decline? What's going to happen to the state's transportation infrastructure if the legislature keeps raiding highway funds to plug holes in a leaky budget? This is what happens when we elect people with pockets full of empty promises and no real vision for the future. We say that we are disappointed in our elected officials. But that can't be possible, considering that we had such low expectations for them in the first place. The exception to that rule is Barack Obama, for whom too many people had unrealistic expectations when he was first elected in 2008. We vote for people who say they will "stick to their guns" and are unwilling to compromise. We do so forgetting the lessons we learned in grade school; that democracy is a process of bargaining, negotiation and compromise. That's why we keep voting for a Huey Long and wind up disappointed that we didn't elect an Abe Lincoln. Do you really want change? Do you really want to end the gridlock that is undermining America's moral leadership? Then start changing your vote. Ninety percent of House members and 91 percent of senators who sought re-election in 2012 were successful, exceeding the incumbent re-election rates of 2010, when 85 percent of House members and 84 percent of senators seeking re-election were successful. Keep in mind that these results came at a time when the public approval rating of these same officials barely hovered above single digits. That is and of itself the classic definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and hoping to get a different result. Before you next go to the polls, look and yourself in the mirror, promise to do better and then reelect no one. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 12 -- Coming Up Short March 28, 2016 x= When the college basketball season opened last November, there were 351 teams competing in NCAA Division I men's basketball. Three weeks ago, only 68 of those teams were selected for the national championship tournament. Today, there are only four teams left alive in the hunt for the title. One of those teams is Syracuse, a team many observers said should not have received a bid to the tournament. One of the teams eliminated during the competition was Kansas, considered by many as a lock for the Final Four. It is this unpredictability that has earned the tournament the popular moniker "March Madness." It is also a reminder of how rare and fleeting success can be. It was a bit gloomy today in Lawrence, Kansas. Today was the first day of classes following Saturday's heartbreaking loss in the regional final to Villanova. Many students, staff and faculty were consumed by the thought of what might have been. A sense of euphoria that had been building for weeks - no, for months - came crashing down in the face of a cold, heartless reality: Our team was good, but this year, not good enough. Does one loss make an entire season a failure? In the immediate aftermath of a BIG LOSS, it may seem so. However, if we adopt the philosophy that only one of 351 teams - the one that wins the title - can consider the season a success, then we set ourselves up for a near-constant state of failure. It is on days like today that I remember the advice of a friend of mine.  Mike Swenson, president of the Kansas City public relations firm Crossroads. He has been a guest lecturer in dozens of my classes over the past 25 years. One of the recurring themes Mike has stressed through the years is the importance of celebrating success. To paraphrase, him, life can't be just about the quest. There also has to be times when we pause to reflect on the sweet victories we enjoy -- even when they seem fleeting. Otherwise, we choose to define ourselves by our failures. And should coming up short of one's ultimate goal automatically be classified as failure? How "horrible" can a team like Kansas be when it has won 12 consecutive conference titles? I am reminded of what the late University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith once said: "If you treat every game as if it were a life and death situation, you will be dead lot." Smith's and Swenson's advice is sound - and not just for basketball. I fear that too many of us - your author included - may forget that it is not just about the destination. The journey, itself, also matters. This does not mean that we should be satisfied with failures. We should learn from them. But it also means that we should accept our successes with the same measure of emotion with which we embrace failure. There should be joy in living - win or lose. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 11 -- Precious Glory March 19, 2016 x= I have recently returned from a trip to Maryland, the state in which I was born and reared. The purpose for my visit was to make two presentations that focused on my book about the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The first presentation came at an engineering colloquium at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. The second was a luncheon brown bag session with employees of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. It was a tremendous honor to have been invited to speak at both gatherings. However, the most memorable moment of the trip came as a result of social media. I posted images and comments on my Facebook site when I arrived at my nephew's home on the Eastern Shore. It was on Facebook that I received a post from a childhood friend, Klaus Liebig. Klaus and his family emigrated to the United States from Germany in the late 1950s. He had been part of a core group of friends I had associated with in elementary school. We had been in school together from the first through eighth grades. I had not seen him in 50 years. In his Facebook message, he invited me to come by his business, which was no more than two minutes away from where I was staying. When I walked into the