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You may contact Don Williams by email at donwilliams7@charter.net or visit his website at newmillenniumwritings.com. His mailing address is PO Box 2463, Knoxville, TN, 37901. SHARE
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Don Williams is a prize-winning columnist, short story writer, freelancer, and the founding editor and publisher of New Millennium Writings, an annual anthology of literary stories, essays and poems. His awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Michigan Journalism Fellowship, a Golden Presscard Award and the Malcolm Law Journalism Prize. He just finished a novel, "Oracle of the Orchid Lounge," set in his native Tennessee. Publishers or agents may inquire via email. His book of selected journalism, "Heroes, Sheroes and Zeroes, the Best Writings About People" by Don Williams, is due a second printing. In 2007, he gave up his weekly column at the Knoxville News-Sentinel rather than see it cut back to every-other-week by editors who endorsed Bush-Cheney.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 22, 2013 JFK's three, yes, cosmic, accomplishments
John F. Kennedy, murdered on this date fifty years ago, was more than a handsome young prince of some mythic Camelot who served 1,000 days. He was our greatest president.He gave us the moon. He saved us from nuclear doom. He launched the Whole Earth movement.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 26, 2011 "Brisk, but with feeling'--my ET Hall of Fame remarks
On Oct. 20, I was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame, an honor I thought would never come my way, as my writings, tho popular, had been highly controversial in the region. I'd walked away from my column of 21 years at the Knoxville News-Sentinel rather than agree to stop writing about national issues. This was the elephant in the ballroom, last Thursday, and I felt I had to acknowledge it. Here's my speech.
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, May 6, 2011 Obama at Ground Zero--How Executing Osama bin Laden Brutalized Us All
And if we've come to this, applauding like chimps for acts of barbaric bloodletting that took place in front of the slaughtered man's 12-year-old daughter and others, then we are at ground zero on the evolutionary scale.
We shot the suspect in the heart and head, then threw his body in the sea. Tell me how this makes the past decade of needless war, lies, torture and waste any easier. To me it's just more of the same.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 6, 2011 Fear and Loathing in the Twilight Zone of Talking Heads
I'd always wondered what it's like to play guest commentator on a newsy show tuned in by thousands or millions. I found out last Thursday. It's Fear and Loathing meets The Twilight Zone.
(28 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Why Obama's right on Libya but Bush was wrong on Iraq
Start with the lies. President Obama was forthright last night in telling Americans and the world why we must intervene in Libya. No one could doubt the evidence he used to build his case of opposing a bloodbath. The evidence was everywhere before our eyes. This was not true of Bush and Iraq. The reasons he concocted for going to war did not pass the sniff test.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, March 28, 2011 Atoms for War, Atoms for Peace: Only Japan knows both sides of nuclear coin
Only God--if anyone--knows how critical this crisis can become, but it's bad enough to render Japan a poster child for extremes of nuclear madness experienced by humans to date. So how did Japan go from target of war nukes to willing participant in nuclear madness.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, June 18, 2010 Cheney-Bush still gushing toxic history into our world
In 2003 I wrote, "If George W. Bush had run for president on a platform of making the world uninhabitable for humankind, he could scarcely have done better at starting us down such a path." Even now oil gushes from a hole in the bottom of the sea, thanks to Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and BP.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 18, 2010 Cheney-Bush Still Gushing Toxic History Into Our World
In his second administration--two wars and a million deaths later--Bush demoted Cheney, but by then it was too late. Cheney had unleashed forces that will haunt the world for decades if not centuries. Even now oil gushes from a hole in the bottom of the sea, thanks to Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and BP.
SHARE Wednesday, May 19, 2010 Crunch Time--Tell Tennessee to Save Global Treasures
You can make a difference if you ACT NOW. Vast forest carbon wells, species migration routes, rivers and spawning grounds have been put at risk by a hesitant state legislature.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 30, 2010 Obama and that old June, croon, spoon moon
It's astounding that Obama intends pulling the plug on President Bush's plans to return us to the moon by about 2020, with no cut in spending. I'm no Bush fan, but his moon plans were based on designing a program reminiscent of Apollo, which gave us damn near all the tools a space-faring nation needs to explore the entire solar system.
