Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest grower of cocoa!

That’s right. Our chocolate supply is in jeopardy and no one—not even Al Gore—is saying anything about it. Do our politicians care so little about us that they will not bomb the Ivory Coast into little chocolate chips so that the price of chocolate doesn’t go through the roof before Christmas?!

I mean, sure, the United States and France have sent troops to evacuate their citizens but, as near as I can tell, there has been no effort whatsoever to protect our vital chocolate interests in the region. For goodness sake, think of the children!

I fear the terrorists may have already won.

Take for instance the gauntlet one must traverse in order to even get to the poll. It is like the scene in Airplane! when Captain Kramer— played by Robert Stack—is walking through the airport being accosted by folks who want to give him a flower; solicit for Reverend Moon; help Jerry’s Kids; avoid nuclear power; read about Jehovah’s witnesses or pontificate about Jews for Jesus. It can get crazy. People working for specific candidates see this as their last chance to ingrain their candidate’s name in the mind of the voter, and they will holler that name at you up until you cross that magic line where electioneering is prohibited.

But it’s not over yet. Then you have to get past the children. Yes, the children. The children aren’t pushing a candidate, but they are pushing. They are pushing treats. They want your dollar to help raise money for their various and numerous extracurricular activities, and they will use any trick they can to get you to show them the money.

“Doughnuts! Don’t forget to buy some doughnuts to take to your office tomorrow! Mmmmmmm gooooood!”

“You sure look thirsty, mister! Would you like to buy a cold drink before you vote?!”

If you survive the electioneers and the children then you get to vote. And more importantly, you get to watch other people vote. Or at least try.

I witnessed at least one clueless person who insisted that the voting machine she used was broken because it didn’t display candidates for governor for her. When the helpful volunteer tried to explain the concept of a closed primary and how the touch-screen system doesn’t display candidates for whom one is not eligible to vote, this woman’s eyes glazed over until she eventually got mad and stormed out—without voting.

While it is unfortunate that this woman didn’t know which type of primary is used in Maryland, it is also regrettable that she should need to know. Primaries should be open. Closed primaries are just another tool of the two major parties to control elections and who can be elected. Combine this with closed debates and one can easily understand why more and more Americans consider themselves independents. Trouble is that as independents they actually have less influence on the process because of the stranglehold the Democrats and Republicans have on the system. A Catch-22 if I ever saw one.

Hmmmm. Maybe voting isn’t the greatest freedom Americans enjoy after all.

You see, this is a war over a sidewalk.

On one side of this little war are those who want a safe place for the children of the neighborhood to walk to and from school. On the other are people who think that a sidewalk is an eyesore to their little “respite from the city.”

The people in the anti-sidewalk camp have formed a civic association, hired a “prominent” real estate lawyer, and found an arborist who claims that a sidewalk would kill all mature trees.

Those who want a sidewalk passed around a petition, collected letters from PTAs and principals and spoke with the county’s arborist who says that the sidewalk won’t do any harm.

People who do not want the sidewalk had things like this to say:

“Sidewalks are very urbanizing. Here we have what remains to be a little respite from the city. Not a whole lot, but at least some.”

“We have a 30-foot sidewalk that children have used for years. It’s a beautiful green sidewalk. Thirty feet. Not four feet. It’s called grass.”

“For these eight to 10 children, 40 years worth of work and caring will be destroyed and the lives of virtually every household on Maryknoll Avenue will be disrupted.”

Fans of a sidewalk made comments like this:

“Most kids who could be walkers avoid walking so they won’t get killed.”

“The whole way there, I was a nervous wreck. My son was stunned. We just didn’t expect so much traffic.”

NIMBYism has many faces. And, in my opinion, most of them are ugly. Most of the time it is the affluent who try to impose things they don’t want in their neighborhood on poorer citizens who don’t have the influence that is unfortunately required. In the case of the sidewalk, it is the neighbors who are more concerned with their rose bushes than the safety of the children who live in their neighborhood.

