Its often risky to propose a blanket assumption, but it seems fair to say that the actions of the pilot in this week's airplane accident in New York City saved the lives of the 155 people in his care. There's no doubt that the selfless, reflexive response by the boat pilots and emergency personnel in the immediate accident area were instrumental in saving lives, but without the steady, competent actions of this experienced airman, much of what followed would have been a recovery effort instead of a rescue.

The commercial airline industry is one of the most regulated industries in America. The pilots are held to very high standards and repeated testing. Its not like taking a 5-hour pre-licensing course and then never undergoing any further examination. Commercial airline pilots don't get a pass for passing one test. This instance demonstrates that sort of strict regulation saves lives.

In addition, that sort of strict regulation seems to also select exceptional individuals. Reports indicate that the pilot not only managed to land the airplane safely in a dire circumstance, he felt that his responsibility for the people in his care demanded that he walk the length of the passenger cabin twice to ensure that everyone got out while the plane was sinking in the frigid waters of the Hudson River. This wasn't a stroll down the sunny boardwalk; passengers reported that water was already rising as they were making their way to safety, yet this man waded through the rising flood of icy water to try to ensure the safety of his charges What makes it even more an amazing demonstration of assumed care and responsibility is because he saw it as his duty. Nothing extraordinary. These passengers placed their safety and well-being in his hands and Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger is made more heroic because he did his due diligence in the manner that any fireman, volunteer or otherwise, any law enforcement officer, emergency medical tech, soldier, sailor, airman, or marine would respond. Honor comes from doing your duty.

Its only because his actions and the professional response of rest of the flight crew saved all of the people on-board the aircraft that I feel comfortable contrasting how this result of the strict supervision of the airline industry contrasts with the calamitous after-effects Americans have suffered because of the abandonment of attention in so many other industries. Food safety. Drug safety. Financial regulation. Import inspection. As attentions have lapsed, as supervision has been abandoned, as accommodations have been made to further corporate interests and profits, people have been sickened, killed and pauperized. Imagine if we applied the same standards to air traffic safety that have been extended to other industries. Not only wouldn't this story have had such a fortunate and inspiring ending, we'd instead be deluged daily by stories of airplane after airplane spiraling into the craters that would surround most major airports. If we had ignored airline industry regulation to the extent that we've swallowed the fairy tales that the corporate mercenaries who bankrupted America have our best interests foremost in their kindly hearts, no one would venture to travel further off the ground than a Greyhound bus seat.

The slickest salesmen in America aren't the infomercial hucksters that populate cable television's off-peak hours. They aren't the guys who try to sell you a driveway sealing job that consists of pouring used motor-oil on your blacktop driveway. They're the ones who insist that national and international corporations have your best interests at heart and can only serve to improve your economic situation if they're allowed to operate under rules that would shame a 17th Century pirate. Then, just before they dive-bomb us into life-sucking disaster, they'll abandon the airplane beneath golden parachutes. They're the ones who insist that if you leave them alone to deal with things as they see fit, they'll respond just as nobly as the people in whose hands we daily place our lives.

They won't come even close to that standard of decency and duty.

      Saturday's edition of Batavia's Daily News front-paged a story of our local law enforcement performing their duties in the full spirit of the oaths they take.  Sheriffs deputies from Livingston, Genesee and Wyoming counties dovetailed their efforts in apprehending a group of robbers that have been victimizing local immigrant workers.  Using the workers' fear of immigration authorities, these thugs forcibly invaded migrant housing, beating and robbing with the confidence that local law enforcement wouldn't be notified.  However, local farmers worked with our law enforcement professionals to convince the victims to come forward.

 '   "Many of the victims felt helpless,  due to the fact many were illegal immigrants in this country, fearful of reporting the crime and being deported," Livingston County Sheriff John York said Friday during a news conference.'   But the local law saw things in black and white.   Later in the article, York says, "....I want to make it clear to everybody that even illegal immigrants or legal immigrants have the right not to be victimized in this country."

