My 15 minutes

Being on television isn’t easy. The lights are bright, the pressure is tremendous, and the makeup often makes you look fake, almost funeral home-esque.

But overall it’s lots of fun.

I had my 15 minutes of fame Tuesday when I made an appearance on the 4th Congressional District debates on AETN. It was everything I expected it to be, and I must admit it was exciting to be in the middle of the stage with at least a half-dozen cameras in my face.

We were primped and preened beforehand, my fellow panelists and I, having our makeup done, hair positioned just right, and suits brushed before they pushed us on stage.

I’ve often thought it would be fun to have a television show, something like “Hardball” with Chris Matthews or "Live" with Larry King. I wouldn’t dare cross over to the dark side of "Oprah" and "Maurey," although those shows are fine and have their own place — they’re just not for me.

I’m more of a serious news and creative type, and being on television is the perfect outlet for that. It seems blasphemous for a newspaper person to say anything good about television, but I truly believe that it can be a strong medium if done professionally.

The debates that AETN televises each year are one example of good television. They are a class act, with national network caliber staff members who know how to treat guests.

Sadly, though, the quality educational programs that AETN airs are all-too-often cast aside for sporting events and other entertainment.

I have to wonder how many people actually saw me last night as incumbent Rep. Mike Ross took on his Republican challenger and El Dorado native Joe Ross. Afterall, the third game of the World Series was going on in St. Louis.

But those who did see the show have been very complimentary, telling me that I did a good job, and that I “looked very professional.”

Being on television made me realize that what we do in the news business is important, whether it’s broadcast or print media. We all try to spread the facts as best we can, and we always hope that everyone who receives the news understands the issues that affect their daily lives.

The debates are important because they bring the candidates’ issues to light, allowing voters to watch and decide for themselves. If you missed out on seeing AETN’s debate series, you can log on to www.AETN.org to watch them.

I doubt I’ll be making the move to television anytime soon, but maybe one day you’ll see me on MSNBC taking over for Chris Matthews. How cool would that be?

Ouch!

I felt so bad for laughing at this clip, but it is rather funny. Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot suffered a head injury after losing his footing as he crossed the finish line to win the Chicago Marathon on Sunday. He's just fine, but probably has a bruised ego.

Why Republicans should be deposed

Above: A horrible scene in Baghdad, Iraq, as a massive explosion has just gone off.

I keep hearing cute statements by conservative Republicans like Sen. John McCain, who said recently, “I would commit suicide if the Democrats were elected to Congress.”

Well, Mr. McCain, in my opinion you and your party have already committed political suicide with the current state of our government. McCain should be pledging to work toward an end in Iraq, not spouting off comments he sees as funny.

McCain and his cohorts should realize that our nation MUST decide what our plans for Iraq are. Are we ever going to win this war? Let’s face it, if we were, it would already be over. The other day on the Mark Davis Show, I heard the conservative talk host Davis say that he too is wondering why the war is not yet over. Even Republicans are beginning to come to terms with this, and anyone with an ounce of realism knows this, too.

President Bush’s tired rhetoric of “stay the course, we must keep fighting,” is becoming rather pathetic.

Our nation is supposed to be the most powerful in the world, yet we are stuck in a quagmire that continues to boil over day by day. Meanwhile, Republicans like John McCain make jokes.

It’s time that inept Republicans like McCain were deposed from their seats in Congress — they obviously cannot get the job done, and they certainly aren’t looking out for what’s best for the citizens of the United States.

We are facing the most perilous times our nation has ever seen, yet we are truly divided by party, and by this unjust war in Iraq. Did you know that more than 600,000 Iraqi’s have died since the war began? That’s more than would have died in Saddam Hussein’s lifetime, had he remained as the leader of that country.

A new study published in "The Lancet," a respected British Medical Journal, first reported these astonishing findings earlier this month.

But, of course, the Bush camp is denying the report's validity. President Bush slammed it last week during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey," he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, "and neither do Iraqi officials."

Last December, Bush said that he estimated about 30,000 people had died since the war began.

