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During World War II, we had rationing, scrap metal drives, housewives working in defense factories. Soldiers faced death on the front lines, but every American was expected to make some sacrifices to help the war effort.

We’ve made a lot of progress since those days. Now the president can ship our boys and girls in uniform off to fight and die whenever and wherever he wants to. The American people — well, except for the boys and girls in uniform, of course — can sleep easy, knowing they will never be asked to make any sacrifices for the war effort.

So, how dare
Ward Sutton suggest that home-front patriots who have already gone above and beyond the call of duty should do even more?

When Ohio State University president Novice G. Fawcett retired in 1972, the Ohio legislature changed the law so that a new campus building could be named after him. Before that change, a state government building couldn’t be named after a living person. Politicians were left to hope that some later generation might see fit to bestow such an honor. After the law was changed, later generations became irrelevant. A sitting politician could place the laurel wreath upon his own brow.

No Ohio politician was more honored by naming buildings after himself than James A. Rhodes, governor from 1963-1971 and 1975-1983. I haven’t been able to find a complete list of state buildings named for him. There are at least three right here in Columbus: the state office tower just across the street from the State House, a hospital building at the Ohio State University Medical Center, and a building at the state fairgrounds. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I’ve missed some.

The capper to Rhodes’ remarkable career of self-congratulation came on May 4, 1982, when he pushed authorization to build a monument to James A. Rhodes through the legislature, as a rider on a prison construction bill.

I called my state representative to protest. He said he had voted against the monument, but the prison bill was badly needed, so he had to vote for it. My question: Why did it have to be passed on May 4th? Why not May 3rd, or May 5th?

On May 4, 1970, thirty-five years ago today, National Guardsmen sent by Governor Rhodes killed four students and wounded nine at Kent State University. Rhodes was seeking a Senate nomination, so the day before the shootings he cranked up the heat, calling anti-war organizers “the worst type of people we harbor in America.” The killings thrilled a certain strain of conservative voter, so Rhodes never publicly breathed a word of sorrow or regret over the students gunned down on their college campus.

When Rhodes died in 2001, the Associated Press said:

Those close to him said he was saddened by the tragedy but blamed the turbulence of the war era and believed his action was necessary.

There is such a thing as coincidence, but human beings control legislative calendars. If Rhodes had been “saddened by the tragedy,” he wouldn’t have pushed for his monument to himself on the anniversary of the killings.

After Rhodes’ death, the sculptor who built the monument, a cast-metal statue of Rhodes, said he had engraved the names of the four dead Kent State students inside the hollow statue. It’s not enough. Not nearly enough.

In Memoriam

Allison Krause
Jeffrey Miller
Sandra Scheuer
William Schroeder

Four Dead in Ohio.

Update: Via a recent email message, here’s a Kent State scrapbook.

The Washington Post has a story titled Doubts About Mandate for Bush, GOP:

As the president passed the 100-day mark of his second term over the weekend, the main question facing Bush and his party is whether they misread the November elections. With the president’s poll numbers down, and the Republican majority ensnared in ethical controversy, things look much less like a once-a-generation realignment.

On November 4th last year, in an entry called Political Capital, I wrote:

You’ve spent your political capital, George. You’ve blown through it just like you blew through the budget surplus you inherited from the Clinton Administration.

You’ve got a deep deficit, George. You owe us.

So I feel like I’ve been ahead of the curve on the mandate issue.

From HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher:

Confronting an assertion that the new Republican budget, cutting $10 billion from Medicaid and adding over $100 billion in tax cuts for the rich, was a necessary setting of priorities to cut our huge budget deficits, Martin Short asked:

Would you say that the rich have gotten poorer under George Bush?

Discussing new polls showing George W. Bush’s approval rating at only 44%, Bill Maher said:

The American public always wanted to vote for a guy — and Bush was the perfect guy — who they’d want to have over for pot roast. And George Bush is that guy. He does that well. You’d like to have him over for pot roast. He reminds you of yourself.