    Those sentiments were repeated by many of the fine people who worked in an "intensive, round-the-clock" effort to stop the victimization of some of the most defenseless among us.  To read the story is to be proud that our law enforcement officials take their duty to "serve and protect" to mean they'll serve and protect everybody.

      A report in The Buffalo News seems to show why Jack Davis is ducking the debates proposed by the other two Democratic primary candidates, Jon Powers and Alice Kryzan.  In a speech at The Center for Inquiry in Amherst,NY, Davis warned of a coming civil war in the Southwest. 

     "WASHINGTON — Congressional candidate Jack Davis, in a speech earlier this year, warned that increasing immigration from Mexico could lead to a new civil war between northern states and Mexican-influenced Southern states that may want to secede from the United States.

“In the latter part of this century or the next, Mexicans will be a majority in many of the states and could therefore take control of the state government using the democratic process,” Davis said in the speech. “They could then secede from the United States, and then we might have another civil war.”"   http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/421229.html
 

     Its the sort of thing that a Congressional candidate might not want to be associated with and Davis is expectedly trying to walk back from his statements.     Sort of.

   "  Asked this week about his speech, Davis said he no longer believed Southern states would be prone to leaving the union in order to assert Mexican control over what is now U. S. territory.

     “I think they’ll do it without a civil war,” he said. “They’ll take control of the state governments and start voting themselves anything they want."

       There's a theme that runs through Davis' remarks that is distinct from any inference about his opinions of immigrants and farmers.  It seems that Jack might be out of touch.  In addition to telling local farmers to forget about immigrant labor ,   http://thebatavian.com/blogs/russ-stresing/where-am-i-how-did-i-get-here... Jack doesn't seem to understand other things about the tough business of farming.

  " Many Western New York farmers rely on migrant workers from Mexico to bring in the crops.

   After hearing quotes from Davis’ speech, John Lincoln, the president of the New York Farm Bureau, said: “The farmers overall would be really concerned about his statement.”

   Told what Lincoln said, Davis replied: “He’s not a regular farmer. He’s one of these big guys . . . I’d call him a multinational farmer.”

   Lincoln, 70, is a dairy farmer with 200 head of cattle in Bloomfield, a village of 1,258 in Ontario County, southeast of Rochester. Asked if he had ever met Lincoln, Davis said he had not."

      Jack's high paid handlers should be given credit for realizing that the highest level of stagecraft is what serves their candidate best.  They are well advised to keep Jack away from spontaneous interaction with voters and to keep tight control over his press appearances.  There's little likelihood of a debate or series of debate so long as Jack has the balance of his $3 million self-pledged campaign funds to buy TV ads and radio jingles.

    This is submitted to address the issue of representational fairness in regard to the election of at-large city council members. Currently, if a sitting council member who was elected to represent an individual ward runs for an at-large seat and wins, someone is then appointed to the vacated ward seat from the winning party. Since this appointment is voted on by the city council instead of the ward's voters, it dilutes the power of each ward resident's vote. By replacing the member who initially won the ward's vote with a candidate who only needs approval from elected officials outside of the ward, this effectively means that the ward's representation is then decided by the whole city instead of  by the wards' voters. Additionally, in a ward election, party affiliation doesn't mean as much as it does in other elections, so limiting the council's choices to just one party even further deprives the ward voters of choice.

     I would propose that a sitting member should be required to serve notice of their intention to resign their current seat to run for an at-large seat so that their ward can make the decision on who represents them instead of leaving it to the city council members to decide for the ward. This resignation would take effect at the end of the current council year. In the interest of fairness, the announcement should be required to be made sufficiently in advance of the election so as to provide interested candidates the time necessary to file and gather sufficient petition signatures.   By allowing sitting members to make a horizontal move to an at-large seat, it also reduces the pool of interested candidates for the ward seat, thereby additionally depriving ward voters of further choice in their representation.