SHARE Saturday, March 20, 2010 A Nation of Wolves and Sheep
First, I urge you to support healthcare reform by contacting your U.S. representative
SHARE Thursday, February 11, 2010 Celebrating My Country Within-A-Country
there were times when I didn't recognize my country anymore, and more than once when I've heard somebody say, "America, love it or leave it," I considered leaving.
SHARE Thursday, January 21, 2010 Mysterious friend calls Obama out
Flamboyant friend calls out not only Obama but supportive columnists... "kind of like the orchestra on the Titanic..."
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 6, 2010 At Last We've Entered the New Millennium... Sort of
Start with the cultural. "Avatar," the flashiest and most popular new film in years proffers a message born of a Whole Earth mentality... Other indicators offer hope as well, but dark tones pertain.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, December 4, 2009 I can't go along just because it's Obama's war
If Osama bin Laden's still alive, he must be laughing. He's damn near bankrupted us. Yet, instead of cutting back, Obama's upping the ante.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 26, 2009 Go ahead, hug that tree and give thanks
It may be impossible to say anything truer about happiness than this: Giving thanks is the key to happiness.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 17, 2009 Say No to a New Nuclear Bomb Plant
If you love our world, drop everything for ten minutes and visit http://www.Y12SWEIS.com. Leave a comment there telling the US government to get behind a vision embraced by unlikely bedfellows who have envisioned a nuclear-weapons-free future. Specifically, ask our politicos and bureaucrats to drop plans to build a ruinous new weapons complex in Oak Ridge, TN.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 5, 2009 On Obama's role in New Millennium Writings
Perhaps childishly, some of us looked to the new millennium as a time when humans would emerge from our planetary nursery and set aside childish things such as war, economic hooliganism and environmental abuse. Our species would graduate to embrace the shining chalice of our Whole Earth and drink deep her royal blue promise. It hasn't quite worked out that way.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, September 21, 2009 To all the late lamented boys and girls of summer, come back, go away, come back...
When John Lennon died my youth curled up and fed itself to Grief. Doubtlessly millions took one or another of the many public deaths of spring and summer, 2009, in just such personal ways. In any case, the list is incomplete, status-based, broken on both ends. Still, here it is...
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 2, 2009 Kennedys' dark tragedies never eclipsed their lofty lunar glow
Even as astronauts navigated their way toward the moon a quarter-million miles distant, JFK's younger brother Edward took a short drive toward a dark drink of water with a young woman not his wife. Mary Jo Kopechne drowned. The event robbed the moon of Kennedy luster, and Edward of any real chance at the presidency.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, August 21, 2009 On 'death panels,' 'socialized medicine' and other red herrings
Ain't it a shame our so-called liberal media is obsessed with "death panels" of fevered imaginations rather than death panels that exist in the real world, notably in our present health-care system?
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 6, 2009 Our mountains are not for sale
Sen. Lamar Alexander's bill would halt the practice of blasting the tops off mountains to get the dirty coal. Miners threaten to boycott Tennessee tourist areas, such as the Great Smoky Mountains. To which I say, please do. We don't want you near our mountains.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 3, 2009 Obama As Spock? Beam Me Up Scottie
Newsweek recently featured a cover story suggesting Obama must be a Vulcan. Let's hope not, at least not in director J.J. Abrams' dark film. In the Sixties, kids like me believed the Whole Earth as seen from space just might be our salvation. Star Trek was not only symbolic but catalytic of such change. Each Friday it offered new ways of understanding The Other. This movie embraces the dark side.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 14, 2009 Shout it from the rooftops--Al-Libi--keep his torture story alive
Al-Libi was living proof that torture doesn't work. Now he's dead proof. It's up to us to keep his story alive, for al-Libi was tortured into telling lies that Bush/Cheney used to start a war that killed, damaged and displaced millions.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 15, 2009 Suddenly Public Debates Turn Toward Sanity
Just when you began to wonder whether public debate would ever be conducted on sane ground again, lo and behold the world changed.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 9, 2009 'It could've been all different, Jack... You got to believe that'
But those who would try and take the measure of their humanity as we march our Bernie Madoffs to guillotine or country club prison could do worse than read Inman Majors' novel, The Millionaires (W. W. Norton, 2009, $24.95.).
