Mesopotamian Mess

As if we needed additional proof that war has no morality beyond self-justified destruction of everything in its path, I recently learned that part of the archaeological site of the ancient city of Babylon was commandeered to build a fuel supply depot for American military helicopters.

According to a report commissioned by the British Museum, U.S. troops built embankments, dug ditches and spread gravel to hold the fuel reservoirs needed to supply the helicopters. Fragments of 8000 year-old bricks engraved with cuneiform characters lie mixed with the rubble and sandbags left by the US military. 6th Century BC brick roadways, gates and monuments have been shattered.

Not only have irreplaceable ruins at a site that is one of the cradles of world civilization been permanently damaged by unregulated construction, vandalism, earth removal and filling with imported gravel; but the site has also been contaminated by spilled fuel seeping into the archaeological ruins.

We have destroyed an 8000 year-old archaelogical site to help carry out an illegal, imperialistic, unprovoked war in Iraq.

Does it matter to anyone?

A Country of Laws Revisited

In an earlier post, I stated that the United States is a country of laws. The events of the last year suggest this is no longer true.

When the President and Vice-President of the United States can decide they are above the law, when financial industry executives can be financially rewarded for playing fast and loose with the law, when powerful corporate interests can change the law to reduce their taxes and increase their profits, when oil and coal companies can ignore environmental laws or get Congress to build in loopholes, and when big companies can peddle everything from drugs to toys that are not safe, this is not a country of laws.

Deregulation and emasculation of corporate law have made the United States only selectively a country of laws. The citizenry is still required to live and work by the laws, but those special interests with money and access to government through campaign funds and lobbyists are not.

The citizens of the United States are victims of a strategic campaign by big business and big money. We were conned into believing that deregulation is good for everyone when it only benefits those being deregulated. We were tricked into thinking that wealth somehow trickles down from the top when it only makes the rich richer. We were deceived into supporting an illegal war against terrorism, when all it accomplished is to feed the greed of government contractors and gain eventual control of Iraq’s oil supplies. The laws were changed over the last thirty years to make all of this possible.

These pirates have raped and pillaged our government, our retirement accounts and our home equity. They’ll walk away from this economic crisis with big homes, big bank accounts and big inheritances for their grandchildren. We’ll crawl away with bigger mortgages, higher taxes and nothing for our grandchildren except debt.

Justice is optional in a country of laws, when the laws are selective.

Flat world job hunting

In the flattened, web-based world of the 21st Century, our children and grandchildren will compete for the best jobs with young people from India, China, Germany and Brazil.

They’ll no longer compete only with people from their own culture for high-paying jobs. They’ll compete with a larger pool of applicants with great skills and experiences.

It may be a lot like the high school basketball star who goes off to college only to find that he/she can’t even make the varsity team.

Our kids are counting on us to give them the education and training they need to compete. We can’t short-change them.

Eagles

We have a pair of bald eagles that nest up on the mountainside behind the village of Monroe. They soar over the lakes formed by the hydro-electric dams on the Connecticut River looking for fish or small animals. I always hope to see one swoop down to catch a fish, but I haven’t yet.



One day last summer, one passed right over the car no more than a hundred feet above me. I felt a shiver as I watched it through the open sunroof.

Eagles are huge, majestic birds that are experts at riding air currents for hours on end. They seem to know right where to find the thermal updrafts and use them to gain altitude to save precious energy during long hunts for food. If it’s a bright sunny day, their white head and tail feathers turn shockingly bright when the sun catches them just right.

The river ice thawed during this week’s warm spell, leaving most of the river open water. I was surprised to see three eagles soaring over the river. I wondered if one was a young bird that has yet to leave the nest.

A Country of Laws

The United States is a country of laws. People who break the law must be prosecuted.

While it will be a distraction from the work ahead of us, it’s critical to uphold the law. A thorough and impartial investigation of the Bush Administration's actions is in the best interest of the country and preserves the integrity of the US Constitution.

The victims of the Bush Administration's decisions deserve justice. Illegally slain US soldiers, wounded American veterans, dead Iraqi civilians, tortured prisoners, wiretapped American citizens and neglected Hurricane Katrina victims all deserve their day in court.