  This proposal is made in regard to fairness and outside of any partisan considerations.

   Endorsed Democratic Congressional candidate, Jon Powers, held the first in a series of planned conferences with local educators at Main Street Coffee on Tuesday, August 12th.  The meeting gave Powers a chance to hear concerns and solutions directly from educators.   Among those attending the forum were principals Charles Herring of LeRoy high school, Jim Thompson, an assistant professor at Medaille College and a retired elementary principal, elementary teachers Christine Frew and Debbie Karas, art teacher Lorie Longhany, ELA teacher Sue Bell. The candidate has more of these conferences planned throughout the district, along with meetings with other residents intended to give the voters the voice in their government that they deserve.

     Powers said he was grateful for the time the participants shared with him and took many good ideas from the event.  His keen interest in education originates from a source close to home.  His mother, Sue Powers, is a career educator and attended Tuesday's meeting.  Jon credits her as being his biggest influence in developing a passion for education.  

   The participating educators were equally impressed with Powers.  Past principal at Leroy Elementary School and current assistant professor of education at Medaille College, Jim Thompson, gave this reaction when asked his impression of Powers and the campaign's  effort at gathering voters' input.

More at The Albany Project  http://www.thealbanyproject.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4007

http://www.powersforcongress.com/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticConte...

     Is Jack Davis completely out of touch with reality?  It seems so, given his statements during a  rare public appearance.  Making an infrequent foray outside of the confines of his cozy  headquarters, Jack set up a campaign appearance for the press in Genesee County.  That's usually how it works with Jack.  See, he doesn't think much of actual campaigning, things like going door to door to ask for your vote.  He does like waving from one of  his show cars in parades, but otherwise, he's content to let his $3 million dollars do his talking and, boy, does Jack like to be the one doing the talking.  He's not big on listening.  That fact is apparent from what he said on Friday.

      Here's what he's promoting on his own website. “The farmers claim they need more foreign labor to pick those crops and some have asked for more visas for immigrant farm workers. But with our high unemployment, how can we justify hiring someone other than our own unemployed to do this work?”  Its obvious Jack hasn't heard any of the problems the local growers have had in recent years.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21491778/    Does Jack really want to add to the risks that farmers already brave every year?  Or was he that clueless about where he was when he made that statement?  As rarely as he goes out on the trail, it might've made sense for him to do a little background research on the GLOW region.  Agriculture is the backbone of our local economy.  Now, Jack says he wants to deny our local farmers the labor force they depend on to get their crops out of the fields or orchards and onto our tables.

       Anyone could be forgiven for thinking this is Jack's first try at office after reading this.  But, Jack's had two tries at this seat in the past.  In fact, Jack used to be a Republican but after he donated $2,000 at a Republican fundraiser and was told he couldn't personally speak with Vice President Cheney, Jack quit the party in a huff.  That next year, in an expensive fit of pique, Jack spent 1.2 million dollars of his own personal fortune campaigning against Tom Reynolds.  He lost.  So, in 2006, he spent even more.  In fact, Jack spent a million dollars that year on the Independence party nomination alone. No other candidates stepped up to run on the Democratic line, so Jack got it by default, the same way he got it in 2004.  Tom Reynolds was a severely wounded candidate owing to his connection to the Foley scandal.  It didn't matter. Jack lost.  Many observers blamed it on the fact that Jack doesn't like to get out and campaign.  He's of the belief that if you throw enough commercials on TV and radio, and stuff voters' mailboxes full with slick fliers day after day, you don't have to get out and actually talk with them.  It didn't work for him the last two times.  Still, he's doing the the very same thing for the third time.  So much for learning from experience.

     Jack's idea of coming to a rural area and advocating a position counter to their needs might make him seem frighteningly oblivious, but it  is characteristic of his attitude that he doesn't need the voters' input.  He wants you to listen to the Brooks and Dunn ripoff he's using as a radio commercial, let him bury you under multiple campaign fliers every week, and let him buy gasoline for people in Greece.  That's how Jack thinks it works.  Throw enough money at a problem, and he can solve it.