(29 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 1, 2009 You say the New Deal didn't work? Prove it
The usual suspects declare that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal didn't end the Great Depression. World War II ended the Great Depression, they cry in harmony, and so we shouldn't buy into President Obama's stimulus spending plan. But what was WWII if not the ultimate in spending, jobs and protectionism?
SHARE Friday, February 13, 2009 Terrorist in my home town 'with up so floating many bells down'
An out-of-work truckdriver brought a guitar case into a Unitarian church where I teach, pulled out a shotgun and shot eight people. He smiled as he pleaded guilty Monday to killing two and wounding six last summer because he hated liberals. Don't tell me our former president kept us free from terror.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 22, 2009 Obama as Savior? He'd better be
Our challenges are existential, not in some mysterious, intellectual way, but in the sense that our very existence--as a nation, a species, as individuals--has been put at risk. And it's been put at risk mostly by forces that have grown from the darkness inside our own hearts.
(16 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 20, 2008 A word about Easter Island and other calamitous feedback loops
Like islanders who fed their entire beautiful world to stone idols, we feed ours to idols of commerce, high finance, fossil fuel and armaments, hastening our own demise.
SHARE Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Just How Blessed Am I Anyhow this Thanksgiving?
Around Thanksgiving 2005 I gave a talk "On Moonwalkers and Tree Huggers" at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, a talk I wrapped up with the following life-altering advice....
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 7, 2008 At Last, Talking Heads Acknowledge Obama Won
What a relief. Maybe the media's been chastened for pretending the last two debates were draws, even when snap polling told all with eyes to see that Obama owned the first presidential and Joe Biden won the one and only vice-presidential debate.
SHARE Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Rebel Repubs tell Bush Where to Stick It, and Markets Plunge
Yeah! Attboy! Attagal! Tell Wall Street where to stick it. We'll not throw good money after bad. Your orgy of high-living at our expense is over.
Wow, that felt good. Now, what I really think
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 11, 2008 So many pigs, so much lipstick--the sad legacy of 9/11
Each year we dress 9/11 in red, white and blue and trot it out for vigils by candlelight and excruciating video. And each year such shows become less meaningful as we recall what we did in the name of 9/11.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, September 5, 2008 McCain's heroic story isn't the whole story; questions need asking
It won't be easy to challenge a living icon of military heroism, as McCain is positioning himself, but a baker's dozen questions need asking before it's too late. Is MSM up to the job?
SHARE Tuesday, August 26, 2008 Hillary Supercharges Convention with Electrifying Support for Obama
"I love you. I love you. I love," former President Bill Clinton mouthed toward Hillary shortly after she began speaking Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. And as she finished, many in the hall were chanting the mantra aloud. "We love you Hillary." Ah, what might've been.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 8, 2008 Bush puts big Double-I brand on Olympics--Insulting Incoherency
Just hours ago George W. Bush put his distinctive brand on the 2008 Olympics in China. You know the brand. It marks all Bush initiatives. The big Double-I. Insulting Incoherency.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Church shootings and candle lights vie beneath 'Bible black' skies
The sky was Bible black and ringing with thunder last night above Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in West Knoxville. You know it as the building where Jim D. Adkisson carried a shotgun inside a guitar case Sunday morning and shot nine people during a children's performance of the musical "Annie." None of the children were shot, but two adults later died.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 14, 2008 Fannie Mae mess is just latest layer on Chef Dubya's tottering cake
This is only the latest layer in a tall leaning cake historians will someday deconstruct like archaeologists at a dig to try and figure how we could've allowed such a chef as George W. Bush in the kitchen to begin with.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 7, 2008 On Barack Obama and 'the art of the possible'
You hung it all out there for your latest hero, Barack Hussein Obama. So how does he repay you? He does the utterly predictable thing and steps down off the pedestal you put him on.
SHARE Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Three reasons Obama will beat McCain; charisma, charisma, charisma
He's tall, youthful, chiseled, athletic, sincere and exotic. When has either party offered such an attractive nominee? Go down the list.
Johnson? Nixon? McGovern? Ford? Carter? Dukakis? Mondale? Obama's the rock star of politics. His time is now.