Meanwhile, the Republicans continue to defend the war as "just and needed."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Republican reich would have you believe that this war is helping prevent terrorism in the United States.

Again, nothing could be further from the truth.

Our nation, and the world, faces far greater threats from the likes of Kim Jong Ill in North Korea, and from Iran.

It isn’t OK that the war we caused in Iraq has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. And their deaths are not worth the price of a Republican lie. (See Bush’s State of the Union Address in 2003 stating that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons).

I’m not saying this as a Democrat, an Independent or anything else. I’m saying this as a concerned, informed American.

Everyone who reads this should be just as concerned about what’s going on in Iraq right now.

Six-hundred-thousand lives.

Gone.

For a false war that never should have been fought in the first place.

And now that we are in the war, we can’t even seem to muster enough might to finish it. Why is that?

Has anyone ever stopped to think about why the most powerful nation in the world can’t stop a bunch of Arab thugs in the desert?

Imagine if we had to jump to the defense of South Korea when, God forbid, North Korea decides to bring war to that peninsula once again.

We couldn’t do it, all thanks to the inept planning of our great regime.

When are supporters of this war going to wake up and realize that it was a huge mistake. And there may be no way out now.

All Americans need to watch this

'Beginning of the end of America'
Olbermann addresses the Military Commissions Act in a special comment
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC

Updated: 10:39 p.m. CT Oct 18, 2006

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.
Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before led here—by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.
American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save

American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not?

Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection?

Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 — that with only a little further shift in this world we now know — just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died — did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for — and convene a Military

Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15321167/

Offbeat

I thought it would be fun to share some interesting news stories from around the nation. Enjoy.

***
Alan Gagne, 54, was a diligent public worker. Everyday for 20 years, he delivered mail in a picturesque Boston neighborhood, often mumbling to himself about this or that, but never missing a chance to prove that he was one of the best postmen that city had ever seen.

Imagine the surprise of people along his route, and the City of Boston, when, after Gagne’s death recently, officials found thousands of pieces of mail neatly tucked away in a closet inside his cramped apartment.

Some of the mail dates from the 1980’s, according to a "New York Times" article yesterday, which quotes Robert Cannon, a spokesman for the postal service. Cannon said that 90 percent of the stolen mail was circulars flagged as undeliverable because of an address change.

But there were also dozens of unopened letters that the postal service is trying hard to get back to their rightful recipients. Cannon told the Times that he couldn’t understand why Gagne kept the mail, and probably never would.

“There appeared to be no rhyme or reason as to how, when, or where he took the mail or why he was holding onto it,” Cannon told the Times. It’s tragic, unfortunate and bizarre.”

Bizarre indeed.

What would drive Gagne, a single man with no family to speak of, to keep unopened letters and circulars in his home for decades? What purpose could they have served for him? Had he opened the letters and read their private contents, one might say that Gagne’s loneliness drove him to read someone else’s mail.

Perhaps he was an undiagnosed kleptomaniac, or maybe he just felt so attached to some pieces of mail that he couldn’t bear to part with them. No one will ever know.

***
If there is a special place in heaven for those who do good on Earth, then Eugenia Dodson of Coral Gables, Fla., is surely there right now. The 100-year-old amassed a multi-million dollar fortune during her lifetime, but she lived the lifestyle of a regular, average citizen.

After her death, it was discovered that she wished to donate her entire fortune — $35.6 million — to both the University of Miami’s Diabetes Research Institute and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, also at Miami University.

It turns out that Dodson had cancer, and her brother died from complications with diabetes. Both issues were near to her heart, and with the money, she hoped that the diseases could be brought to an end.

Dodson proved that being rich doesn’t mean one has to flaunt it, buying thousands of dollars in jewelry and unnecessary automobiles and fur coats. The world definitely needs more people like her.

***
The stupid moment of the year definitely belongs to Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn, who literally rubbed elbows with Pablo Picasso recently.

After deciding to sell his original of Picasso’s Le Reve (The Dream) painting at an ultra-exclusive art auction, Wynn accidentally destroyed part of it as he was showing the work off one last time before it sold.