      Jack doesn't like to listen.  It was demonstrated earlier in the race when all four GLOW Democratic committees endorsed Jon Powers.  Jack tried to tell them they'd made a mistake and had better change their minds.  Here's their response:   "This is a press release from the 4 Democratic chairs of Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming Counties regarding the NY 26th Congressional race.  Jack Davis seems to feel the rural counties can be cajoled into rescinding their endorsements of Jon Powers, and the chairs wanted to make it clear that there are no intentions to do so."

      Its one thing to claim to be your own man.  Its a completely different thing to be ignorant of your district's concerns and to ignore your party's position on the issues.  If Jack is so cavalier about rural WNY's needs and so out of step with his own party's platform, what other misapprehensions is he laboring under?

There are a number of arguments to be made about the positives and negatives of  America's two-party system. This essay, though, is meant to address a few reasons why its unlikely that more than two parties in this country will ever have substantial political power without wide-ranging changes in our methods of elections.

    In any election beyond the local school board or city council (in a few areas of the country),  the single candidate with the most votes takes it all in what has been called a "first to the post" system.   A candidate needs to get one vote more than the next best candidate to win it all. (This applies even in states like Louisiana where an open primary is held and the top two vote getters advance to a general election run-off, regardless of party affiliation)  That means the person who garners the most votes is the sole representative of that ward, district, or state.   With two parties, that's one vote more than 50% of the total, or 50% + 1.  However, since in our system a plurality is all that is needed, it could mean that with 3 candidates, it could conceivably end up 34%, 33%, 33%.  While almost 50% of the electorate in the first example doesn't get its choice, 66% in the second example are disappointed.  Without  awarding the political parties seats proportional to the votes cast in their favor, its unlikely that this system would support a viable third party. 

   In the sort of parliamentary system that supports having more than two parties, representation is awarded to the party according to how many voted on their line.  We don't have that same proportional allotment.  As our election system is now constructed,  a multi-party election wouldn't  necessarily lead to more a representational government but, in fact, could  be less representative of the greater will of the voting public.  Imagine a four-way race, each group having a special interest platform.  Instead of 1/2 the voters getting at least a semblance of what they voted for, a 26% voter tally could mean that a party with a very narrow focus, even what might be a fringe position, could end up 'representing' the other 74% who have little or nothing in common with them.  This is the  sort of outcome that is possible beyond a two-party race in a winner-take-all system.  Unless America moves to design a method  of electing legislative representatives proportionally, who would then form coalitions to pick our federal officials, a two-party system is the most likely scenario we will have.

     Last Tuesday evening found me in rare circumstance when I was in the same room for more than a few moments with both of my still-at-home kids.  Most times, one or the other is working,  or at a summer league game, or at a weight-lifting session, or at a basketball clinic, or at a friend's house, or at the computer, or in another room watching another show, or I'm out doing something of  little consequence.  It was just a roll of the dice that found us all together and still awake, even if just barely, in the heavy, close air of a July evening in Western New York.

     Channel-surfing, we came across the introductions for this year's MLB All-Star game.  None of us is a big baseball fan, but the combination of the approaching demise of Yankee Stadium and the presence of a number of Hall of Famers made for an irresistible mid-summer moment and was enough to pull the thumb off the remote. As the old-timers were announced, it occurred to me to quiz my 20-year-old daughter. At the time, I had no idea what prompted me to ask.

"Tell me what sport the person I name played.", I said.  It went like this: Joe DiMaggio. Baseball. Lou Gehrig. Baseball. Mickey Mantle. Baseball. Ty Cobb. Baseball. Gordie Howe. No idea. Bart Starr. Who? Oscar Robertson. Um...basketball? Kenny Norton. Not a clue.