However, sometimes the bully is the government. A few days ago a federal appeals court rejected the state of South Carolina’s request to stop the federal government from shipping surplus plutonium into the state. Luckily for the citizens of South Carolina — including my future in-laws — Gov. Jim Hodges (D) is fighting the good fight. Calling the shipments “a threat to the health and safety of our state,” the Governor plans to appeal the decision all the way to the Supreme Court.

Earlier this summer Gov. Hodges had this to say about the issue after ordering the state’s police force to block the shipment of 30 tons of plutonium into the state:

“As governor, when I believe danger exists to our state, I am empowered to declare an emergency and to take measures to maintain peace and safety in South Carolina.”

“I know the folks in Washington will not like this action. And we will follow any court order regarding the shipment of this plutonium. But until ordered otherwise, I will continue to exercise any and every lawful power I possess to keep this plutonium from threatening the safety of our citizens.”

In a letter urging Gov. Hodges to sign a proposed agreement, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham had this to say:

“It is now time to bring this process to a close. Further delay in reaching agreement will undermine important international and domestic priorities of the United States.”

What about the federal government undermining the health and safety of its own citizens?

Also of Interest …

• Judge strikes down South Carolina plutonium blockade (Environmental News Network | June 19, 2002)
• US state bars plutonium shipments (BBC News | June 15, 2002)
• South Carolina, government clash over plutonium (Nando Tines | June 5, 2002)
• The South Rises Against Plutonium (TomPaine.com | June 25, 2002)
• Miles Urges Bipartisan Effort to Back Governor’s Position Against Plutonium Shipments (SC Sec. of State’s Office | April 11, 2002)
• S. Carolina told to let plutonium in (MSNBC | June 18, 2002)
• South Carolina plutonium dispute might aid Yucca foes (Las Vegas Review-Journal | April 20, 2002)
• More results from Google

Interestingly enough even the man whose job it is to steer Judge Owen’s nomination through the Senate, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, wrote an opinion that denounced Owen as holding a view that would have been “an unconscionable act of judicial activism.”

The case in question involved a 17-year-old Texas high school student who wanted an abortion. However, under the above-mentioned Texas state law, she had to tell her parents first unless a judge found that she was either “mature enough to make the decision herself; that she faced possible abuse by her parents; or that parental notification would not be in her best interest.”

Two lower courts denied her, and so the case went to the Texas Supreme Court. The Texas Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 to grant the exemption based mainly on the opinion that she was in fact mature and well-informed. The majority noted that the girl was a few weeks away from her 18th birthday, and they acted swiftly at the time of the exemption; publishing the opinion 3 months later (before the girl entered her 15th week of pregnancy).

However, Judge Owen accused the court of acting “irresponsibly” and overturned the decision. She wrote:

“This is some evidence that [she] is not mature enough to accept responsibility for her actions or her future. She intends to continue to seek and take support from her parents in virtually all aspects of her life, but not with regard to her decision to have an abortion.”

Excuse me? A judge is going to tell someone she thinks is too immature to have an abortion to have a child?!

Editors note: I do not want the comments for this post to turn into a battle ground for an abortion debate. While I have my opinions on reproductive rights, I am trying to leave them out of this post. My point is to highlight the idiocy of the way the majority decision of a state supreme court was overturned by a single judge; and the flaws in the “reasoning” employed in said decision. I realise that the judge was ruling that the girl was not mature enough to make the decision without telling her parents. But the point is that if this girl’s parents decided that she couldn’t have an abortion, the judge essentially forced someone to have a child because the judge didn’t think the girl was mature enough to make a decision about having an abortion.

The basic gist of the proposed law is that, in order to stop people from ingesting ecstasy at these all-night dance parties, promoters of the events will be held liable for the acts of the people attending the raves. The Senate bill, so cutely-named the Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act, and introduced by Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), is based on the federal “crack house” laws which make it a felony to provide space for the purpose of illegal drug use.