Wynn said that he backed his elbow into the painting in front of a group of friends, forging a finger-sized hole in the priceless art piece. It was a disaster indeed.

But luckily for Wynn, who has decided to keep the painting, a New York art restoration group has confirmed that they can restore the painting to it’s original luster.

Maybe Wynn needs to invest in a set of elbow pads.

Global tensions rise as U.S. president falters *Satire*

PYONGYANG — North Korea shocked the world today with the announcement that it has more than 25 intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching any point on the globe.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il made the announcement to quash rumors that the country’s recent nuclear test was a failure, and to tell the world that it has armed its missiles and they are ready to fire.

“We have the right to ensure our safety and protection of our people,” Jong Il said Thursday. “We have been developing these weapons over the past five years, and we are proud to say that they are fully functional and ready to go.”

Word of a nuclear-armed North Korea spread through the global community like wildfire Thursday, prompting U.S. President George W. Bush to call an emergency meeting with world leaders to “try and cool off the situation.”

In a news conference at the White House, Bush said that the U.S. has no intentions of entering a military conflict with North Korea.

***
TEHRAN — Following North Korea’s lead, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that his country also has nuclear capabilities. Ahmadinejad made the stunning announcement outside his Tehran office early Thursday afternoon, although he declined to say how many nuclear warheads his country might have.

“We are armed to the teeth, and the world should watch out, because we are ready for anyone,” he said. “We will not back down any longer.”

In response to the news, U.S. President George W. Bush has placed the U.S. military on high alert and is calling for Americans to remain calm.

“We understand that this situation is serious, but everyone must realize that we are staying the course on terrorism. We aren’t going to bow down to terrorists,” Bush said. “The United States will not negotiate with North Korea or Iran. They understand our policy.”

The United States is holding emergency talks with NATO countries at the U.N. this afternoon in New York. Bush, who appeared flustered and shaky, said that “it will take everyone acting together to diffuse this situation.”

***
WASHINGTON D.C. — White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced Thursday afternoon that U.S. President George W. Bush dashed under the bed in Lincoln’s Bedroom and will not be coming out until rising global tensions ease.

McClellan said that Vice President Dick Cheney will be taking over duties for the U.S. amid rising tensions with North Korea and Iran.

Cheney is expected to hold a news conference at 7 p.m. this evening with further details on Bush’s condition. As of 5 p.m., White House staff members were trying to coax Bush from under the bed with a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

There is no word on whether Bush is experiencing a nervous breakdown, although unnamed sources inside the White House have said that it is a “strong possibility.” One staff member, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the situation, said that Bush was chanting, “Stay the course, stay the course, we can win this war in Iraq,” from under Lincoln’s bed.

Cheney will be sworn in as President of the United States at 6 p.m. E.S.T.

Woman donates 1,700 books to retirement home

By JOHN WORTHEN
News-Times Staff
Johnette Wilson has spent a lifetime collecting books. For most of her 75 years, the El Dorado native has poured over thousands of nouns, verbs and adjectives, relishing each one as her mind veered off to far away places.

She’s been on several African safaris, dealt with brazen mafia bosses and has even spent time with former presidents, all through the pages of her much-cherished books.

But when Wilson decided to move out of her El Dorado home and into the Sweet Home retirement community in July, she wasn’t sure what to do with her collection of approximately 1,700 books. Selling the books was out of the question, and donating them to a place where she’d never see them again just didn’t seem right.

There was only one decision left: Bring them with her to Sweet Home.

When Wilson told Sweet Home officials about the collection and her plans to share it with other residents, they immediately began construction on floor-to-ceiling shelves that fill one side of a spacious room there. Everyone who lives at the facility has access to the room day and night, allowing them to “check out” books anytime.

But at least one book is tucked safely away in Wilson’s neat-as-a-pin room on the second floor: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Harper Lee’s masterpiece about the resilient southern lawyer Atticus Finch. She’s not stingy with it, mind you, and would probably let someone borrow it if they asked, but a quick and assured return may be the only way to secure her favorite book of all time.