It struck me that the game of baseball, regardless of its current state of popularity, is so woven into the fabric of our history that a kid who never played the game, a kid who played basketball since she was barely bigger than the ball, a kid who traveled across the country to play in a national college tournament knew more legends from baseball than she did from basketbal or any other sportl. Her recall of more recent retirees was pretty much limited to Reggie Jackson because of the movie, "Benchwarmers" and whomever had disgraced themselves sufficiently to be in the news. The people she knew aren't only baseball legends. They'ere historical figures.

My quiz session ended, we watched the introductions and then demonstrated our lack of appreciation for the game itself by scrolling past it to Family Guy. But, the episode has been rolling around in my mind, and I think I finally have a handle on it.

Baseball was once such an intrinsic part of American society that the impact of the notable figures from that time is deeply embedded enough into the national psyche that kids today who have no interest in the game still know the names of its heroes. That begs the question; what was it about the game back then that caused such a far reaching effect? My answer is that it wasn't the game. It was America's sense of community that was different. The echoes of the shared sacrifices that melded unlike parts into a communal whole resonated in the nation's love of and fascination for baseball. Sure, professional football was still growing, hockey was a regional league of just six teams, and basketball was finding its legs as a professional sports entity. Yes, to be sure, baseball stood alone atop the national consciousness in sports, but that doesn't explain why those names still connect with kids who's parents' parents were still learning to feed themselves. I think it was because America was still a nation of communities. The old-country still had enough of a grip on the sons and daughters of immigrants to put real zest into ethnic festivals, enough to create yearly anticipation from all over the town or city. Unions were as much about workers socializing around common experience as they were about organizing. Sure, people sent their kids to school to get educated, but they sent them into the neighborhood to get civilized. People wanted to be a part of the greater whole, consciously or not, and baseball was the top layer of this goulash.

This isn't to romanticize away the problems of past eras. The chain Emails that extol how wonderful it was 'back in the day' find their way into the Trash file on my Yahoo account as fast as on anyone else's. The point I'm making is that people were far more inclined to look outside themselves and their own interests to find validation, to feel like a part of something. And baseball was something that brought so many people together. You could root for your own team and hate the rivals, but you could share an appreciation for the game with almost all of America that they shared for no other sport. And that made you a part of a huge community of people with a shared love and appreciation of something bigger than yourself.. That's a hugely powerful component in developing a sense of communal experience. One that America lacks now.

The sense of shared sacrifice I referred to earlier is lost on us now. A lot of us are content to let other people's families fight our wars. A lot of us don't want to lose our scenic views to windmills that provide clean energy and jobs. A lot of us never want to change our social habits or lifestyle until we're forced into it. And then, a lot of us piss and moan, ad nauseum. That's the difference between then and now. Sacrifice has lost its luster. Sacrifice isn't admired. Sacrifice is a sucker's move. Sacrifice is surrender. That's the only common sentiment a lot of us share.

Except, a lot of us are wrong. Horribly, shamefully, damnably wrong. If sacrifice is shared, if its a rational decision, if it is in the common good, it brings us together as a community. A community beyond our narrow self-interests and prejudices. And its not the type of sacrifice that garners publicity or notoriety that bring us together. The saying goes, "Character is doing the right thing when nobody's watching". The true character of sacrifice is doing the right thing when its not just for your own benefit. Doing the little things right is shared sacrifice. Adding your name to a petition. Putting your recycling out. Walking when you can. Turning away from whatever BS news blurb competes for your attention to pay attention to what our fighting men and women are going through.

The names of legendary baseball players resonate in our minds more because of the people who watched them than because of the players'  fleeting accomplishments on the field. They resonate because the people who listened to their exploits, who followed their achievements were a community of Americans who shared in their love of  baseball the way they shared in their sense of  sacrifice. Maybe we don't share baseball in the singular way they did, but we need to start sharing sacrifice in the ways they did.

