Burnin’

As Iraq teters on the verge of Civil War–a condition, we can be certain, the Bush team never planned for–a principal architect of the adminisration’s foreign policy has come out (in a book) against the very ideas he once championed.

From Scotsman.com:

Neoconservativism has failed the United States and needs to be replaced by a more realistic foreign policy agenda, according to one of its prime architects.

Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the best-selling book The End of History and was a member of the neoconservative project, now says that, both as a political symbol and a body of thought, it has “evolved into something I can no longer support”. He says it should be discarded on to history’s pile of discredited ideologies.

In an extract from his forthcoming book, America at the Crossroads, Mr Fukuyama declares that the doctrine “is now in shambles” and that its failure has demonstrated “the danger of good intentions carried to extremes”.

In its narrowest form, neoconservatism advocates the use of military force, unilaterally if necessary, to replace autocratic regimes with democratic ones.

A former State Deparment official, Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on democratization and international political economy.

Time reports that U.S. families in search of affordable heating oil are finding it in the strangest of places–a program run by Citgo that makes 40% discounts available to low-income Americans. Citgo is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Congressional conservatives feel U.S. cities should not be helping improve the image of Chavez, one of President Bush’s most strident critics. But U.S. Representative, Chaka Fattah of Philadelphia, says, “The U.S. buys 1.5 million barrels of oil from Venezuela each day at full price, so why would anyone complain about getting some at almost half price?”

Philadelphia, Boston, the Bronx and cities in Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island have received a total of 45 million gallons of the subsidized Citgo fuel, and other cities are slated for another 5 million soon. That’s a small percentage of the heating oil Venezuela exports to the U.S. each year, but Citgo says it has set aside about 10% of its refined petroleum products for the program. Says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C., “Unfortunately for the Bush Administration, Chavez is proving to be a more inventive thinker in terms of hemispheric politics.”

Critics suggest Chavez’s oil diplomacy is simply a ploy to take consumers’ minds off of record high oil prices, which are partly a result of his efforts to rebuild the power of OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member.

Venezuela’s Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, one of the program’s architects says the Citgo program does give Chavez a chance to showcase “one of our revolution’s most important principles: the redistribution of oil revenues, especially for the poor.”

Alvarez, also says the Citgo program is proof that Chavez’s revolution is still fond of Americans, if not their government.

In the Mormon faith, members baptize thier ancestors into the LDS Church posthumously, ostensibly overriding whatever beliefs the person may have had while alive.

Now we have a similar take on dead writers from present day Los Angeles writer, Paul Davidson. For certainly, great thinkers of yesteryear would have blogged, had they had the technology to do so.

Davidson’s book, The Lost Blogs, imagines what some of these entries into the narrative database would look like.

According to the description on Amazon, the book offers hundreds of blog posts from the most famous minds in history, such as: John Lennon’s thoughts after meeting a young woman named Yoko Ono. Tips of the trade from Jesus Christ’s carpentry blog, including how to build a combination water and wine rack. Shakespeare’s treatment for a new play about two princes who misplace their horse and carriage and spend the entire play trying to locate it. How a stray hot dog nearly derailed Ghandi’s hunger strike. Jim Morrison’s original lyrics to Light My Fire. And the missing two cents from everyone else who matters.

When Davidson is not busy writing someone else’s blog entries, he makes some pretty funny ones of his own.

Find me someone who is willing to use mayo from someone else’s house other than their own and I’ll show you someone who likes to live on the edge.

For whenever I visit a friend’s home for lunch and I’m given the choice of tuna salad or turkey, egg salad or roast beef, ambrosia salad or an apple, potato salad or french fries, cole slaw or a side salad I will always choose the non-mayo item.

This is primarily because I am afraid of mayonnaise that isn’t mine.

Merrill Markoe of the Huffington Post discusses the sad fact that many of our nation’s leaders are really just figure heads for consortiums of international corporations.

When one of them gives an impassioned speech about the first amendment, are they really just a mouthpiece for ClearChannel? When they support the invasion of a struggling impoverished country in the name of freedom everywhere is it because they are seeking real estate to build a Home Depot? Understanding this stuff is like watching a foreign movie without subtitles.

Usually it isn’t my job to propose solutions to these kinds of problems, but I think I have a way to try and minimize the confusion we are all having trying differentiate truth from lies. Maybe it would make everything clearer if we just let the corporations run for office.

