Category Archives: Politics

Rough Draft of a Letter to the Editor of the Local Paper

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Recently Park Avenue in Santa Clara had some work done. The sequence went like this, with roughly two weeks between each step:

1) Scrape off most (but not all) of the markings on the road. Result: a less-safe road.
2) Repaint most (but not all) of the markings scraped off in step 1, right in the grooves left by the scraping machine. Result: step 1 is rendered moot, but the road is still not as safe as it had been before.
3) Scrape off the entire road surface and put down new asphalt. Result: steps 1 and 2 are rendered entirely moot. The road is now a wee bit better than it was before.

What did steps 1 and 2 accomplish? Nothing. Nothing at all, aside from putting my money into the pockets of corrupt contractors and the people who are supposed to be preventing this sort of shenanigans. How much, I wonder, was the government billed for the completely unnecessary work?

At this writing, not all the markings have been restored, so the road is still not as safe as it was. And honestly, there are many less visible roads that could have benefitted from the upgrade much more than that stretch of Park.

Now let’s shift our focus to Miller Ave. in Cupertino. After the ritual pointless scraping of the bike lanes, a new surface was laid down, and it is simply awful. Already there are troughs in the road, and water collects in traffic lanes on days with no rain, presumably from the gutters. As I ride up the street I can see cracks forming in the asphalt already. This work isn’t an investment, it’s an ongoing liability.

Who checked this work? Who said, “Good job, guys! See you on the next project!”

Stepping back, who authorized this work in the first place? To my untrained eye, Miller and Park did not need resurfacing, and as a bicyclist I’m particularly bitchy about road conditions. I could suggest several more-deseriving stretches of road. Or, better yet, let’s put the money into the crumbling school that the unnecessarily-resurfaced road passes.

But the federal money geyser says to mortgage the future to invest in infrastructure now, and somehow spending money resurfacing already-serviceable roads, at maximum inefficiency, is investing in infrastructure. The theory is that such work will pay dividends long into the future, yielding returns greater than the debt incurred. I have no problem with the theory, but that is not what is happening in my town.

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Vox Populi or Vox Luchre?

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Philosophically, California’s proposition system appeals to me. It is a chance for the people, the you and me kind of people, to override the jerks and criminals in Sacramento and enact the laws we want.

On a practical level, the system has become a way for money to buy laws. The biggest winners in this cluster are the media companies who pocket fat wads of cash from both sides of every controversial issue. If I were an unscrupulous media mogul I’d be getting all kinds of controversial shit onto the ballot.

But what to do? Frankly, I’m stumped. Take away the voice of the people? That certainly doesn’t appeal to me. But until we can defang big money, the system will remain broken.

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A Global Force for Good

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I cringe when politically-motivated folks use the words “good” and “evil”. But the United States Navy is calling themselves “a global force for good” and I’m inclined to side with them. There is no organization better-prepared to bring relief across the globe. Plus it’s odd that in this day and age that piracy would be a threat to trade but there you have it, and the United States Navy is the only force in the world prepared to do something about it.

Almost every country on the planet benefits from the security we provide for world trade.

Which makes me wonder, if, perhaps, some of those other countries might be interested in picking up part of the tab. Keeping the sea lanes safe is frightfully expensive, and up to now at least a prosperous United States has been ready to pick up the bill.

Thing is, with our tax money we’re making products manufactured in Korea cheaper. Korea, Japan, England, Germany, pretty much any country you can name, we are providing their defense budget, so they can focus all their energy on kick-ass products. Every Camry, every Mercedes, every Kia, is subsidized by US tax dollars (or, these days, federal debt).

We like to be the good guys. It’s almost unhealthy how badly we United Statesians want to be the global force for good. Global security is a good thing, and I’m happy to pitch in. But you know when you get to the end of a good night of drinking with your international pals and Japan says, “thanks, dude, that was great! Thanks for demanding that you always cover me!”, and pats you on the shoulder on the way out, and then Europe pulls out their wallet, looks in sadly, and says, “I’ll get the next one” and then your friends in Asia say, “I’ll be happy to loan you the money you need to pay my tab,” that maybe it’s time to even things out.