Justice is not optional in a country of laws. It’s mandatory.

Big Alice

In 1969, I bought a 1948 Buick Special 4-door sedan from my friend, Malcolm Lee. He bought the car a few weeks earlier from the original owners, an elderly couple from Acton, Massachusetts.

We christened her Big Alice. In spite of having clocked almost a hundred thousand miles, she was in remarkably good condition. Her dark green paint glistened. Her wide whitewall tires gleamed. And her abundant chrome trim sparkled.

The dinner-plate-sized fog lamps mounted on her front bumper were impressive. Her pin-striped horsehair seats were high and comfortable. Her massive chrome radio dial and speaker grill were flanked by an elegant instrument panel. Big Alice was a regal ride.



In addition to getting me back and forth to work every day, Big Alice carried our young family in style to weddings and other family events. She offered just the right combination of elegance and non-conformity.

My wife and I were driving home from visiting her parents one night, when a New Hampshire State Trooper stopped us. The inquisitive young officer shined his flashlight in the window at me, then at my wife and finally at our two young children sleeping on the back seat.

“Can I see your license and registration?” he barked. It was more a command than a question.

I handed him the two documents. He carefully studied them with his flashlight.

“Who’s the woman in the passenger seat,” he asked.

“My wife.”

“Where are you going?”

“We’re just heading home to Lincoln, Massachusetts after visiting my wife’s parents up in Hollis.”

“Stay in the car please,” he ordered.

He walked back to his cruiser and got inside. I was concerned that the flashing blue lights would wake the kids, but they slept though it all.

After what seemed like an hour, the trooper walked back up beside the driver’s door and handed me the license and registration.

“Sorry about the wait. I thought you were someone else,” he growled. Then he turned and walked back to his car again.

I put Big Alice in gear and pulled away.

Several months later, I was unable to get an inspection sticker due to worn kingpins in the front end. I couldn’t find replacement parts and had no place to store her, so I put Big Alice up for sale. A young man about my age bought her.

I was driving along Route 2 in Concord just west of the Prison rotary about a year later, when I saw her pulled off onto the shoulder. I pulled up behind to take a look.

She was like an old girlfriend who had seen hard times since we last dated. Her smooth finish had been repainted a darker shade of green, but it was full of runs and dust. One of her fog lamps was broken. Her once immaculate cloth upholstery was torn and stained, and her floors were littered with trash. I hoped it might be a different car, but the hand-painted Alice’s Restaurant sign that adorned the small passenger side back window was still there.

I climbed back into my car and drove away, watching her get smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

I still wonder if there was another dark green 1948 Buick carrying a carload of criminals around southern New Hampshire that night.

Snowmobiles

Snowmobiling is big business in Northern New England. Really big business.

A 2004 study by Plymouth (New Hampshire) State University and the Institute for New Hampshire Studies suggests just how big.

In the winter of 2003, the total impact on New Hampshire's economy by snowmobilers was nearly $1.2 billion. It represented 1% of the gross state product and more than 10% of all travel spending in the state.

The average New Hampshire resident snowmobiler made 12 trips per season, some of which included overnight stays. The average non-resident snowmobiler made nine trips to New Hampshire each season.

Average per-person, per-day spending in New Hampshire was $67.07 per resident snowmobiler and $88.30 per non-resident. In addition to spending on their trips, each snowmobiler spends $1,830 annually on equipment, clothing, club memberships, insurance and state license fees.

I like motor vehicles. I like the excitement of going fast, and a fast snowmobile provides plenty of excitement. Racing at 90 mph across a snow-covered pond on a snowmobile generates a 200 mph adreneline rush.

Snowmobiles are a lot of fun, and they provide transportation for people living in far northern climes. They also provide a livelihood for many people.

All that being said, snowmobiles are one of the most environmentally unfriendly devices invented by man. Riding a gas guzzling, pollution spewing, motor vehicle into the woods for entertainment is an environmental felony.

All winter, I see caravans of giant 4-wheel drive pickups and SUVs dragging huge trailers full of snow machines up and down the interstate at 70-80 mph. These 10-mpg rigs burn large amounts of fuel and leave behind a wake of hydrocarbon haze. When they reach their destination, they disgorge packs of 10-mpg snow machines which race through the woods burning large amounts of fuel and leaving behind wakes of hydrocarbon haze.

