This made me smile and clap

Jimmy does Dallas

Man on Wire

Go rent the DVD. Trust me. Yeah, it's a documentary, but it kept the wife and I sitting straight up throughout. For those of you not as old as I, Philippe Petit performed a series of illegal high wire acts, across the world, in the early 1970s. Man on Wire mostly tells the story of his secretively securing a cable between the top of the two towers of the NY World Trade Center in 1974. He then proceeded to spend 45 minutes pacing back and forth between the two towers (as well as dancing and laying down).

The movie is beautiful. Katie kept saying, "he is beautiful". I never talk during movies, TV etc. We kept up a constant babble of half formed sentences. The rest of the time I motioned at the TV screen as my mouth hung open.

It was beautiful. It was scary. It was sprittual. I felt like I'd been to church.

This guy has broken all his promises

Obama is batting about 1.000. He finally won over skeptics, like me, in the primaries, by promising to restore the Constitution, impose the rule of law and abolish torture. He ranted about wiretapping. He ridiculed Cheney. Government would be transparent. He'd end those practices that rewarded companies for shipping American jobs overseas.

Well, look what another day brings. He's fought every measure to restore civil liberties. He's prevented any prosecutions of high level Bush administration criminals. He claims to be ending torture but moves the operation from Gitmo to Baghram. He threatens to withhold information that could protect British citizens from terror attacks if their court releases the truth about the torture of a petitioner. He claims 'state secrets' if our courts want to give the day in court to torture victims. He continues wiretapping. He meets with energy and pharmaceutical companies in private. He IS Cheney.

He filled his administration with the Wall Street masterminds of the financial collapse and they have saved the perpetrators from the moral hazard of their actions. Now he shelves his campaign promise to stop giving tax breaks to companies who ship jobs overseas.

All of you who are hot for universal healthcare, who thinks he really supports even a watered down public option, ask yourself this: When did it become health care reform. Remember when it was 'health care for all'? Ah, but now he has a Nobel Prize and nobody can touch him.

Is this a good idea?

Is this a good idea? They're bombing the moon!

Obama needs to get pushed

These were CRIMES. How is this difficult? Obama needs to be forced down that path he doesn't want to take. The small fry, the "few bad apples" went to prison. I have no problem with that. We were brought up to believe that "ve ver under orders" was no excuse.

But, how can Obama allow Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Yoo, Beybe, Rice and Gonzalez to escape prosecution? If they violated treaties prohibiting torture, they have committed crimes. Article VI of the Constitution states, "...all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land... " Barack Obama took an oath to the best of his ability "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

This is the beginning of the proof of what we've suspected about the Democrats' motives

Why would a liberal member of Congress, from San Francisco pledge to take the rule of law (impeachment) off the table, as she reaches the pinacle of power? Why would a professor of constitutional law pledge to prosecute no law breakers, even for crimes as vile as torture and of wirtapping Americans, as he reaches the pinacle of power? Because Pelosi and Obama know that their party was complicit in all of it.

Harmon knew. Pelosi knew. Rockefeller knew. Reid knew. Hoyer knew. Durban and Obama went along.

Why did we elect these people in 2006? They conspired with the people they were supposed to protect us against. Why did we elect Obama? He was supposed to restore the Constitution. Damn! They took an oath!

What happened: No, I did not get a promotion.

Yeah, this is one of those stories that would require us to be perched on bar stools with plenty of time. I was on a high wire act for two or three years. I'd finally gotten down off the thing and then they came after me. I have a big screw sticking out of my back.

The very short version is that I told all the powers what needed to happen to keep the wheels from coming off. They blew me off for two years and then, seven months too late, they came through with human resources. Everybody got the long knives out and needed a head to cut off. Mine apparently got offered up.

So, the public spin is that I've been reassigned because they need my expertise in data analysis and research, given my institutional memory. Most of campus knows something happened. People are scared (god, if they could do that to somebody like him), confused (don't know what to say to me), and angry (I have a friend who, without my input, declared my entire former staff persona non grata and deleted people from his distribution lists and disinvited them to events "I'm in Jim's column."). Me, I'm stuck in a closet and swing from depression to anger to relief.

My boss says she needs me ("I promise you are not being fired.") because "you know where the bodies are buried". It's ugly.

I'm back

I haven't posted since June. It's been a rough, weird several months. I was obsessed with two things: work and the election. I was doing four people's jobs at work. My spare time (when I should have been sleeping) was spent thinking about the election. I was no fan of Obama, but voted for him. I got caught up in his speeches, like everyone, and then betrayed by his actions, like the FISA vote. However, he brings something positive out of the citizenry, expecially young people.

My daughter was an Obama volunteer at her college. On election night they spilled into the streets. She called me. She was ecstatic. I couldn't even understand her on the phone.

I was at some friends' in Carbondale. After Obama's victory speech, we had to drive through Carbondale. The Strip was filling up and was about to close. I drove toward campus and students were running from all directions. I've never seen such spontaneous joy. No anger. No fights. Happy people. Black and white.

The concert the Sunday before inauguration was inpirational. Pete Seeger leading the crowd in all the verses to 'This Land is Your Land'. What must he have thought? He outlived the rednecks that tried to kill Paul Robeson and him. He outlived the congressmen that tried to jail him. ... Then the following Tuesday and all the black folks that came on busses for the swearing in.

...Ah, but now it's March. State secrets, corporate welfare... same as it ever was. ...I'm back.