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A Budgetary Splash of Cold Water

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The United States’ military is pretty frickin’ awesome. Consider this: Europe has gone 65 years without a major war, perhaps for the first time ever. It’s easy for us to take for granted now, but sixty-five years without a war between European powers is unheard of. Our boys on the ground over there have been a factor, for sure. NATO, which the United States anchors, not only answered pressure from the east but made war between Norway and England impossible.

Part of our success is that we have committed to making every infantryman* worth twice what any other country can field, through technology and training. This means fewer of our guys get killed to achieve a given political objective. That’s a good thing.

But.

Our military is really, really, expensive. Let’s go back to Europe for a moment. It’s easy to argue that without American commitment Europe would not have achieved the solidarity and economic integration it has today. Hooray! But now it’s time to say, “mission accomplished.” We just don’t have tens of billions of dollars to spend on the defense of Europe every year while they become an economic partner/rival to us.

In the price of every Cadillac (and every beer) is the cost of defending Germany from attack. The Germans put their taxes to use building infrastructure.

And then there’s Japan. At the end of WWII we required that they look to us to defend them. At the time it made sense, more or less. We wanted to ensure that they would not become an aggressor nation again. Well, they didn’t. Instead they worked their asses off and went from ruin to one of the world’s great economic powers. Rather than resent their rise, America should be proud of it. It wouldn’t have happened without us. What’s best is that they tied their economy entirely to ours. Sure we have our differences, but we have no ally whose interests are more tightly intertwined with our own. The United States and Japan are the world’s economic odd couple, but it works.

And still, the US bears almost the full cost of defending Japan. Ironically, over there, a lot of folks would like to see us go. There have been problems. Yet we stay.

In the price of every Ford (and every ice cream cone) is the cost of defending Japan from attack. The Japanese spend their taxes building their industries.

Meanwhile, we’re fighting two ground wars and trying to maintain a peacetime economy. Somehow people are still surprised at the difficulty of reining in ridiculous government borrowing. Sure there’s plenty of other waste in the government, but we’ve dumped a trillion dollars (a TRILLION! A fucking trillion!) into a war with no good possible outcome.

And still we dump, and good Americans die, the best soldiers the planet has ever known, the ones who can accomplish a political goal more efficiently than any other force in history, and they’re being dicked over at tremendous expense to all of us, for a political goal that has long since passed into irrelevance.

It is not with disrespect to the guys out there who have accomplished so much that I call for an enormous reduction in military spending. It is because they did so well that our allies are now able to stand on their own. The best thing our armed forces have accomplished is a dramatic reduction in war. Pax America, baby. It’s real.

But now it’s time to let the world take care of itself for a while. Europe’s good, and it won’t take long for Japan to feel secure. Taiwan, not so simple. Iraq, it doesn’t matter if we pull out tomorrow or twenty years from now; violence will ensue. May as well get it over with. Afghanistan, I think we stick there. Recognize that had we not gone off and invaded Iraq, we could have done right by those guys.

We can probably still afford one ground war, if it’s small.

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* In the end, it’s all about the infantry. Sure the airplanes the the cruise missiles kick ass, but sooner or later someone has to walk where someone else does’t want him to. All the stealth bombers and MOABs are just fireworks. You win when your guys are standing on the street corers.**

** Except, I have to add, that that’s when we lost Iraq. The victors were entirely unprepared to be police, and in twenty-four hours the US Army’s disregard for civil law and order was felt. America’s biggest supporters were looted into bankruptcy overnight, and the rest is history. Stop the looting right then and there, and you send a message: this is still a nation of law. Stay inside for a few days, let us know if you need anything, and we really hope your own police come back to patrol. If they don’t, we’re here. The law is here.
Even a passing mention to the advancing army that they were responsible for civil order might have averted a decade of futile battle. It’s even in the Geneva convention. “In war, plan for peace,” Sun Tsu advised. EPIC FAIL in Iraq. Trillion-dollar epic fail. Possibly the biggest blunder in US military history. I can’t think of a worse one.