(29 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 7, 2008 What a sweet, gracious, generous speech; Hillary endorses Obama!
Hillary Clinton can flat deliver a speech, and her latest is for the ages, because there was nothing flat about what she said or how she said it Saturday shortly before 1 p.m., when she endorsed Barack Obama and pledged to work her heart out for him!
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 24, 2008 Is Obama big enough to ask Hillary onto ticket despite RFK gaffe
Asking Hillary to be his running mate would demonstrate an almost transcendent big-mindedness, largeness of spirit and good will on Obama's part, and that's what he's been running on isn't it?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 5, 2008 Hillary's Words Provide Cover for Bush War Crimes
Should George W. Bush send missiles screaming across ancient Persian skies in coming weeks or months, he might well cite remarks by Hillary Clinton when justifying his latest crimes.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 29, 2008 It was just laying there--a scoop in broad daylight
Robert Gates' confession that his mistakes brought on 9/11 and our war in Afghanistan was ignored by Big Media, and so I scooped it up. Not the first time....
(34 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Barack knocks Rev. Wright's remarks out of the ballpark
It might've been strike 3 for Barack Obama, but he knocked the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments out of the ball park in about as clean and forceful a swing as you're likely to see in the World Series of politics.
(20 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Bush Defense Secretary Admits 9/11 Was Blowback
Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the following jaw-dropping statement: "We were attacked from Afghanistan in 2001, and we are at war in Afghanistan today, in no small measure because of mistakes this government made."
That's an astonishing confession, even if mine was the only jaw that dropped.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 29, 2008 If McCain, Hillary and Obama all face Strike 3, is it really baseball?
You want to cry out, "Say it ain't so, Barack. Say it ain't so...."
But Casey's at the bat, the pitch is on its way. And there is no joy in Mudville....
Since I wrote those words in my last column, both Hillary Clinton and John McCain made blunders that could be called Strike Two.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 19, 2008 With Obama at the bat, is there no hope for joy in Mudville?
You could see it coming from the top deck. Obama's had 20 years to take aim at this pitch, but like Casey in Ernest Lawrence Thayer's perennial classic, "Casey at the Bat," Obama let it sail right across the plate. Until Tuesday that is...
SHARE Wednesday, March 5, 2008 Obama swamped by perfect storm as Hillary blows in
Barack Obama ran into a perfect storm of bad publicity, scandal, crossover Republicans, energized women, a resourceful and hard-working opponent in Hillary Clinton, and remorseful media bending over backwards to throw her a lifeline.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 2, 2008 CAN WE TRUST OUR GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT OBAMA?
A lifetime ago a friend asked, "What do you make of Barack Obama?"
My unrehearsed response: "When I see Obama, I see a dead man walking. Do you honestly believe they'll ever let him be our president?"
"They who?"
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 16, 2008 Obama Would Rid the World of Nukes, Hillary's Not So Clear. What Say You?
It's a deal-breaker for those with the imagination to envision a future in which the world is not put at risk by human folly. Hillary won't call for a world without nukes. Obama did so long ago. Naive? Not according to Kissinger, Shultz, Nunn and Perry, four Cold Warriors calling for an end to the age of nukes.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 10, 2008 On Obama and Fears We Dare Not Name
We've known others who swept America off her feet with youthful looks, charisma and idealism. How well you know their fate. So let's leave it at this: When I look at Obama's family, I can't bring myself to believe America will allow these sweet, attractive people of color to occupy the White House.
SHARE Friday, January 4, 2008 Obama, Edwards wash away Hillary's bogus claim of "change"
Friday morning I heard Hillary say this: "When we talk about change, we need somebody who won't just SAY change... What we need is somebody who can PRODUCE change, just like I've been doing for thirty-fiiiiive years." Never has a phrase sounded so tired.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 22, 2007 Though sailing blind, still the pilot cries 'Full speed ahead'
The crash and oil spill at the Golden Gate Bridge might be the perfect metaphor of Dubya's presidency, if there were only a board of pilots to hold Bush accountable.
SHARE Friday, October 19, 2007 Al Gore drew a circle that brought us all in...