    It was straight out of a 1930's-era movie.  Jack Davis at a Greece gas station, paying people the difference between the current cost of gas and the $1.50-a-gallon price it stood at when Bush was inaugurated.

    Quickly.  What came to mind just now?  For me and everybody else I've told about this, it was two words: "Buying votes".  It felt like a time-warp.  But then I remembered that they didn't even have TV back in the days when this sort of thing happened.  I expected to see Jack wearing a white suit and a broad-brimmed strawhat as he tossed money into the crowd, a big cigar clenched in his teeth.  Reality came rushing back, however, and I had to accept that a millionaire candidate was giving people money as part of his campaign.  Is that even legal?  It wouldn't seem so.

    This makes Jack Davis seem disconnected, at the very least.  A wealthy elitist tossing ducats into the crowd in an insulting attempt to garner publicity at the expense of honesty and respect for the voters.  In addition to believing this sort of antiquated stunt serves as serious campaigning, Jack Davis says that drilling in the Alaskan National Wilderness Refuge is one of the answers to the current cost of gasoline.  He'd have you believe that while at the same time hoping you are so ill-informed that you don't know that we won't see a drop of that oil for nearly a decade.  Our own government's Energy Information Administration says ""Seven to 12 years are estimated to be required from an approval to explore and develop to first production from the ANWR Area."  http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arcti... Even then, it would reduce the cost of a barrel of oil by a whopping 75 cents.  And all that if we allow profit bloated oil companies to sell us back the oil they took from America's national park. 

       It can't be said that Jack Davis is ignorant of economics, though.  He currently holds up to $35 million worth of oil and energy stocks.  I'd be buying people some gas, too.  But, I wouldn't be trying to buy their votes.

     It's a staple of the 24-hour cable news networks to label any story they have video of as "breaking news".  So, it was with little excitement that my wife and I waited after seeing the "special report" banner across the screen on MSNBC.  When Tom Brokaw appeared on camera, we knew it was more than a flood or a car chase.  His mournful tone immediately warned us that the news he brought was immensely sad.  And, indeed, it was  For long moments, after Tom Brokaw somberly broke the news of Tim Russert's sudden passing, neither of us spoke, at the risk of tears.  We'd lost one of our own. 

     It might seem overly sentimental or emotional to some, but I feel a personal loss.  Sunday morning meant no one bothered Papa from 9 till 10 cause "Tim Russert's talking".  I felt like I could depend on Tim to ask the real questions, without an agenda, and, especially, with the grace that comes from knowing his stuff.  I knew for certain that Tim would frame the question in such a way that the answer would be somethng I could understand and absorb.  If you were a politician or public figure, and you weren't willing to plead your case in front of Tim, then, dammit, you didn't have a case.  Stop wasting my time.

    Often, skeptics like me resist the impulse to project images on public figures, but its without reservation that I can say that Tim Russert was a good father, a good son, and most importantly, a good man.  And that's the greatest loss.  For all of Tim's accomplishments, for all that he achieved, for all the recognition that he gained, the greatest heartbreak for me is that we lost a good man.

Saw this on Meet The Press this morning.  Kinda gave me pause for thought.

MR. RUSSERT:  Which, which leads me to Robert F. Kennedy.  We're going to talk about him in our "Meet the Press Minute."  But look at this.  He gave a speech to the Voice of America all around the world 40 years ago.  And despite what was going on in the country, particularly in Alabama, Bobby Kennedy said this:  Things are "moving so fast in race relations a Negro could be president in 40 years." This is in 1968, we're now in 2008.  "`There's no question about it,' the attorney general said.  `In the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has.' ...  Kennedy said that prejudice exists and probably will continue to ...  `But we have tried to make progress and we are making progress.  We are not going to accept the status quo.'" Extraordinarily prescient, which leads us to our "Meet the Press Minute."