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Talk Radio

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The intro to this one might be as long as the episode itself, depending on how well-rested my rambling muscles are. Many years ago, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh, and he paused mid-rant to say (something like) “you realize, people, that this is entertainment.” While I’m sure he likes the idea of being politically influential, he’s not going to let any of that stand between him and ratings. His job is to sell advertising.

So then you get people like Al Franken (an entertainer) who are bogged down in “facts” and “process” and “fairness” and as a result will never put on a radio show that people will listen to. What they need is the Crazy Liberal Bomb-thrower caricature to host a show, and be just as nuts and just as ridiculously wrong as Limbaugh. Maybe the guy who did Borat would be a good choice.

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Universal Health Care

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Universal Health Care is a very good thing, an idea rooted in fairness and basic human rights, the idea that people should have access to decent medical care no matter their income or social standing. It’s a fundamental measure of a society, how it takes care of its people. Universal health care in the United States would transform society and possibly generate a large fiscal payback in a short time, as people with small problems see a doctor before they become big problems. I’d like to see that.

I also think it’s impossible. The wealthiest nation on earth is also the one least prepared to have the government play a role in health care. It comes down to a fairly simple chain of reasoning.

  1. Health care in the United States is far more expensive than anywhere else. Remenber HMO’s? That was an attempt to reduce the overall cost of care, but in the end doctors and patients alike joined in the hate of them.
  2. As much as insurance companies suck, they are the ONLY force in the United States with an interest in keeping health care costs down. They are regularly castigated and challenged for saying ‘no’. Lawsuits abound. The general public pushes constantly to limit the power of the insurance companies to say no, even to radical treatments that cost an arm and a leg and have little chance of success. Thus we have the most expensive health care in the world. It is also the best, precicely because there’s not cost/benefit analysis.
  3. So if insurance companies are the only force keeping health care costs down, just imagine if the US government were in the insurance business. Even if they could hold the line on costs, there’d be a thousand lawsuits against the government active at any given moment. People who were told ‘no’ for an expensive treatment with little chance of success — but wait! That was the government saying no! Goddammit, no one in Washington is going to tell me I can’t have that buttock transplant!

Alternately, the government can require private insurance companies to insure everyone who asks for it. Still, Uncle Sam will have to pitch in for people who can’t afford a reasonable premium (I am one of those people). Once again it comes down to saying ‘no’, and insurance companies will pass the bill along rather than rack up legal costs.

Another reason universal health care works where I am now: doctors don’t drive fancy cars. They make an honest living and do all right, and they don’t (yet) get kickbacks from the pharmaceutical and medical technology corporations.

Just to be clear: I WANT every US citizen to have access to health care, me included. But it’s not going to happen until the core problem is addressed: health care in the United States costs far too much already. Someone has to learn to say no and mean it before care can be extended to everyone. Alas, the United States government really sucks at no.

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Some Presidential Musings

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Despite my apathy over whether Obama or McCain became the next American President, I do have a few thoughts. Or maybe just one thought with a few facets. I feel kind of bad for John McCain.

To appreciate the raw deal he was dealt by his own party, you need to go back more than eight years to the primaries in 2000, when the Republicans chose their man to run against Al Gore. McCain was enjoying good numbers and the Republicans were faced with a choice between a very electable McCain or a more “conservative” (in the modern, not-at-all-conservative sense of the word) Bush. Then the classic Karl Rovian dirty politics began, and McCain never recovered. From the very start Bush demonstrated the complete lack of ethics that marks everything he does.