She has other favorites, too, like Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” and biographies of presidents like Harry S. Truman and John Adams. She also loves the travel stories by James A. Michener, who “has taken me across the world.”

On a recent afternoon, Wilson, her white oversized glasses framing her soft eyes, sat in the library and organized a new stack of books that will soon be added to the shelves. She smiled gracefully as she spoke of her love of books and the places she’s seen and experienced because of them.

“I discovered books when I was very young, and at 8 I read ‘Gone With the Wind,’” said Wilson, her hand on a large stack that included the popular book “Marley and Me” by John Grogan. “I had a wonderful mother who allowed me to read anything I wanted, much to the dismay of the librarian. She was upset that my mother would allow me to read books like that.”

An adopted child raised during the depression, Wilson often used books as an escape from reality, where fiction, nonfiction, science and adventure books took hold of her young imagination; she realized at an early age that reading was the key to being educated.

“My husband, who died last April, went to Harvard and Princeton and was in the Navy; he was very well educated,” Wilson said. “But my education came from reading books. And he always supported me with that. There are many great opportunities that come from reading.”

Several years ago, when Wilson volunteered at the Literacy Council, she saw first-hand how missing out on those opportunities can be devastating. She recalls one instance in particular when a grandmother was heartbroken because she wasn’t able to read to her grandchildren when they asked for a story.

Remembering the woman almost brought tears to Wilson’s eyes.

“This woman held a responsible job, she drove a car, but she just couldn’t read. That baffled me,” said Wilson, who tutored the woman until she was able to read on a basic level.

“When she came to me and said she wasn’t able to read to her grandchildren, that really hit home. I have 15 grandchildren, and I know that feeling when you read to them. I would be heartbroken if I couldn’t read to them.”

After the weeks-long tutoring session ended, Wilson gave the woman stacks and stacks of children’s books to share with her grandchildren. It was a gratifying moment for Wilson, who has continued her giving spirit with the donation to Sweet Home.

The donation isn’t something Wilson brags about, but she said it was a good feeling to be able to share the books with fellow residents, just as she shared her love of reading with others while working at the Literacy Council.

Tooling around in the new library, filing and organized the books alphabetically, Wilson feels at home. It will never be the same as the old white farm house she and her husband shared for so many decades, but as long as she has her books and can share them with others, it will be enough to bring a smile to her face each day.

Georgia woman seeks ban on Potter books

Laura Mallory is on a mission to ban all Harry Potter books at her children’s school library in Gwinnett County Georgia. Mallory claims that the books are an attempt to lure children into the Wicca religion, and that when her children are at school, she doesn’t “want them indoctrinated into a religion whose practices are evil.”

Indoctrinating into a religion at school? Harry Potter? I hardly think that’s the case. It’s not as if there’s a page in the books where children are asked to pledge their allegiance to Potter, nor do they come with magic potion recipes or flying brooms.

Who is Mallory to decide what other children can and cannot read? Just because she doesn’t agree with the material presented doesn’t mean that others can’t enjoy it. If she doesn’t want her children reading Harry Potter, then she should tell them not to and leave it at that.

Maybe Mallory should build a little room onto her house where she can keep her kids sheltered from everything that doesn’t fit into her idea of a perfect life.

Banning books. Can you imagine?

I can’t, and it’s appalling to think there are people walking the streets who would actually consider making one single book taboo. While you may not agree with the wizardry and mysticism that the Potter books herald, no one is forcing children to read them.

People like Mallory should be feared in any free-thinking, progressive society. If you’ve read Ray Bradbury’s masterpiece — Fahrenheit 451 — then you know what I’m talking about.

In his book, Bradbury profiles a society where almost every single book is burned. And anyone caught with books not approved by the government are arrested or executed on the spot, all while their homes are burned to the ground.

It’s a serious matter when people start throwing words like “ban” around when talking about books and other forms of art and expression. I guess I take particular offense to this since my chosen profession is writing. But everyone should be upset by this.

When we live in a society that even considers banning one single book, then more bans are sure to come. Where will it end? Hopefully those in charge of this proposed ban will make the right choice and dismiss Mallory as an overprotective parent. It’s the only decision to make.