Snowmobiling has become such big business that we justify the felony by saying that it’s vital to the economy. How about looking at the real cost?

Snowmobiles consume an unacceptable amount of precious fossil fuel and pump an unacceptable amount of pollution into our precious atmosphere for the entertainment of a few people.

When does entertainment become too costly?

Six Word Stories

Here’s a game my son, Brian, recommended to me. The object is to write a story using only six words. It’s one of those addictive little games that sharpens your writing skills. I’ve included a few of mine. Send me some of yours!

Engagement ring for sale. Never worn.

She’s pregnant. I’m not the father.

The flashbacks continued his whole life.

The planet exploded after they left.

The tower collapsed on my family.

He didn’t remove one incriminating fingerprint.

The twelfth statue ended up missing.

The water receded. I found her.

Robin Kent & Jim Barner – Artisans at the Bend

Some artists see the world very seriously. Others take their work very seriously. Robin Kent and Jim Barner don’t seem to do either. You get the feeling they’re just having fun.

They create some of the most compelling sculptures and paintings you'll encounter. Their work is visually stunning, clever and artful. And it proves that serious art doesn’t have to be serious.

Each piece is carefully conceived and thoughtfully executed, but you don’t notice that. Instead you think how much fun it would be to have in your living room when friends come over.

Robin and Jim hail from Brandon, Vermont, but their work is featured in galleries around the country. They also exhibit every November at the prestigious Vermont Hand Crafters Fine Art & Craft Show in Burlington, Vermont.

You can see more of their terrific work at: www.artisansatthebend.com.

Last man standing

Here’s what I see as the basic flaw in our War on Terror. We’re not fighting an army. We’re fighting people.

We call them terrorists; but they’re people who passionately believe we’re greedy, imperialist murderers who want to occupy their lands and plunder their resources. And we’ve played right into that belief.

From their perspective, the United States helped the Jews invade the Holy Land after World War II and has since provided Israel with aid and weapons of mass destruction that resulted in tens of thousands of Muslim deaths over the last fifty years.

In 1953, we sponsored a coup in Iran because their Prime Minister Mosaddeeq wanted to nationalize Iran’s British-owned oil company, and we didn’t want to lose control of Iran’s oil supply. We reinstated the Shah, a repressive dictator who had been overthrown by a Muslim revolution.

Over the next two and a half decades, we supported the Shah and his shockingly opulent lifestyle against the wishes of a starving Iranian people. He was ousted again in 1978, and the United States welcomed him here as a friend.

A few hundred outraged Muslim students retaliated in 1979 by taking over the US embassy in Iran and holding American diplomats hostage. The Reagan Administration negotiated a clandestine deal for the release of the hostages in return for US-held Iranian assets and immunity from all charges.

When war broke out between Iran and Iraq, the United States supplied weapons to Iran including a secret arms-for-hostage deal involving the Israelis. Most neighboring countries supported Iraq. Estimates of deaths from that war run as high as 1.5 million.

In 1990, the Bush Administration practically goaded the ruthless Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait. This provided the US with a reason to invade Iraq and gain control of Iraqi oil fields. In a bombing campaign of historically unprecedented proportions, US armed forces destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure and killed as many as a hundred thousand civilians.

A small number of Muslim extremists again retaliated by bombing New York’s World Trade Center in 1993 and by finally destroying it in 2001. The United States responded by invading Afghanistan and then Iraq. We indiscriminately killed, captured and tortured people as part of our War on Terror. The Bush Administration did it’s best to hide the number of civilian casualties, but international groups report that deaths exceed twenty thousand in Afghanistan and more than a half million in Iraq over the last seven years. And who knows how many maimed and crippled.

Is it any wonder these people believe we're evil? Each time we kill one of them, we confirm their beliefs. Each family member we kill turns the rest of that family against us. Each man we torture ignites hatred among his brothers, cousins and neighbors. We may not share their beliefs, but we damned well better figure out a better way to deal with them.

We’ve been dragged into an endless war – a war than can only end with the last man standing.

It’s time to stop.