The 2000 presidential election was very close (so close, in fact, that there should have been a runoff, but that’s another story), but it is likely that McCain would have fared better — and required fewer dirty tricks. Imagine the last eight years with McCain instead of Dubya!

Well, it was Dubya we got and government without etihcs and McCain plugging away in the senate, while his party became steadily less popular. Not even a historic national crisis (the easiest time to be president) was enough to buoy Dubya’s ratings for long. 2008 arrived, and found the Republicans casting about for the best way to salvage a bad situation.

They faced several problems. The president is so universally reviled that anyone who had worked with him was sure to pick up his stink. McCain had in the past stood up to the administration — but not lately. Still, he was less tainted than just about anyone else. Also, the religious conservatives, a key constituency for Republicans, were getting fed up with an administration that turned their backs on their core issues as soon as the votes were counted. The religious right was getting fed up with empty promises.

Finally, I suspect that there were many high up in the Republican party who saw the writing on the wall a long time ago. They were going to lose unless the Democrats blundered badly. (Hillary Clinton tried to help out, but even she wasn’t enough.) For these denizens of the smoke-filled rooms in Washington, the question became how to lose in the most productive manner. The formula was pretty easy in retrospect: throw McCain under the bus.

Facing not just a decisive loss but downright humiliation, the power brokers were not going to waste the career of a rising star, a potential candidate four or eight years down the road. This campaign was going to mark the end of a political career. So they let the old guy run. He wasn’t going to be a viable candidate next time around in any case. Then they saddled him with Sara Palin. Ordinarily that would be a shock, but it sure made the religious right happy (so I’m led to understand). When one of your core constituencies is tired of empty gestures, give them… a bigger, grander empty gesture than ever before! They were going to lose anyway, so the huge political liability she represented was irrelevant.

Once McCain and Palin lost big, even the idea of ‘maverickness’ would be undermined, which probably appealed to the entrenched power brokers as well.

McCain went out, campaigned, and in the very limited view I had of the campaign, on occasion looked like he would make a pretty good president. The powers that be couldn’t let him stray too far from the old party line, couldn’t let him be a real maverick (his main job was damage control, after all), so what we got was a watered-down version of the McCain that ran last time.

And now John McCain will fade into the twilight. There will be a book or two, appearances on Sunday-morning talk shows and so forth, but his days as a contender are over. He has a lot to thank his party for; he’s had a long and productive career at the highest level of politics. I have to wonder, though, if he harbors a little bitterness as well. Maybe now he can be a maverick.

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Election Day

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So today America is electing a new president. This election is the source of a great deal of passion, as love it or loathe it, the previous eight years have left people with strong opinions about what is wrong or right with our country. Oddly, I just can’t get worked up over this one. Perhaps it’s just my deep-felt belief that anyone would be better than the current cabal. Perhaps it’s my belief that getting elected is a pretty good indication that you shouldn’t be president.

I just hope that whoever wins displays at least a shred of respect for law. The current gang of thieves has proven time and again that they regard law as an inconvenience to be circimvented when it stands between them and what they want. As far as I can tell what they want is to move money from my pockets into their own. Consider: American foreign policy almost makes sense if “higher oil prices” is considered a favorable outcome. And it is a favorable outcome to a small group of men who happen to be friends of the president.

At home, abroad, at war, at peace, from the top of the government right down, the question is no longer “is this legal?” but “how can we spin this as legal long enough it won’t matter anymore?” Whoever is next, even if they’re incompetent, I will temper my criticism if they simply display a bit of an ethical backbone when the going gets tough. Other than that qualification, go ahead and stick anyone in the oval office you want.

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Dear Mr. Obama

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I can dance you into the ground. Seriously. I think there might have been a time in your life when you could let go and allow the music to move you, but that was before politics. Take heart knowing that you are the only candidate worthy of my challenge.

You. Me. Loud music. I will shame you.