It was with no small sense of horror that I watched a clip of video from a street corner camera in Hartford, CT, replayed on each hour’s newscast on cable networks. It showed a 78-year-old man being sideswiped by a first car, and then catapulted over a second car, his body cart wheeling into the air until it slammed onto the pavement to lay shattered and still.  Blurry as the image was, there was no mistaking that his bent, twisted, so heartbreakingly slight form was unmoving.

            It would seem that this, by itself, was the horror.  Ghastly as it might be to imagine there was something more horrific, there was.  For a full minute, cars in the other lane…..passed by.  Pedestrians on the sidewalk…..looked on.  And did nothing.  Beyond stopping to watch curiously, no one approached.  No one.

            A man lay still in obvious distress and no one rushed to his aid.  No one blocked traffic.  Not a single person went to him. No one knelt by his side to comfort him.  In the most hideous definition of the word, ‘spectators’ stood by, unmoved and unmoving.

Hundreds of miles away, hours removed, I watched and was horrified.

            And ashamed.  Deeply, personally ashamed. There was no gunfire.  No snipers.  No fanatical militia with a suicidal thirst for martyrdom.  No forest fire.  No earthquake, hurricane, tidal wave.  An ordinary day on an ordinary street in the most ordinary of American cities.  No one was under threat of death or injury.  And, as an old man lay,  probably dying, no one did anything.  And I felt ashamed.

               Ashamed of myself.  For as much as I ached to condemn every anonymous person recorded in the camera’s eye, my own shame eclipsed my capacity for blame.  Shame for my inaction in the face of criminal conduct by my own government.  Shame for my silent acquiescence as my elected officials betrayed their oaths to protect my rights and those of my fellow Americans.  Shame for keeping quiet in the face of thundering evidence that we are shackling America’s next generation and many to follow to a debt they had no voice in signing on to.  Shame for doing nothing as other people’s children were sent to fight, sacrifice, or die. 

            As deeply satisfying as it would be to bathe in the self-righteous glow of condemnation, as salving as it would be to cast great big stones of blame at those people on that Connecticut street, my hypocritically narrow shoulders can’t bear the strain of that hypocrisy.

            Bearing that stain, I offer this apology to every American family who sends a hero into sincere service, to every American family who struggles believing in the promise of the greatest nation in the history.  I am sorry.  I am sorry I didn’t do more, something more, even just a little more.  I should have spoken out louder, more often.  I should have thought harder and with more skepticism.  I should have done the least little thing expected of an American.  To act.  To do something.

However little comfort it may be to those who’ve lost a soldier, sailor, airman, marine, I promise I won’t stand on the sidewalk anymore.  I won’t watch without stepping up, stepping into traffic.  To those who struggle, it will not be your shame if I turn a deaf ear to your murmurs for just a little break.

It will be my shame.

And I won’t shame myself again.

    How about a law that would require that no member of Congress, the Senate, the White House would receive a penny more salary than the lowest paid American Soldier, Marine, Airman, Sailor currently in combat?  So long as one ground-pounding, oath-swearing, mother's child is under threat of injury....no one who had a hand in sending them into harm's way should receive one dime more than that service member does.
 
    And, its not retro-active.  So long as your son, daughter, nephew, niece, cousin, grandson, granddaughter, mother, father, sister, brother, neighbor is in harm's way, no one who sent them there will accrue (you should pardon my french) a damned dime more than that hero does.  If  you sit in one of those seats of inscrutable power, you'd better be so thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of your decision that you'd at least wager your salary on it.

   Because the people you're sending into battle wager a hell of a lot more than your political future.  Their oath entails more than a hand on a book.  Their oath takes them into a situation you send them into.  And it better be for more than oil, for more than a political ideology, it better be for more than your re-election chances. This isn't about philosophy.  It's about the genuine dedication and sacrifice of American citizen soldiers and families.

   Given the preponderance of millionaire-members of the Senate and Congress, maybe they can absorb the cost of their decision easier than we absorb the true cost of war.   Is it asking so much that they share a fraction of the financial cost that our service families endure?

   Does this sound like a good idea to you?