Let us now praise biased judges, vote suppressors, mudslingers and superficial media for casting Al Gore from the circle of power in 2000. They just might've helped save the Earth. Al Gore drew a circle that took them all in.
SHARE Friday, August 31, 2007 A Coal Miner's Last Words Resonate Still
Even before 9/11, Bush's arrogant tactic of appointing foxes to run henhouses alienated many of us.
Bush has placed energy and arms merchants in charge of foreign policy, lumber executives in charge of forests, polluters in charge of the EPA, a yes-man in charge of justice, and he named Stickler--a former mine executive with a flawed saftey record--Mine Safety Czar. I wonder if he's read the dying words of a lost miners....
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 23, 2007 Dear Dubya, So You're Saying Vietnam Just Didn't Go On Long Enough
Dubya,
Good for you. You've finally admitted what some of us have been saying since 2003. Iraq is like Vietnam.
Of course your memory of Vietnam's a lot different from most of ours. You could say it's new and improved. Like most works of creative nonfiction--
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 10, 2007 The Simple and God-Awful Truth
I'm supposed to speak truth to power, but can't seem to work up the old outrage, though there's no end of things to get angry about. Just now it's all beside the point. Just now I want to bask in memories of Edisto... a darkly bright island.
SHARE Thursday, August 2, 2007 On Williams Jennings Bryan, the Monkey Trial and False Patriotism
What chance did I have in a town where a majority believe Adam and Eve rode to church on dinosaurs. To this day, the sort of Biblical creationism Bryan defended holds sway in this country. Like jingoistic patriotism, it's a sort of tribal truth. True even if it didn't happen.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 9, 2007 On Scooter Libby, the War Dead, and Impeachment
The Scooter Libby case embraces the very sort of abuses King George III visited on America 231 years ago. It's about nothing if it's not about human rights abuses, war crimes, bearing false witness, lack of participatory democracy and worse.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 9, 2007 Mileage Standards Fine For Chasing White Rabbits
At first glance the new mileage standards passed June 21 reflect a country waking up from nightmares induced by poor leadership on climate change and defense. But look through the surface glare, and you'll notice the bill is way too little, way too late, as greenhouse feedback loops begin unraveling this elegant Earth.
SHARE Friday, June 15, 2007 Free flowing money and a dammed humanity...
Is it right to allow free-flowing capital to cross all borders, while damming back the free flow of human beings at the same borders? Is it even practical?
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 1, 2007 The Hard Rain of Depleted Uranium is Already Falling
If ever a man's been 10,000 miles in the mouth of graveyard, Dr. Doug Rokke has, for when you really look into Depleted Uranium, as he has, time and space open wide to reveal tombstones of future generations.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, May 4, 2007 See how they run--from the only questions that count
Only Kucinich, Gravel and Paul have asked these most crucial questions of all: Who's most likely to start a nuclear war? Should our leaders be held accountable for the quagmire we find ourselves in? For covering up evidence of global warming? Is there a way to break the cycle of war in the 21st century? We ignore them at our peril.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 13, 2007 Logic 101 could break the cycle of war
Political Correctness from the right is far more damaging our country than PC from the left. Take the notion that opposing the war in Iraq is not only impolite but that it's damaging to our troops. People who say that fall prey to two logical fallacies, at least, and Big Media should not let them get away with it.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, April 9, 2007 Our Three Stooges from the Middle East
Chant it like a mantra from hell. Three stooges lied us into war: A man named Curveball, whom we bribed. A man named Chalibi, who conned us. A man named al-Libi, whom we tortured into telling lies.
SHARE Saturday, March 24, 2007 Fire! Polite Applause
When a journalist acts courageously, it's as if someone stood in a crowded restaurant, shouted "Fire! Somebody do something!" and everyone applauds politely.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, March 5, 2007 Lots of money for terrorists
For some, new revelations that President Bush is funding groups linked to al-Qaeda prompts an awakening, for others it leads to a weird reaction known as cognitive dissonance. Then the name-calling begins.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 23, 2007 21 Years and Snip--My Column Ends at the News-Sentinel
After 21 years as a weekly columnist in a red state, a message on the answering machine brought about the end of my career at The Knoxville News-Sentinel. Why looky here, Mama, I've made the honor roll.