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NASA chief says it’s not for us to decide what the Earth’s climate should be…

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Yep, we have global warming. Yep, it’s largely due to human activity. That’s what the boss of NASA says. For a long time the current administration refuted that the earth was warming up. Then they had to admit it was, but maintained there was no evidence that it was due to human activity. Now they’ve had to accept that. The next step in the Washington stonewalling of any attempt to even contemplate doing something about it: Hey, climates change. It would be arrogant of us to decide what the climate should be.

OK, maybe. But doesn’t that make anything man does to alter his environment for greater comfort or productivity arrogant? By that definition, arrogance is one of the primary characteristics of mankind, one of the things that makes us who we are. Why shouldn’t we decide what the best climate would be? Hell, if warmer is better for for most of humanity, I’m all for global warming. Let’s heat this place up! The problem is that making the climate hotter is more likely to be negative, and has the potential to cause suffering on a scale never before witnessed in history. Not since the black death, anyway. That’s a pretty big potential downside.

No, it’s not arrogant to consider potential disasters in the coming decades, it’s just that the people getting rich off current policies risk having the cash gusher they’re sitting on slow down a bit. Energy policy is, as far as I can tell (I’m no expert), a critical element in mitigating global warming. We will not have a well-considered energy policy while oil men are in charge. We would also not have a well-considered energy policy if windmill people were in charge, but that’s not what we’re facing right now.

If Cape Canaveral is abandoned to the waves, I hope NASA puts up a plaque with this guy’s picture on it.

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Thought for the day

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If the US congress conducted their business in an abandoned hockey rink while sitting on folding chairs, they would do a better job.

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A brief political announcement

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Please note that this episode has been edited to fix a few major factual difficulties. I haven’t gone back to find the source of the errors, but I suspect it was my head. Just to make things clear, to the best of my knowledge (obviously my best is none to good), Major Jim Bibb is not running for the governorship of anything. Since it’s only a matter of time before someone reads this and mistakenly thinks I care, or that I matter, I have updated the episode. In the great plastic press that is the Internet, it’s very easy to go back and change what you said.

Apparently there’s an election or something going on back in the Land of Enchantment, and up for grabs is the Attorney General’s seat. Attorney General is a politician in charge of honesty, which is especially oxymoronic in New Mexico. Insiders report that as of a couple of days ago the campaigns were clean and issues-oriented. [Apparently, as of this edit, that is no longer the case, and my man was the first one spotted by the elite muddled team of political trackers with his paw in the mud pot.] For all of you who worked on Pirates of the White Sand, here are a few things you need to know:

FACT: When we asked some menial flunky of governor Bill Richardson for jets to fly over, we got squat.

FACT: When we asked Major Jim Bibb for helicopters, he personally represented us to his C.O., and we got a helicopter.

FACT: Major Jim Bibb is running for Attorney General of New Mexico.

FACT: Bill Richardson is running for governor — or so he claims. Rumor has it that he and Hillary have scheduled an arm-wrasslin match to see who gets to run for president. Prognosticators give Richardson the nod based on his larger biceps, but there’s no denying that Clinton has leverage.

FACT: While Sikorsky gets all the glory, Piaseki broke the ground (or at least, that what his grandson told me).

INDISPUTABLE FACT: Major Jim Bibb is a good guy.

DISPUTABLE FACT: Major Jim Bibb would be a good attorney general. No one seems to expect the head lawyer of the land to have a legal background, but does that make him overly dependent on the entrenched bureaucracy?

COMPLETE ABSENCE OF FACT: I have no knowledge of the other guy, except that politically his father was (is?) a big ol’ wheel in those parts.

