Reform The Presidency: One Six-Year Term

In the city we have the city fire department, with paid firefighters and lots of stations and equipment paid for with our tax dollars. In the suburbs volunteer fire departments are the norm, and Cherry Grove is no exception. We have one particular problem here, though. We lack a road through the town. This means that we can't have a fire truck, a "pumper," and so we have these hybrid fire trucks that look sort of like golf carts on steroids. Unfortunately, the insurance companies feel that since we don't have a "pumper" truck, we really don't have a fire department at all, at least that's what I was told when I asked my insurance agent why my fire insurance rates were so high. Chalk it up to living out here on the barrier island.

The good news: pundits are declaring that Junior Bush has entered the official "lame duck" period of his presidency. The prime indicator of this was the collapse of the immigration bill, which he was pushing for. It seems as though he will be unable to get any additional parts of his agenda through before he leaves. Whew! Is that ever good news! Just think of what he tried to do to the country: he tried and failed to destroy social security and to pass a federal amendment banning gay marriage. It's bad enough what he has done to us with Iraq - turned us into a rogue nation that flaunts the Geneva Conventions, tortures detainees, attacks sovereign nations under the premise of "preemptive war," etc. His tax cuts for the rich have further exacerbated the gaps between the rich and the rest of us and have resulted in a massive deficit that will take a miracle to erase. Yes, it's great that Junior in now a lame duck. He was way lame-brained already, we just added the duck part recently.

The case of Junior Bush reminds me of one of the reforms I used to teach, one that could improve the presidency by de-politicizing it, and one that would lessen the lame duck effect. Namely, change the term of office of the president to one six-year term with a one term limit. If this were to be instituted, presidents would have a lot less incentive to be swayed by the political winds, and more incentive to do the right thing for the country, and thereby help their own legacy. And, if we were to elect another walking disaster like Junior Bush, we'd only have him for six years, instead of eight. It's an idea whose time has come.

Jim

Nativist Senators Kill The Immigration Bill

I've seen a few interesting short videos on the net lately. Did you see the one of the UK rugby team acting up on a Saturday night out drinking spree? Take a look here.

I also enjoyed the video of hunky singer Enrique Iglesias serenading a gay fan at a gay pub in London last Saturday. You can view that one here.

38 Republicans joined 11 Democrats in scuttling the immigration bill that was hammered out by a bi-partisan group of senators over a period of months. The New York Times sums up the aftermath pretty well:

The anti-immigrant hard-core — no amnesty today, no amnesty tomorrow, no
amnesty ever — must not be allowed to hold the nation hostage. Like nativists of generations
past, they think the country is being Latinized, and they fear it. The country is changing,
but the way it always has, absorbing newcomers, shaping and being shaped by
them, inexorably turning them, their children and grandchildren into
Americans.

Bad-boy Republican right wing fanatic senators were particularly noteworthy for their obstructionism. Jim De Mint, a name that we should recognize as one of the Senate's worst homophobic bigots, said plainly that he was in favor of anything that would kill the bill. He joined two other Republican homophobes, Jeff sessions and John Cornyn, in helping to kill the bill. It may not have been a perfect bill, but it seems like the right wing prefers to do nothing rather than enact anything with humane provisions recognizing that it's people that we're talking about, not "illegals."

Photo: a new addition to our garden this year, a variety of Peace rose.

Jim

One More Bigoted Bush Nominee

Another "star" of the garden at this time of the year is our Peony bush. It's remarkable how this plant dies back to soil level each winter and then returns fuller than ever in the Spring. The first year after I put this plant in it returned but without any blossoms. The second year it had one blossom. Then each year it returned with more and more blossoms. Now I have to stake the entire plant otherwise the heavy, beautifully scented blossoms droop or bend all the way over. It's a delight of Spring.



The blogs are buzzing about Junior Bush's latest fundamentalist Christian nut job nominee, one James Holsinger, who Bush wants to make Surgeon General. Dr. Holsinger, it seems, has a problem with the mechanics of gay male sex. He wrote a paper in 1991 in which he claimed that what we like to do in bed can lead to injury and disease. We're not built to handle insertions of large, pointed objects, or some such, opined Dr. Holsinger. Humm, now it seems I've been testing Dr. Holsinger's theory for about, well, 50 years now, with all sorts of probes. So far I haven't sprung a leak, managed to irretrievably lose anything up there, or come down with anything other than the usual common colds, etc. So you can say that I've done my "empirical research" and on the basis of my findings I'd say Dr. Holsinger resembles that with which he seems to be fixated, namely a rectum, and his theory is mere flatulence. I have a thought: perhaps I could invite the good doctor to my playroom for a little show and tell, and we could do some additional research to help him clarify his thoughts. In any event, I don't think he's ready for prime time as Surgeon General.