SHARE Friday, February 9, 2007 2007 Already A Crucible for Change
Lucky '07 is casting off norms of the past--in politics, cityscapes, athletics, environment--and much more. Just in time.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, January 26, 2007 My Plan: Getting Smarter Faster About the Middle East
If you're not ignorant, then answer me this. Why are we spending over $1 billion to build an embassy complex in Baghdad? I don't know the answer, and neither do you. That's called ignorance my friend.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, January 12, 2007 Bush's Gamble; Your World
We'd best get ahead of the Neocon curve and deal them out of the game. Otherwise our world's headed for chaos. It's up to people like us.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 5, 2007 Saddam and the Great White Whale--Bush's Un-magnificent Obsession
Like that edgy, storm-tossed storyteller, Ishmael, in "Moby-Dick," we've borne witness to our own national tale of obsession, destiny and ruin. For years we've watched George W. Bush threaten, mislead and browbeat others into following him through uncharted waters, like some latter day Captain Ahab.
In the end, Bush handled the killing of Saddam Hussein about like Ahab handled killing that whale.
He bungled it.
SHARE Friday, December 29, 2006 Big Media Should Not Be A Tool In The Cycle of War
Get ready for Act Two. The same tired drumbeat for war--this time against Iran--is beginning to echo in the land. We in the heartland, where so many of our young sign up for military service, should not be fooled again. Rather we should resist, read up, think critically, and take back our country.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 15, 2006 Don't Be A Party To New Nukes
How many nukes does one country need? Say no to new nuclear weapons.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 8, 2006 Send Email Saying No to New Nukes
Tell Uncle Sam to drop plans for new nukes. We have too many already and it's rank hypocrisy, plus violation of treaties we've signed to move forward. This fragile world needs fewer, not more, nukes. Email Now.
SHARE Friday, December 1, 2006 The final unraveling in Iraq
Anyone who spent 15 minutes Googling, say, "History of Iraq" should've seen years ago how this would play out. As I wrote in August of 2003, "if majority rule flowers in Iraq, Shiites will run the place, as they do in Iran. That's who the majority is." That's the reality, and given enough time, reality will trump dogma every time. Witness the final unraveling, this week, of Bush's plans for Iraq.
SHARE Friday, November 17, 2006 Gates cast long dark shadows at CIA
Like Rumsfeld before him, Bob Gates helped create the very enemies he'll be charged to fight, if confirmed as secretary of defense. Except for Gates, and people like him, several wars that killed millions, involving Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan might have been avoided. Funding Saddam, Iran-Contra, arming al-Qaida and the Taliban. It's likely Gates had a hand in it all. 9/11 was just one of the consequences.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 10, 2006 Kris Kristofferson Caught The Spirit Of A Day
If you haven't found yourself on the losing end of close and corrupt elections for too many years in a row, you won't understand the immense sweet sighs from so many on Wednesday. Such collective relief wafted me through a day of phone calls, spotty work, and into the mystical embrace of an ancient, Rococo movie palace... recently restored. There, I watched, listened and cheered as Kris Kristofferson caught the spirit of a day
SHARE Friday, November 3, 2006 Kerry Botched A Joke; Bush Botched A War
Kerry botched a bad joke about a war. Bush botched the actual war. By splitting over Kerry's remarks, Democrats are missing an opportunity to do what they could've done in 2004--mount a solid front against the mishandling of our security, and demand accountability from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice. This election should be a referendum on failed policies, especially when it comes to war, global warming and civil liberties.
SHARE Friday, October 27, 2006 Can You Vote For A Black Man?
Well, can you?
Real question. The contest between Harold Ford, Jr. and Bob Corker for the seat soon to be vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is freighted with issues-Iraq, the future of this over-heated planet, use of torture, repeal of habeas corpus, presidential accountability, reliability of voting machines, energy dependence, nuclear proliferation, many more. Yet this tight race could come down to race....
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 20, 2006 Save us from total darkness falling
The path we're on is so destructive, so devoid of light and intelligence that change is a moral imperative. Every day our current leadership takes us deeper into darkness. The loss of civil liberties, crimes against humanity, economic inequality, destruction of the Earth, dishonesty, corruption, greater oil dependency, insecure ports, horrors in Iraq and other disasters and insults await at every turn. So vote for change!