I was surprised to hear that Major Jim Bibb (You can’t edit that name. ‘Major Jim Bibb’ has a cadence to it that cannot be ignored.) was running for the hot seat in New Mexico. He struck me as an easy-going guy who saw the humor in life, although as a guy in charge of helicopters with big red crosses on the side, I expect he’s seen a lot of things that weren’t so funny. He didn’t have the ‘flyboy’ swagger or strut about him, just a love of life and the desire to make every day a good one. Not that I really got to know him that well; I am probably reading too much into his easygoing smile and willingness to help me get what I asked for. Nevertheless, I like Major Jim Bibb.

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Don’t mess with me, man, I’ve read The Art of War.

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About five hundred years before some guy named Jesus said maybe we should be nice to each other for a change, another guy over in China set out to codify the methods of not being nice, and doing it really well. Sun Tzŭ had a lot of thoughts about war and its purpose. In his mind, war was a means to ensure the safety and prosperity of the people of a nation, and if that was at the expense of the people of another nation, well, so it goes.

In fact, throughout his writing, he comes up with argument after argument to support one of his primary tenets: fight the war in the other guy’s country.

For all that, Sun Tzŭ was not a big fan of fighting battles at all. In his opinion, the greatest generals would never become famous because they would rarely have to fight, and when they did they would already have manipulated conditions through espionage, subtlety, and misdirection, so that the battle was already decided before it was fought. The greatest general of all would never fight a single battle.

He also pointed out that war was expensive. He was a proponent of swift, decisive action, and advised that laying siege to a walled city was folly, and would only empty the coffers of your nation and cause undue suffering among the people, which in turn would undermine the security of your homeland. Instead, he advised swift and subtle action, finding something of value to the enemy that was less well defended, and attacking that instead, forcing your opponent to come out from behind his walls. If the enemy does not know where you will show up next, he will have to spread his forces thin, trying to protect everything. Sun Tzŭ advises not even trying to defend less valuable assets.

Are there lessons for the modern age here? The four years of carnage that was World War One run counter to everything The Art of War teaches. Today’s war on terrorism is less clear-cut. Certainly we are the larger force spread thin as we try to defend everything, yielding initiative. But even spread out, we are massive and can carry big hurt just about anywhere very quickly.

There are two other things in the book that stick out, however. The first is adaptability. The author (and subsequent commentators) lay out the principles of carrying out a successful military campaign, and getting the most from soldiers. Time and again, however, we are reminded that flexibility and creativity are critical assets. Sun Tzŭ also pointed out that direct confrontation is one of the last resorts for achieving your objective.

The second thing that sticks out is haunting, considering our current situation in Iraq. “In times of peace, plan for war. In times of war, plan for peace.” When the US military exceeded all expectations and swept into Baghdad, only to stand to the side as the city descended into civil disorder, setting the tone for all that has followed, undermining our authority and credibility, demonstrating an apathy toward law that has yet to be repaired, we saw what happens when you fail to plan for peace during a time of war. There was a period of two days when we had a (not guaranteed) shot at forestalling much of what has happened since. We could have been the undisputed good guys. We failed.

Some of the details in the book are not relevant anymore, and quite a few other people have done some thinking on the subject since. This work has the advantage of being brief, simple, and to the point. He did not say war was bad, he said it was expensive, and that it was best waged swiftly, or, better yet, without using armies at all. But once you have your army on, ou must know exactly what you want and where it is, understand the enemy and all his plans, and take the fight to him. If you are not certain, stay home until you are.

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Proud to be an American?

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I will publish good rebuttals (profane is OK but abusive is not, coherence is required). If there are too many, I will publish the ones hardest for me to refute.

I am an American. I am really, really fortunate to be one. There’s nothing better to be. But I didn’t actually do anything to become an American. I am proud of my accomplishments, and I am grateful for my good fortune. There are political refugees and immigrants of every stripe who have worked really hard to become Americans. There are people who have taken up arms in defense of this nation and only later become citizens. Many more who are currently defending our freedom are waiting for citizenship.

Those people can be proud to be American. For them it is an achievement. I simply am American. I was born that way. I have not earned the right to be proud. I am thankful to be American, but there’s no source of pride there.