store, it was almost as if we were resuming a conversation begun only a day earlier. Reuniting with Klaus was thrill. However, another surprise awaited. I posted a picture of the two of us on Facebook - and it drew a social media response from Gilbert Caldwell. For regular readers of this blog, he was the subject of a February 16, 2013, post (Volume 7, Number 10). He was the first black person I met at the recently integrated St. Michaels Junior High School in 1964. Although I knew him for only a couple of years before I transferred to another school, he had a great impact on my views concerning persons of color. In that post, I had wondered what happened to him and whether I had done right by a young man at the epicenter of social change. We exchanged Facebook greetings and many of my questions were answered. For me, that was another special moment that made the trip memorable. My connections with Klaus and Gilbert were joyful moments - even if for no other reason than the three of us had successfully navigated our own paths through the trials and tribulations of an often-tumultuous half-century. In a way, we are survivors; not in a heroic sense, but in a spiritual manner. As I get older, it is heartening to greet longtime friends and acquaintances and to know that after a lifetime's journey, we are still here. While I am still focused on my future, the weekend journey to Eastern Shore also served as a reminder of the precious glory found in everyone's past. We have survived. We are still here. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 10 -- Apple versus DOJ March 4, 2016 x= The challenge - and the beauty - of the U.S. Constitution is that a document written in the 18th century remains relevant in responding to the challenges of the 21st century. The battle between computer giant Apple and the U.S. Justice Department is all about constitutional rights - specifically our First Amendment rights to free speech and our Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. The DOJ wants Apple to unlock the I-Phone used by one of the San Bernadino gunman. The evidence clearly shows this was an ISIS-inspired attack and the federal government wants to know if others were engaged in and are planning another act of terrorism. Apple's CEO is challenging a court order to assist the FBI out of an expressed fear that helping the government would make it easier for the government to invade the privacy of its customers. I respect Tim Cook's position. And my bono fides on the subject of the First Amendment are well known. However, after weeks of careful deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that Tim Cook is fighting the wrong battle for the wrong reasons. One can't claim a Fourth Amendment violation. Wanting to know who a terrorist had talked to prior to his killing spree is not unreasonable. There is probable cause for the FBI's search warrant. And the Supreme Court has ruled on numerous occasions that criminal communications are not protected speech. Cook's assertion that complying with the court order will open a Pandora's box is not totally unjustified. I certainly don't want the government reading my e-mails and listening in on my conversations. However, I also understand that democracy cannot work unless we give some level of trust to its institutions. By definition, the courts are the designated arbiters of constitutional disputes. Judges exist to handle disputes such as this and address them on a case-by-case basis. Yes, Cook has the right to appeal the lower court's ruling. However, I am confident that the government position in this case will prevail. All Cook and Apple have done is to delay the inevitable and allow the trail of the terrorist to grow cold. I am of the opinion that Apple's stance is less about defending free expression than it is an attempt by Cook to step out of the shadow of his legendary predecessor Steve Jobs. As noted earlier, I am a staunch defender of the First Amendment. I have also made it known in this space my belief that the Second Amendment doesn't give gun owners and manufacturers free reign over the rights of others. Here's the point: How can one vigorously argue that there are limits to the Second Amendment without acknowledging limits to other sections of the Bill of Rights, including the First and Fourth Amendments? I believe that Tim Cook's actions have been unnecessary, insincere and have given aid and comfort to terrorists who want to harm the very people Cook says he is trying to protect. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 9-- Kansas Caucus Ruckus March 1, 2016 x= Today is unofficially Super Tuesday - the day many pundits say the race for the Democrat and Republican presidential nomination may be decided. Of lesser national prominence are the Kansas caucuses this coming Saturday. Yet the political discussion in the Sunflower State seems to be less about the race for the White House than it is about the timing the Democrat caucus, which it set to begin at the same hour the Kansas Jayhawks play their final home game of the season. Some Democrats are protesting ESPN's decision to move the game to a 3:00 p.m. starting time. The rich irony is that this seems to be the only issue that has spurred Democrat passions this entire election season. One needs only to compare voter turnout in other primaries and caucuses to see that Republicans are more engaged in the 2016 campaign than their Democrat counterparts. As for me, I don't really care. First, I am a registered independent - I don't have a dog in this fight. And as I explained in my most recent post, there's not a snowball chance in hades that I am going to change that registration just to seen Hillary Clinton steamroll past Bernie Sanders. Actually, I am fundamentally against caucuses. We used to have presidential primaries in this state. But under the excuses