Jim

A Cool Fire Island Morning

It's a beautiful but cool morning out here on Fire Island. The garden is a delight in June, and one of the highlights are the Bearded Iris. This year mostly the yellow variety is in bloom, although we have black, white, and blue varieties in our Iris patch. I'll have to dig up and divide the rhizomes in the Fall.

My morning routine includes a walk on the beach with Bradley. We usually walk as far as the beginning of the Pines, where an old landmark, the Carrington House, signals that it's time to turn around and head back.

Kucinich on the media:

I believe the people should be involved in the maintenance of their
airwaves, creating public media outlets controlled by community boards
similar to the model of Pacifica Radio. Funding for public broadcasting
channels on television and radio should be greatly expanded, assuring the
existence of media outlets free of the influence of advertisers.

Kucinich, the anti-Bush.

Jim

Mainstream Political Leadership

The Republican candidates for president had a debate last night in New Hampshire. At one point they were all asked to raise their hand if they thought that gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the military. No one raised their hand, including Rudy. Nice.

Dennis Kucinich on gay marriage:

Regrettably, the America of which I dream and to which I and the many who
stand with me have committed ourselves, is not the same America that the
Republican Administration or the Democratic Party are campaigning to realize.
The Republican Administration is promoting a Constitutional Amendment that would
deny Americans the rights that the state of Massachusetts has granted. The
leadership of the Democratic Party is content to advocate a state-by-state
approach to the issue of same-sex marriages, cloaking its lack of resolve with
the words "civil unions." On this issue, as on every other, the mainstream
political leadership of our nation finds political expediency and political
popularity preferable to political courage.

Yes, the mainstream political leadership sucks, Dennis.

Jim

My Candidate For President

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: The only major party candidate who supports full gay marriage rights, a single-payer non-profit healthcare system, and our complete withdrawal from Iraq, including Bush/Cheney contractors and cronies like Halliburton.

Yeah, I know, he can never be elected. That's never stopped me before from supporting a candidate who stands for what's right. "You're throwing your vote away!", I'm told...or, by voting for someone who has no chance you help insure that the "lesser of two evils" loses and the worst candidate is elected. Still, I refuse to vote in this fashion, and if more people simply refused to support "junk" candidates because they feel that they have no other choice, we might actually move toward having a real democracy instead of what we have now...two branches of the same ideological persuasion and no real choice when we get inside the voting booth.

When I taught political science in college, I used to emphasize reforms that could actually democratize our political system, things like moving to proportional representation. There's no reason why we have to accept a system polluted by money and corruption, where you have to be a millionaire or better to have a chance at being elected to most congressional offices. The system is broken and the populace perpetuates the evils by being complicit in voting for the lesser of two evils rather than demanding a choice of candidates, some with principles similar to their own. For many of our citizens, the problem is in their lack of education, but I am constantly surprised at my more educated and savvy friends who argue with me about my refusal to vote for mediocrity. Why not feel really good about supporting and voting for someone for president for a change. It's a life-altering sensation!

Jim

A Summer Getaway

Congratulations to my life partner Dan Evans, who will have a short story published in a soon to be available anthology entitled "Queer Collection: Prose And Poetry 2007." You can pre-order the book now on Amazon here.


Here's a photo of our home in Cherry Grove. All the houses have names. Ours is named "Liberty Bell." We bought the house but inherited the name. The previous owner was also a Philadelphian, so it made sense to keep the name with a Philadelphia connection. The house is a typical wood frame beach cottage that was most likely floated over from Long Island in the days after WW II. From the top deck we have a panoramic southern view of the Atlantic Ocean. We have a nice back deck where we can entertain, and the garden is located in a protected area below the back deck. This is our eighth season in the house. We've had many good times here in this little house!