There is another way to be proud to be an American, and that’s to take pride in America’s role—our role—in making a better world. That is the pride in accomplishment. And hell, we’ve accomplished a lot. There was a time in Somalia before it all went to stink that I really thought we had managed to beat swords into plowshares. I thought “this is the role of a great nation, standing as a beacon of freedom and peace.” At that moment I was truly proud to be American. Thought honestly I hadn’t done anything personally (except pay taxes) to deserve that feeling.

It got gray sometime after that. Protecting the Muslim population in Kosovo still feels right, but more timely intervention might have precluded much of the violence. [an aside – why do the factions we support almost always come to resent us? Talk among yourselves.] But still, there was an earnest belief that intervention could save lives and transform those troubled regions. Even if those expeditions were ill-conceived, they were noble of purpose. Something you could be proud of.

Frankly, we don’t have that anymore. I am Accidentally-American, or perhaps Fortunately-American, but I have not pulled off any individual accomplishment to which I can hang the label “proud”, and I am not proud of the actions of my nation (granfalloon) as a whole. At least in the past we believed in our nobility, if no one else did.

I am happy to be an American. I am fortunate to be an American; I did not accomplish being American. I am proud to give to my nation more than blind faith.

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Local color

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I went back to the High Country Saloon tonight. (The interior promotion all says High Country Lounge, but what does Anheuser Busch know? The sign above the door says “Saloon”, and that’s good enough for me. The other door says “restaurant”. You know which door I went for. I wrote for a time, with Nikki cheering me on. I’ve had people ask me what I’m doing, but rarely does someone ask, “Are you writing a novel?” For those people I am always embarassed to answer yes, because people who ask tha question are clearly more literature-oriented.

Not so Nikki. She told me that for school papers she had a hard time getting past two pages. I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince her that the ability to put a good idea into the smallest space was a great virtue. I know I could learn to be more compact. Still, it was nice the way she remembered me this time. Sure, “Laptop Guy” is easy, but “Get Novel down to less than 500 pages guy” requires a little more customer interaction. Plus Nikki is cute.

SamIAm Nikki is not who I’m writing about tonight, though. After I did my work tonight I moved from my table to a barstool, where I sat next to Mr. Lujan, disabled veteran who fought in the pacific, who went on to be a magistrate judge, who went without benefits for thirty years because of the bullshit. (His first name started with an S. I was told it more than once, but I’m not so good with names.) He was a rancher, a small businessman, until taxes put him out of business. Two years ago. He’s not a big fan of Dubya, even though he’s the exact profile of citizen that our fearless leader is supposed to be loved by.

Lujan had stories. I only heard a fraction of them. He sat next to me, and with his soft voice he held me. He spoke of watching him return through his binoculars at Leyte Gulf. He told me about Okinawa. He told me about about the clarity of his conflict, and how he felt for the Marines overseas now, with no clearly defined enemy and no clearly defined goal. His war was easy, he said, compared with what our soldiers face now. He told me that after he showed me the scars he had picked up from shrapnel. “We just have to bring them home,” Lujan said.

Then he told me how he had landed in jail for DWI, even while he was a judge. Some of the boys he had previously sentenced sprung him from his cell after he took some time to learn their stories. He wanted to know how they had ended up there, and when the rest of the law enforcement community figured out who they had collared and came to let him go, he refused to leave. He served the sentence he would have given himself.

Lujan is retired now; he sold the last of his cattle two years ago. There really is no room for the small farmer anymore. I’m not going to put a value judgement on that. Big farms are more profitable. There aren’t many big farms up here, though, and the famous tax breaks aren’t doing anyone up here squat. The last large animal vet is about to move a hundred miles south.

Retired I suppose is the wrong word. At eighty-something, he still works cutting hay and who knows what else. He has his horses and his passion. He has his health, and he has his friends at the High Country Saloon.

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