of low-voter turnout and high costs, the legislature opted to go the caucus route. Frankly, that decision ticks me off. What is more important to the maintenance of democratic values than the manner in which we choose our leaders? Yet, primary elections have been lumped in with other social priorities the legislature has under-funded, such as education, infrastructure, the environment, public safety and the judicial system. The caucus system is also a clever means to discourage voter turnout, thus giving the advantage to candidates who are well-funded and organized. Our so-called leaders have been more interested in protecting their privileged status and giving tax breaks to those who neither need or deserve them. So, am I upset that the Democrat caucus is in direct competition with the Jayhawks (and, as it turns out, with Kansas State's Saturday game as well)? No. Like most Kansans, my attention will be focused on basketball - a place where there is true passion and the outcome isn't predetermined. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 8 -- A Call From Bernie February 25, 2016 x= I dread every time my land-line connected house phone rings. Nine times out of 10, the caller is a telemarketer intent on selling me something I don't need. However, the nature of the intrusive callers changes during election season. Then the calls are either recorded messages from someone's campaign or a pollster intent on learning what I am thinking. (If the latter was so interested in my opinions, then read this blog and leave me the heck alone!) Yet, I still answer the phone. There are some family members and friends who may not know my cell phone number and, for that reason, I am unwilling to cut the chord. I received an unusual telephone call last night from the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. The caller was a real person, a 60+ professor from another Kansas university. She obviously got my name from the county's roll of independent (unaffiliated) voters. In an calm, rational way seldom heard on the campaign trail, she explained why going to the upcoming Kansas Democratic caucus on March 5 and casting my ballot for Bernie Sanders was the only choice any level-headed voter such as myself has during this train wreck of an election campaign. I politely told her that I am a registered as an independent and, therefore, ineligible to vote in the caucuses. She said I could register as a Democrat at the caucus - a sharp contrast to the Kansas GOP that requires a party registration well in advance of its caucus. I politely explained to the Sanders representative that there are reasons I left the Republican party and chose not to become a Democrat. Amazingly, she respected my decision and didn't try to press the matter. It is the only time I have ever answered a political call and actually enjoyed the conversation. If only more of our political dialectic could be as civil as this telephone call. But, alas, I must leave you now. The phone is ringing. It is probably Carmen from Credit Card Services telling me it is positively my last chance to improve my credit rating - or at least my last chance until she calls back again tomorrow. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 7 -- The Swing Vote February 14, 2016 x= Just when you think that Campaign 2016 couldn't get any more surreal than it already is comes news of the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the cornerstone of the conservative majority. Because he was 79 years old, one can't say that his passing was totally unexpected. But the manner in which he died in his sleep in seemingly good health caught most people unprepared. The announcement of Justice Scalia's death had hardly been absorbed by a shocked nation when the battle over who should replace him began. Scalia was the difference between a conservative and a liberal court. His replacement will be determine whether the court stays to the right or swings left. In his statement memorializing the late jurist, President Obama said he will, at a time of his choosing, nominate Scalia's successor. And of course he should. That is his constitutional responsibility. Republicans believe that Obama should not nominate anyone and leave that decision to whomever the American people choose as their next President. More importantly, they have the power to block a vote on an  Obama nominee. Like it or not, they have the right to do so. That's the system the Founders establish when they wrote the Constitution - a system of checks and balances. The major impact of Scalia's death in a presidential election year is that both Democrats and Republicans will have to negotiate a minefield. The person President Obama nominates could prove to be a plus or minus for Democrats. He or she will certainly become a personification of the kind of court Democrats want and Republicans abhor. And while Republicans will most likely win the battle to block the nomination, they do so at the risk of further cementing their reputation as obstructionists who put politics ahead of people. No one is going to come out of this battle unscathed. President Obama faces a defining moment at a time that most presidents are thinking about legacy. He can try to find someone who ideologically straddles the fence in a serious attempt to win confirmation. Or he can nominate a wedge-issue candidate who will become a lightning rod to the right and martyr to the left - and the central issue on the campaign trail. One thing is for certain, the presidential campaign has been rachetted to a higher level. Not only will the race determine the direction of the country for the next four years, it may determine the direction of the Supreme Court for many years after Obama's successor leaves office. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 6 -- The Know Nothings February 9, 2016 x= There was a political movement in the United States in the 1850s known as the Know Nothings. It was a movement that wanted to purify the nation's political system by ridding it of immigrants and non-Protestants. They also  believed in a host of conspiracy theories about secret attempts by foreign religious leaders to undermine the American way of life. Sound familiar? Yesterday's Know Nothings are today's Kansas Republican Party. Under the leadership - and I use that term loosely - of Governor Sam Brownback, these latter-day Know Nothings have made war on immigrants, education and an imaginary rash of welfare and voter-fraud cases that exist only with in their often-disengaged minds. Another example of the Know-Nothings at work was a decision made by a state senate panel yesterday to push legislation that would block the University of Kansas from issuing $350 million in bonds to develop what is called the KU Central District. These pseudo-fiscally responsible legislators say they are concerned that the state would be on the hook should the something go wrong with KU's plan. Never mind that there are no taxpayer funds involved because the bonds will be issued by a private, non-profit organization, the KU Campus Development Corporation. And forget that the very notion of a creative privatized approach to funding a needed project is based on the very model that these nimrods have supported when it comes to meeting the responsibilities of state government. All the Know Nothings know is that it involves spending money and KU - two things that these silly salons absolutely abhor. These folks are wired to oppose almost anything KU does because the university represents something they hate - education that encourages people to act with an open mind and a social conscience. To the Know Nothings, that is the functional equivalent of sharia (or Islamic) law. Where many others would describe KU's plans as an investment in the future, these Know Nothings see wasteful government spending that could be use to better purpose - such as lining the pockets of the Koch brothers. Their desire to show fiscal responsibility would be commendable if their record didn't demonstrate otherwise. These are the folks who slashed taxes for the rich, creating a gaping budget deficit. Then they tried to make up the difference by raiding the highway fund and funding the state's public schools at levels the state Supreme Court has twice said was constitutionally unacceptable. If the people of Kansas - especially those in western Kansas - were really paying attention to what is going on, they would oust these laggards on their petards in the next election. But that's not going to happen. Unfortunately, these unengaged voters are drinking in the swill served by the so-called Tea Party. And they will continue to do so until they realize that they are tactically underminding their own self-interests. (Of course, they may see their interests as having bad roads, a poorly trained workforce and underfunded state services on which they depend.) As long as Sam the Sham the the Zeros say the sun is shining in Kansas, that's OK with them. It seems that for now, they would much rather know nothing. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 5 -- Iowa February 1, 2016 x= I have been reminded why I follow politics and believe they can be a force for good. The people of Iowa have spoken. Once again, the pundits and the pollsters are scratching their heads at the results of tonight's caucuses. On the Republican side, Senator Ted Cruz won a comfortable victory - or at least as comfortable as it can get in a crowded field. He beat Donald Trump, anointed by pundits as the presumptive nominee. However, he wasn't the only winner. Florida Senator Mario Rubio took a respectable third place, securing his place as the so-called "establishment" candidate. That's important because the coming primary contests will be in states less dominated by the evangelical movement. After his strong showing, Rubio is likely to win the support -- and campaign dollars -- from the followers of the "governors" - Huckabee, Bush, Christie and Kasich - whose campaigns are barely registering a pulse. (Huckabee's has officially flat lined - he has pulled out of the race.) The clear loser is Trump. The vote in Iowa exposed the folly that the power of his charisma and the depth of of his pockets would rule the day. Among the Democrats, there is a clear winner and and a clear loser. As I write this, Hillary Clinton has a narrow lead and the race is too close to call. She appears likely to win a majority of Iowa's delegates - even though under the draconian Iowa caucus rules, she may actually lose the popular vote. However she chooses to spin it, Hillary is the loser. Bernie Sanders' message has struck a chord among a large number of democratic voters who have told pollsters that they just don't trust Clinton. Just like eight years ago, Clinton underestimated her opponent. And while she is still favored to win the Democratic nomination, her path to victory seems less certain and her supporters seem less enthusiastic. How else can you explain polling that shows she trails Sanders among young women, a demographic group one assumes should be thrilled at the prospect of electing a female president? And what will happen if she is indicted for her mishandling of top secret documents on her private (unauthorized and unsecured) e-mail server? That threat will remain until the FBI clears her of wrongdoing. And even then, a large number of Americans, including a large number of swing independent voters, will still not believe her. Hillary and Ted can claim they won the Iowa caucuses. But tonight's real winners are Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders, who defied expectations and have sent a loud and clear message that their fight for their respective nominations have only just begun. Next stop: New Hampshire. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 4 -- Poison January 27, 2016 x= Sometimes government workers get a bum rap. The expectations of the public are often unrealistic. For example, there has been a lot of whining coming from District of Columbia residents about the pace of snow removal following this past weekend's blizzard. It is as if the residents expect all of the streets to be cleared within a single day. The fact is that government employees are working around the clock to accomplish that task, but Mother Nature still holds the upper hand. In a freeze-dried, fast-food, instant gratification world, there are times when the electorate is just too impatient to recognize reality. Sometimes, we need to give government employees some slack.  However, there is a good reason that the people are increasingly disenchanted with job performance in the public sector. Its track record isn't very good and seems to be getting worse. Take a look at what has happened in Flint, Michigan. Government officials anxious to appease voters, looked for ways to cut taxes and reduce costs. In the case of Flint, officials there decided to stop purchasing water from the city of Detroit and to replace it with water pumped from the Flint River, a place that had served as the automobile manufacturing industry's sewer for decades. When this toxic liquid was pumped through the city's ancient water lines, the pipes corroded and leached lead into the city's drinking water. There are few substances that can create as many long-term health effects to humans than lead. And even when the problem was first discovered, the reaction of local and state officials was painfully slow and tragically inadequate. It took more than a year after the first signs of trouble emerged for officials to act. And people can't help but wonder if the slow response is tied to Flint's demographics as a poor, mostly African-American community. Whatever the reason, the delay was unconscionable. Whether benign neglect or criminal stupidity, problems such as those suffered in Flint are why the people tend to give governments little benefit of doubt. It serves as a justification for nut-jobs like Cliven and Ammon Bundy to call themselves patriots when they are, in reality, anarchists. It is also why Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, two men uniquely unqualified to serve as President of the United States, are threatening to topple the establishment of both major political parties. The sad fact is that all of this is rooted in an electorate that sometimes can't see past its next paycheck to understand that government - and the taxes that come with it - can be forces for good. But good can happen only if we provide government with the necessary resources to carry out its mission to serve and protect all of the people. One wonders if the people of Michigan still feel good about all of the money local and state governments have saved by sacrificing a generation of children in Flint. It wasn't just government that failed. It was the government of, by and for the people that failed. In a twisted sort of way, we have poisoned our own way of life - literally and metaphorically. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 3 -- The State of the Union 2016 January 13, 2016 x= President Obama last night delivered his seventh and last State of the Union to a joint session of Congress.  I felt it was one of the better speeches he has given. It is amazing how liberating it must be for the President to know that he has no more campaigns to run. Obama is doing what all of his term-limited predecessors have done - trying to shape his own legacy.  What he attempted to project was same sort of presidency he envisioned when he first ran for office in 2008. He spoke of positive change and about a vision of an America that leads instead of reacts. Of course, there was no way of ignoring the one-thousand-pound elephant in the room, Donald Trump. The current GOP presidential front runner's campaign has been the antithesis of Obama's rhetoric. Obama campaigned for the presidency with a message of hope. Trump's campaign has been been about fear. Much of the President's rhetoric last night was specifically targeted at allaying those fears. While Trump says he wants to make America great again, President Obama reminded us that we are still a great nation. According to the early polls, Americans were very receptive to the President's appeal. It is true, the nation is undergoing fundamental demographic and economic changes. These forces of change were in place long before anyone had ever heard of Barack Obama and they will be in play long after his term ends next year. The difference is that President Obama is urging Americans to embrace change while Donald Trump seeks political advantage by fear-mongering. Interestingly, even Republicans are trying to distance themselves from The Donald's demagoguery. Even South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who gave the Republican response to the State of the Union, tried to distance her party from Trump's hateful rhetoric. And what was Trump's response? Like an impetuous child, he tweeted from his private jet that Obama's speech was "boring." While Obama's and Haley's visions of America certainly have their differences, at least their visions are grounded with basic American values of freedom and justice. That is a sharp contrast to the myopic view of Donald Trump, which often appears to be grounded in the Third Reich. XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 2 -- Empowering Cartels January 11, 2016 x= This past weekend's arrest of Mexican drug cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, which coincided with the publication of his Rolling Stone interview, got me to thinking about the nature of his business. Actor