Jim

Ms. Clinton. Gay Marriage, DADT, And "Dr. Death"

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law that prohibited interracial marriages. The Court said: "the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." Twenty years later this axiom still holds true, and provides the strong logic underpinning the argument in favor of gay marriage. Unfortunately, NONE of the major Democratic candidates running for president are willing to embrace the Court's logic and take a stand in favor of gay marriage. Ms. Clinton is so backward on the issue that until just recently she actually SUPPORTED the hateful "Defense Of Marriage Act" signed into law by her philandering husband. Ever the cunning political operative, she now says that a PORTION of DOMA should be scrapped in that gay and lesbian couples should receive federal benefits, but only in those states with legal gay marriage or domestic partnerships. Talk about unfair! The rest of us can just go take a hike, I guess. Now this is really political needle threading taken to the ultimate degree. Anyone who thinks that this woman and her husband will not throw gays and lesbians under the bus the first time they get put on the spot about gays is severely deluded!

I read that they released "Doctor Death" Jack Kevorkian from prison. At age 79, he has been paroled after eight years in jail for assisting about 130 terminally ill people to end their lives with dignity. Kevorkian had to make a lot of promises to get out of jail, so he won't be able to help anyone else die, even if someone comes to him and pleads for his help. He considers the U.S. a "tyrannical" country and he's right, of course. We live in a country that is more and more under the control of Christian cult tyrants who will not be satisfied until they impose their beliefs upon the rest of us. To me Kevorkian is a hero who helped a lot of dying people when they needed his help the most. It's not him who should be in jail, but the nut cases on the far religious right who are trying to rob the rest of us of our basic human right to die with dignity. Each any every one of us ought to be free to make our own decision about our quality of life if we are stricken with a terminal illness. I will allow no religious fanatic to make that decision for me and I will oppose their efforts to pass laws that interfere with my right to make my own end-of-life-decisions.

Returning to one of my favorite targets, Ms. Clinton, in addition to refusing to admit that her vote to authorize the war in Iraq was a mistake, she also refuses to admit that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a a costly mistake. No, it's a good "transitional policy," says Ms. Clinton. Now let's see, we continue to dismiss openly gay linguists from the military who know Arabic even though there is a critical shortage of these experts in the fight against terrorism. But no, DADT is not a mistake, and if another terror attack occurs against us somewhere due in part due to to the lack of trained Arabic translators, well, we'll just chalk it up to our "transitional" policy and that'll explain it all and make everyone just feel so much better about the body bags. Ah, Hillary, silly me, I just don't understand about political pandering, er, I mean "transitional" policies, do I?

Photo: this interesting little perennial blossomed again this year. I'll have to look it up because I forget what it is!

Jim

TB Man And The Narcissistic American

I'm getting a late start here this morning. We were out last night at one of the first shows of the season here in Cherry Grove, a benefit for the Pines Animal Welfare Society (PAWS.) PAWS helps with stray animals on Fire Island - capturing loose cats, adoptions, etc. Our friend Valerie organizes this benefit each year and the show features many of the local drag performers. The show is followed by a dessert buffet. The desserts are all donated by residents. It's one of Cherry Grove's signature events.

A friend in Philadelphia sent me an interesting article from the Philadelphia Inquirer. The author made the case that the man who flew back and fourth from Europe with tuberculosis is sort of a poster boy for the narcissistic American, the same selfish American who doesn't care about global warming, conserving energy, etc. I think the author is on to something. In the White House we have ensconced the ultimate figurehead for this sort of American, Junior Bush, who has thumbed his nose at our friends and foes alike. It's sort of like a resurgence of the notion of the Ugly American with Bush Junior as the poster boy for everything that's gone wrong with America.

Photo: the shade garden is looking particularly good these days

Jim

Petraeus: The Fox Is Guarding The Hen House!

I read on AmericaBlog that ABC News is reporting that General Petraeus, the commander of our forces in Iraq, has already determined that "The Surge" is a success and that he is planning for hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for the long haul. This is a surprise? The general reports to Bush. What did we expect, for him to say that Bush's plan was not working? The Democratic led congress should have used the spending authorization bills to insist on an independent evaluation of whether or not "The Surge" is effective. Bush could then ignore that just like he ignored the Baker-Hamilton commission report, but at least it would be one more factor in favor of ending our involvement in Iraq. It's too late for that now, so in September we'll no doubt get the General's rubber stamp of approval on "The Surge."

On a happier note, I had a session with my cardiologist yesterday and the report is good. I have this valve issue, but it hasn't gotten significantly worse in the past three years, so he was happy and so am I!

Photo: The new arbor I installed this year. The Hydrangea (left) was a gift from friends in Philadelphia almost a decade ago. Right: Lilac in its third year.

Jim