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, October 13, 2006 GOP Should Lose Seats for Crimes Greater Than Foley's Lust
A friend likes to say, "These are not your daddy's Republicans." They're radicals who should be turned out.
But not because Foley lusts after pageboys. Rather, for issues like these: * A current foreign debt greater than that accumulated by all previous 42 presidents combined.
* Suppression of reports on global warming.
* A war based on lies gathered in part through torture. Google "al-Libi" for more.
* And many more...
SHARE Friday, October 6, 2006 'Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable'
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist used to lure stray cats into his home, feed them, pet them, then operate on them.
George W. Bush used to stuff firecrackers in the mouths of living frogs, light them and toss them into the air to watch them explode.
Such stories should have served as warnings. You don't put animal abusers in positions of high power, where abuse and torture can only get worse.
And so it has....
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 30, 2006 Tell Them Torture's Not Right for Us
Al-Libi.
Remember that name. Better yet, learn to say al-Libi. It isn't that difficult. Our government forced a man by that name to tell a pack of lies that brought about the deaths of tens of thousands in Iraq. Ask your Congressmen and media to look into it. For al-Libi is living proof that torture and other degrading practices just don't work.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, September 22, 2006 Take your torture and go, George
George Bush 43, Commander-in-Chief, Decider, Your Royal Highness, however you'd like to be addressed....
For God's sake, take your torture program and go. Take your secret prisons, your attack dogs, your electrodes, your water boards, your feeding tubes, your ceiling restraints, your whipping wires, your excruciating music, your sleep deprivation, your hobbles and cuffs. Take all such instruments and go.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 8, 2006 Who Needs a Constitution When You Have A George?
Hey, who needs a Constitution when you have a George? Our Founding Fathers had King George III. True, they got rid of him in favor of Constitutional Law, but that was in the pre-9/11 world.
SHARE Saturday, September 2, 2006 A bear came out of the woods, took note, moved on...
These mountains will be here millions of years hence with their rivers, trees, birds and beasts weaving magic dances beneath the moon. Such notions crowd the mind as I ponder: A bear came out of the woods, took note, moved on.
SHARE Friday, August 25, 2006 'Darker Provinces of the Night'
If you're not angry, sad, ashamed or so jaded by now that all such emotions feel tired, used up, even absurd-maybe you've been living a dream. Could be you've dressed it up in yellow ribbons and patriotic bunting, but it's likely only a dream of war. Four soldiers, accused of murder, are living the reality.
SHARE Friday, August 11, 2006 About that camel in your living room
Someone said a camel is a horse designed by a committee, and as I pointed out nearly three and a half years ago: "If anything was ever designed by a committee, it's Iraq." The same might be said of the entire Middle East.
SHARE Friday, July 21, 2006 See How They Run... for Sen. Frist's Seat
Not one of these three blind mice would address the issue of global warming in a recent debate. Not one deserves to serve in the U.S. Senate. No matter how well they come off on other issues, reasonable people shouldn't vote for man or mouse that's blind to one of the two biggest problems facing our world-the other being nuclear proliferation.
SHARE Friday, July 14, 2006 Giving the devil hell and his due--Bush at 60
Sometime between Vice-president Dick Cheney shooting the old guy in the face and the indictment of Scooter Libby for obstructing justice in the Valerie Plame case, I believe somebody or something got to Bush. He's mending his ways, or at least appears to. Consider....
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 7, 2006 Oak Ridge Peace Group Offers Coherent Nuclear Policy
July 8 marks the 10th anniversary of the International Court of Justice (World Court) advisory opinion that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and... of humanitarian law." But our nuclear policy is a train wreck brought about by false starts, illegal initiatives and disastrous impulses....
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 1, 2006 It could've been all different
The all too briefly beautiful day I learned war was inevitable and the media would play along.