However, while a crack house has only one purpose—to provide a place to smoke crack—raves are places where people go to dance, listen to music and meet with friends. They are essentially just big parties. No one goes to a crack house for the atmosphere; and by the same token, not everyone who goes to a rave does so to get high.

As Graham Boyd, Director of the ACLU’s Drug Policy Litigation Project, said regarding a similar case in Louisiana in 2001, “[h]olding club owners and promoters of raves criminally liable for what some people may do at these events is no different from arresting the stadium owners and promoters of a Rolling Stones concert or a rap show because some concertgoers may be smoking or selling marijuana.”

There is a similar—and harsher—law pending in the House of Representatives that would hold promoters in violation if they “reasonably ought to know” that someone will use an illegal drug during the event. This small, but significant difference in the bills is very scary from the point of view of civil liberties. Imagine if such rules were applied to other things… like a party in your own home.

I even liked the chain-smoking Parish priest, Father Stack, who would have his pre-Mass cigarette outside the church wearing his leather bomber jacket over his black cassock. Father Stack was an avid Redskins fan who would occasionally skip Sunday’s homily so he wouldn’t miss the kick-off. I recall one time, when the Redskins were in the play-offs, where he skipped the homily and there was a soft, but audible, cheer from the men in the pews. Immediately followed by choruses of shushes by wives and mothers. The only “abuse” Father Stack ever bestowed upon me was an occasional play-slap to the back of my head when he would find me kneeling in prayer in a back pew. He always followed up his slaps by saying things like “you look so holy when you’re praying, Ricky-babe” in a voice I now hear in my head as though he sounded like Humphrey Bogart.

I eventually made the decision to leave the Catholic church. (I guess more accurately I stopped paying dues and attending meetings. It’s not like I sent a letter to the the CEO and turned in my rosary.) But not because of any abuse. The church and I had simply grown apart and didn’t see eye-to-eye anymore.

However, despite my fond recollections of Father Stack, there are still many things about the crimes being committed by Catholic priests against children that disturb me. And I am angry by the blame being assigned homosexuals as the church continues to point fingers at everyone but themselves.

One last thing has me confused: Why is this being discussed as though it is an American problem? Why were the U.S. cardinals called to Rome to discuss “the problems in the church in the United States in the wake of scandals connected with pedophilia?” Why the emphasis on American priests? Is there more of a problem in the United States? Or it because there is more media attention provided to the issue here?

Related:

• BBC: “Pope Condemns US Church Sex Abuse”
• CNN: Factfile: Church Rocked by Sex Scandals
• Washington Post: Pope Addresses U.S. Cardinals
• CNN: “Pope Says Bishops’ Decisions ‘Wrong’”
• Time: Catholicism in Crisis

However, tonight’s Nightly News with Tom Brokaw story on the video’s authenticity was a brilliant piece of reverse propaganda posing as satire. In the segment the reporter demonstrated how green screening is used in television by showing how weather maps are displayed behind weather casters. Then humorously employing the technology to place himself in front of various world landmarks. He finished the piece with examples of using personal computers to accomplish the same effects.

And it got me thinking. There is a lot of footage of this guy floating around. Perhaps the United States should start producing its own videos of Dr. Heckle in various locations—strip clubs and the Statue of Liberty coming immediately to mind. They could even make him appear to call his followers stupid for thinking he would be caught dead in a Tora Bora cave at this time of year. Then they could drop the videos disguised as food parcels, sit back and wait. It’s not like his followers paid much attention to previous digital manipulations they encountered.

Besides, this might be a good way for Hollywood to help Henry Hyde with his patriotic interest in America’s image problem. But if they are too busy, maybe we should put crookDIMWIT’s inquisitive Abbie on the case.

On a somewhat related note, I want to extend my condolences to the people of Canada as well as my sympathies to the family’s of the soldiers killed today. These soldiers were the first casualties of war for Canada since the Korean War. Let’s hope they are the last.