Well, now he’s been over, he’s had the pot roast, but he’s getting drunk, and now he’s talking about stem cells and Terri Schiavo and gay marriage, and now he’s the guest that won’t leave.

Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

President Bush’s favorite Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia:

government—however you want to limit that concept—derives its moral authority from God. It is the “minister of God” with powers to “revenge,” to “execute wrath,” including even wrath by the sword

…

The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible.

I kinda suspected Bush and his pals had a problem with democracy.

I’m a boomer. There was a time when I was proud of my generation. No more. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof explains why:

As a baby boomer myself, I can be blunt: We boomers won’t be remembered as the “Greatest Generation.” Rather, we’ll be scorned as the “Greediest Generation.”

…

As of 2003, the share of elderly below the poverty line had fallen by two-thirds to 10 percent – representing a huge national success. Retirement in America is no longer feared as a time of destitution, but anticipated as a time of comfort and leisure.

On the other hand, the proportion of children below the poverty line is still 18 percent, the same as it was in 1966. And while almost all the elderly now have health insurance under Medicare, about 29 percent of children had no health insurance at all at some point in the last 12 months.

One measure of how children have tumbled as a priority in America is that in 1960 we ranked 12th in infant mortality among nations in the world, while now 40 nations have infant mortality rates better than ours or equal to it. We’ve also lost ground in child vaccinations: the United States now ranks 84th in the world for measles immunizations and 89th for polio.

With boomers about to retire, I’m afraid that national priorities will be focused even more powerfully on the elderly rather than the young – because it’s the elderly who wield political clout.

There’s always a poll of some sort, called “QuickVote,” on CNN’s website.

A few days ago, they were asking whether the space shuttle was safe to launch. I didn’t vote in that one, because I don’t have the skills or the knowledge to make anything more than a wild guess. I’ll bet if I’d watched CNN’s reporting on the planned shuttle launch, I still wouldn’t have the skills or the knowledge to answer the question.

Yesterday, they were asking whether John Mason should marry his runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks. I didn’t vote in that one, either. I don’t know either of the people. I don’t know what’s been happening in their private lives. If you told me all their deepest, darkest secrets, I doubt it would shed any light on anything I should be worrying about.

Have we forgotten how to say, “It’s none of my business?”

North Korea is test-launching missiles. American soldiers are still being blown up in Iraq. We’re running up monstrous budget deficits. The economy is starting to sputter. Polar ice is starting to break up due to global warming. Uninsured Americans get sick and face financial ruin. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still out there, making plans.

The media should be shedding light on things we have a right to care about. Instead, they wallow in stories that are none of our business.

Now, here’s an interesting way to make America safer: not satisfied with just carrying a concealed weapon? In Florida, you can shoot first and ask questions later. The NRA promises to bring old Dodge City to other states, too:

A retired police officer in St. Petersburg, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, described the legislature’s bill as the “citizens’ right to shoot others on the street if they feel threatened” and asked, “Are they nuts?” That, we cannot answer.

We do, however, recognize a bad law when we see one, and any measure that increases the possibility of innocent people being killed or injured is a threat to public safety and does not belong on the books. This law, first of its kind in the nation, encourages people to be quick with guns, knives or fists. That’s scary. According to the Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Inc., there are already “6 to 7 million untrained gun owners in Florida.”

Telling them that they need only feel threatened in a park or a hospital or a stadium or a domestic dispute to start pulling the trigger is tantamount to turning Florida into Dodge City.

That’s so macho!

Just by chance, today I heard Barack Obama’s keynote speech from last year’s Democratic Convention. It’s a good speech. If you missed it last year, give it a listen:

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.

This year, in this election we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we’re measuring up to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations.

And fellow Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, I say to you tonight: We have more work to do

…

If there is a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there is a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for their prescription drugs, and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

It is that fundamental belief — It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.