SHARE Friday, June 16, 2006 Planners, Developers Should Visit Edisto Island
It’s all by design. Insistent zoning and community resistance to “progress” have preserved the best parts of paradise. That’s why Edisto beckons. It’s a relief to leave the traffic jams and smog of East Tennessee, another purported paradise transforming itself daily. Each morning presents a new face of decimation and greed. Our landscape’s been gouged, scraped, blasted and otherwise deformed over and again for a fast buck.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 16, 2006 Don't Be A Party to Smear Job On Gore's Film
"Now that you mention it" is a deceptively powerful phrase. It suggests permission to proceed; subject broached, time to take off the gloves. I bring it up because the most shameless critics of Al Gore’s new film, “An Inconvenient Truth” have mentioned things that could come back to bite them. Like references to Nazis....
SHARE Friday, June 2, 2006 The Dixie Chicks Were Right
Remember? It was March 10, 2003, and Bush had made it clear he intended to bomb, invade and occupy Iraq within days. Many thousands of lives hung in the balance, yet no one seemed to notice that aspect of the approaching war—not in this country at least.
SHARE Friday, May 19, 2006 Just in Time, Dubya Discovers Mexico
Surprise. Dubya has discovered our southern boarder. Never mind that citizens from places like Morristown, Tennessee—an agriculture-based town--have been complaining about the Mexican border for years in ever more angry emails. Now Bush is complaining too.
Nice timing, Dubya. Maybe this’ll draw attention away as you waltz us three steps closer to an imperial presidency.
SHARE Friday, May 5, 2006 An Impeachment By the People
Musicians, comedians, townships and legislators are calling on Congress to impeach the president, little realizing a majority of Americans have done just that already--in our hearts and minds.
SHARE Friday, March 3, 2006 Dubya Meets His Waterloo In Dubai
The deal to turn over six major ports and more to a company from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, provides ammo for Demos and cover for Republicans fleeing Bush’s embrace as his approval
ratings sink into the 30s—just about rock bottom for modern politics.
SHARE Friday, February 17, 2006 Old time quail hunter has questions for Dick Cheney
Four days after Dick Cheney shot 78-year-old Harry M. Whittington in the face, neck and heart, the vice-president sat down for tea and crumpets with the PR branch of the Bush-Cheney Administration—otherwise known as Fox News—to explain himself, and finally take a measure of responsibility. Yet many questions remain.
SHARE Friday, February 10, 2006 Becoming one with the snow job
Mystery friend insists columnist write the hard truth regarding concentration camps instead of snowy fluff.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 20, 2006 Gore draws blood in attack on Bush
Al Gore is a fierce voice from the wilderness. On Monday he attacked President Bush’s use of torture, kidnapping, faulty intelligence, and called for a special prosecutor to investigate wiretapping. Bush supporters quickly struck back, and counted on the media to repeat their false charges. They were not disappointed.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 6, 2006 'My boys, never work in the mines'
Just after Powell Harmon implored his family to love Jesus, he scrawled, “My boys,
never work in the mines.” Sometime later, deep in the Fraterville, Tennessee, mine he gasped his last breath. It was over a century ago, yet that advice resonates.
SHARE Friday, December 30, 2005 In 2005, Big Media and Public Began to Wake Up
An ugly year was finally over. That realization struck with genuine euphoria, for 2004 had been
unbelievably, dishonest, catastrophic, and, it seemed, unending. Despite catastrophes, 2005 offered hope for a better future.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 9, 2005 Christians at war in the season of peace
The faith of Christians were called into question just over a year ago. How do pastors and lay people feel about pressuring fellow Christians to support this administration now that the war has turned so tragic.
SHARE Friday, December 2, 2005 Big Media wakes up to fiascos
At last the media are waking up. Note the skepticism that greeted the president’s “Success in Iraq” speech on Wednesday, maybe his most highly touted progress report on the war to date.
SHARE Friday, November 25, 2005 A man not so good at running gets better at giving thanks
Oh the running was good that evening, especially for a man not so good at it, as I felt the rhythm of my long-distance breathing kick in, as my movable prayer of thanks began...
SHARE Friday, November 11, 2005 Frist, Hastert go to bat for secret war, secret government
Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert want to get to the bottom of something. They're so worked up they're calling for joint congressional hearings on the scale of the 9/11 Commission. Good for them. It’s time they got to the bottom of something...