Sean Penn secured an interview with the world's most-wanted fugitive and asked El Chapo a series of insightful questions. One, in particular, stuck with me. When asked who was to blame for the drug trafficing and the associated violence that has claimed thousands of lives in Mexico, Guzman said, "If there was no consumption, there would be no sales. It is true that consumption, day after day, becomes bigger and bigger. So it sells and sells." It's hard to argue with that logic. I am reminded of the very definition of cartel: An association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition. To put it another way, cartels wouldn't exist but for the implicit public support of them. OPEC wouldn't exist without our dependence upon fossil fuels. The same is true for the drug cartel. There's another cartel that is even closer to home to which we have given our tacit approval. It is headed by a highly paid leader who appears to be bullet-proof no matter how ineptly he stumbles in public. His product is in such high demand that the media and community leaders do not dare to challenge him for fear of retribution. This cartel has been known to blackmail entire cities and states by saying if it doesn't get what it wants, it will take its business elsewhere. And these elected officials will cave in to the cartel's demands because the people of the community are addicted to the product and blindly demand it without caring about its consequences. Nor do they seem to care about the consequences that face the people who produce the product we so blindly crave. Many lives are destroyed for short-term pleasure. We, as a society, may say we are concerned about this cartel's power and influence. But we are willing to look the other way because of the pleasure it gives us. The addictive product I am referencing is professional football. And the heartless cartel is the National Football League. Calling the NFL a cartel may seem harsh. However, if the shoe fits... Commissioner Roger Goodell and his merry band of oligarchical owners will continue to demand huge tax breaks and publicly funded facilities as long as the public remains blindly addicted to their product. And young men will continue to suffer life-shortening brain injuries in pursuit of the financial reward that comes with the sport. While the public may be shocked by the consequences of players injured in a collission sport such as football, they are no less cupable for this carnage than they are for thousands of shattered lives coming out of the Mexican drug wars. As El Chapo said, "If there was no consumption, there would be no sales." XXwners That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x Vol. 10 No. 1 -- My New Year's Prayers January 1, 2016 x= Writing this blog during 2015 wasn't as much fun as it had been in the past. While the year just past had some redeeming qualities, much of the year was dominated by bad news. On the international front, Vladimir Putin resparked the embers of the Cold War in an effort to distract the Russian people from the miserable realities of his leadership. On the domestic side, Donald Trump started the year as a laughable sideshow and ended it as a cancer on the body politic. In state news, the Kansas governor and legislature officially lost their minds. The ultra rightists in the state capitol declared war on common sense and, for a while at least, appeared to be winning. However, there is a glimmer of hope as the state's judiciary seems ready to drop the hammer on Sam the Sham and the Zeros. At the University of Kansas, several key administrators, including the Provost, are bailing from a ship taking on water. And, oh yes, the football team took imperfection to a new level by finishing the season 0-12. On a personal note, 2015 was also the year in which my brother Tom lost his heroic struggle against a debilitating stroke. He deserved a much better life than he had. However, there were some bright spots. My daughter got engaged to bright young fella that I really like. (I wonder how he feels about being called a "bright young fella?") The Kansas City Royals ended a 30-year drought and won the World Series. Although the Royals are only my second-favorite team, it has been fun to watch the spirits of an entire region lifted by the success of what was truly the best team in baseball. And it seems as if the Chiefs, my second-favorite football team, have caught the Royals' spirit: They haven't lost a game since the Royals won the World Series. While the Baltimore Ravens - my favorite NFL team - placed 20 players in the injured reserve list and lost more games than they won, at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that they beat the Pittsburgh Steelers twice. The coming year is almost guaranteed to be exciting. The United States will elect a new president - and God help us if either of the two front runners actually win. There will be excitement - and sewage - in the air during the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. And with familial and personal ties to Maryland, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Kentucky, there's a good chance that at least one of my teams will make this year's Final Four in NCAA men's basketball. (However, I can't help but hold my breath out of the fear that the incompetent boobs who run the NCAA will figure out how to screw up the most exciting time of the year.) As the new year dawns, let's all say a prayer for peace. Let's pray for the people of law enforcement - may they remain safe and may they make better judgments when confronted by the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect. In fact, I'll end the first blog of the new year with the sailor's prayer: May you have fair skies and following winds. X That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. x

Page views after 31 May 2014:

Web Counter