John Kerry:

Every day Republican leaders are crossing lines that should never be crossed:

• the line that says a leader in the House of Representatives should never carelessly threaten or intimidate federal judges
• the line that says the leader of the Senate should never accuse those who disagree with his political tactics of waging a war against people of faith
• the line that says respect for core constitutional principles should never be undermined by a political party’s quest for power
• and most important of all, the line that says a political party’s leaders should never let their obsession with amassing power, or just with politics, overwhelm the needs and interests of the people who elected them — America’s families.

Yes, the Republican-controlled Congress has been so busy walking America’s highways and byways — grandstanding on Terri Schiavo and baseball players, obstructing ethics investigations, and attacking the independence of the courts — that they’ve forgotten to pay the war bill:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has sent letters to congressional leaders urging them to pass the final 2005 budget supplemental bill before the Army runs out of operating funds.

The Army has slowed its spending, so it can continue operations in Afghanistan and Iraq through early May when the funds are due to run out, Rumsfeld said.

He sent the letters Wednesday, along with handwritten notes that read, “Our folks out there need these funds.”

Tom DeLay is the true face of the Republican Party these days. Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter says DeLay must stay, to give voters a clear choice in the next election:

A couple of years ago, Tom DeLay was chomping on a cigar at a Washington restaurant with some lobbyists. The manager went over to tell him he couldn’t smoke because the restaurant was located on property leased from the federal government, which bars smoking. “I am the federal government,” DeLay replied, in words that will follow the onetime exterminator from Sugar Land, Texas, like ants at a picnic.

The line reeks of the arrogance and self-importance that may bring DeLay low, but it also has the advantage of being true: all three branches of the federal government belong to Republicans, and the autocratic House majority leader is the purest representation of the breed. On every issue—ethics, the environment, guns, tax cuts, judges—he is a clarifying figure for anyone who might be confused about the true nature of today’s GOP.

…

If DeLay goes down, his shamelessness will go with him, which will make it harder to see the GOP’s true agenda.

…

DeLay’s views on muscling the judiciary and ending the separation of church and state (which he believes is a fiction) offend the Constitution. That makes it too important to leave to the media and the rest of the Washington scandal machine to remedy. This job belongs to the voters, who can hammer the Hammer by siding against his many acolytes in Congress. Let’s make 2006 a referendum on the right wing. For that, DeLay must stay.

Another front in the jihad: banning books and authors:

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.

“I don’t look at it as censorship,” says State Representative Gerald Allen. “I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.”

Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” has lesbian characters.

Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare.

Yeah, books are dangerous. You start reading, and before long, you’re thinking.

If you think people with this mindset intend to stop anywhere short of death camps, you don’t know them very well.

Update: You know, I think this belongs here:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out.

— Martin Niemöller

I’m a bigot, all right. I’ve used Apple computers since I bought my first computer way back in 1983. I had to use Windows computers at work, and I tried, not very successfully, to overcome my prejudices against the criminal monopolist Microsoft. But a few years ago, when Apple Computer seemed to be near collapse, I declared that if Microsoft was the only software choice available, I’d just do without a computer. It’s not entirely a rational response; some of Microsoft’s products are very good. Some aren’t. Now, via John Moltz’s weblog, I’ve got a specific reason to be glad I’m a Macintosh user:

Microsoft is currently paying a $20,000 a month retainer to former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed’s consulting firm Century Strategies. Which now begs the question of whether Reed was in any way involved with Microsoft’s recent decision to abandon its decades long support for gay civil rights in order to curry favor with anti-gay bigots of the radical right.

First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams on The Daily Show:

If you take away an independent judiciary, you take away the first amendment, as well.

Are we winning or losing the War on Terror? The Bush Administration deep-sixed a long-standing annual report on terrorism which showed terror attacks increasing, not declining. Now they want partial credit for almost catching bad guys. We nearly caught Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Now, according to CNN, officials are bragging that they nearly caught Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

U.S. troops chased down a suspicious vehicle and later determined that al-Zarqawi had been in it but had escaped.

Gosh, if we actually started winning the War on Terror, there might be less reason for the extraordinary powers the Bush Administration has claimed for itself. Hmmm…