Tuesday, October 30, 2007

[1735 - John Adams, Second President, born in Braintree, Massachusetts]

[1839 - Alfred Sisley, impressionist painter, born in Paris]

[1882 - William 'Bull' (Frederick) Halsey, Jr., WW-II U.S. Naval Admiral born in Elizabeth, New Jersey]

[1885 - Ezra (Weston Loomis) Pound, poet, born in Hailey, Idaho]

[1893 - Charles Atlas (Angelo Siciliano), body builder, born in Calabria, Italy]

[1896 - Ruth Gordon (Jones), Emmy & Academy Award-winning actress, born in Quincy, Massachusetts]

[1952 - Dr. Albert Schweitzer wins Nobel Peace Prize]

[1953 - General George C. Marshall wins Nobel Peace Prize]

[1956 - Brooklyn Dodgers sell Ebbets Field to a real estate group]

On His Majesty's Secret Service

Perhaps you read about the two intrepid Secret Service agents who, all the way out in California, captured a 14-year-old high school girl because she had displayed her anger and hatred for President Bush on her MySpace page. Apparently, Julia Wilson posted the words "Kill Bush" along with a cartoon dagger stabbing the president's hand on the popular site. After pulling Julia out of her high school classroom, these brave agents succeeded in reducing her to tears by their interrogation methods. Fortunately for Julia, at the time of these events the President had not yet signed the new Detainee Bill that would have allowed the agents to designate her as an enemy combatant, render her to a foreign prison, and have the CIA or the Pakistanis torture her.

I suppose it is too much to hope for that our Secret Service agents would be trained to know the difference between a minor child in Sacramento, California and an Al Qaeda operative in Washington, DC. In evaluating the nature of the threat posed by this child, someone might have had to perform an act rarely seen in the nation's capital involving the use of gray matter. Had they done so, a phonecall to the parents would have resolved this. Perhaps they just take their cue from their Commander in Chief in charging off to engage the wrong enemy in the wrong place without a plan or a reason.

I guess we showed all those radical Islamists that we can overreact to an inflammatory cartoon just as violently as they can.

Strange isn't it that a child who demonstrates her hostility to the President and his actions gets visited by the Secret Service, while the President who is responsible for the deaths and maiming of 30,000 of our young people enjoys its protection.

From the journal of John Adams:

"Ambition is one of the more unforgivable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.... There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with the power to endanger the public liberty."

From David McCullough's John Adams

William's Whimsical Words:

Should one of my children express hatred or hostility toward President Bush, I would caution my offspring that it makes no sense to hate those that pose a threat to your country; it gives them too much power over you. Pity would seem a more appropriate response to Mr. Bush, who is surely a pathetic figure of a man.

to Fall 2007

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