Okay, I know it isn’t a perfect system, but it makes as much sense as what goes on now. And at least it’s completely up front. If the current administration had simply run as the Pennzoil/ Halliburton ticket, no one would have had the slightest doubt about what was going to happen to the country in the next eight years.

“The dispossessed of this nation—the poor, both white and Negro-live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against the injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the last 40-plus years we’ve had a War on Poverty, a War on Drugs and countless wars on smaller nations. But we have precious little to show for it. Maybe someday we can get past all this war stupidity and actually address the real issues before this nation.

From The Observer:

A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.

Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two.

Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck - a medical bill or factory closure - away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush’s trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.

While 45.8 million Americans lack any health insurance, the top 20 per cent of earners take over half the national income. At the same time the bottom 20 per cent took home just 3.4 per cent.

Almost a quarter of all black Americans live below the poverty line; 22 per cent of Hispanics fall below it. But for whites the figure is just 8.6 per cent.

Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life.

On Friday night, we dined at Zink American Kitchen in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. A unit of Harper’s Restaurant Group, Zink’s purpose is to hold down the modern bistro space in the tarheel state’s largest city. With plentiful cocktails and fine wines to choose from, a full sushi menu, entrees like Amish chicken, Idaho trout and grilled ahi tuna, plus sides like mac & cheese, Zink clearly has “eclectic” nailed.

After dinner, we stepped outside and instantly hailed a cab. Said cab whisked us down Elizabeth Avenue to the Visulite Theatre for Yonder Mountain String Band, our kinfolk from Colorado. The club was cozy and chill. And the show rocked. It’s hard to ask for more on Friday night in America.

KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that members of the Latter Day Saints church weigh more than non-LDS Utahns.

The study found that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were 14 percent more likely than nonmembers to be obese. That was 18 percent for men, and 9 percent for women.

The study was made by BYU health science professor Ray Merrill from data obtained in 1996, 2001 and 2003-2004 by the Utah Health Status Survey.

Merrill’s study suggests Mormons may be using excessive eating as a substitute for prohibited indulgences such as smoking and drinking.

I refute the learned man’s theory. The real reason Mormons weigh more is tied to their well-documented obsession with Jell-O, particularly of the lime variety. In fact, some have even called Utah the Jell-O Belt.

Dru Clements writing on the Beaufort Gazette blog:

A recent letter stated that the “liberal media” hates Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The secretary’s strongest, most scathing critics come from a long list of military top brass that reads likes a “Who’s Who” of individuals who are neither liberal nor Republican bashers but are people who wore a uniform and fought in wars.

Some of these people served in presidential administrations, such as retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to President George H.W. Bush; retired Gen. William E. Odom, former head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan Administration; James Webb, decorated Vietnam veteran and Reagan administration secretary of the Navy; and retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander of the U.S. Central Command and special envoy to the Middle East under the current president until he resigned in disgust.

When people with these kinds of credentials speak out against the conduct of the war, they are raising critical questions that go directly and unequivocally to the competency of President Bush, his advisers and in particular Secretary Rumsfeld (most of whom avoided military service).

I do not know Mr. Clements, but I do know Beaufort, SC is home to two Marine Corps bases. With Parris Island in your back yard, “soft on defense” is not exactly a popular position.

Veterans on the Hill like Rep. Murtha (PA Dem), Senators John Kerry (MA Dem) and Chuck Hagel (NE Rep) have all been vocal in their opposition to the President’s “handling” of the war in Iraq. I hope more Republicans speak out. This is bigger than party affiliation. We’ve deployed a small city of Americans to Iraq and we plan to be a “stabilizing force” in the region for 50 years, or until the oil runs out.

Every American has the right to say, “I reject war.” Or the mishandling of war, whatever their position is. My position is we need to move rapidly to energy independence which means a massive shift to renewable energy from sun, wind and water. There’s a ton to do and money to be made. For this cause, I believe we can all just get along.

There’s something incredibly romantic about this image of Bobby Jones at Pinehurst’s “Maniac Hil” in North Carolina.

Click to buy

I was pleased to learn last week from a gentleman on Hilton Head that Jones played from a mixed set of irons, as I do. I knew I was old school, but I didn’t know I was in such good company.

Mystic Hot Springs courtesy of David Gans.