Weekend Update - November 29th

• "It is very likely the end of the Big Three as we know them, the merciful end of the laughably mediocre American car, the end of the big dumb SUV, Hummers and Escalades and Suburbans now considered about as palatable and attractive as the fat, hairy guy sweating into your margarita at the beach. All sources say Detroit's collapse is either a very good thing, or a very horrible thing. Or it's both. Celebrating yet?" Mark Morford is grumpy.


• Ten years ago, Newt Gingrich was forced to resign as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, in a desperate search for leadership, Republican National Committee members are debating whether to turn back to the past and tap the ever-ready Gingrich. The Second Coming of Newt Gingrich.


• The Religious Right is understandably concerned about what a Barack Obama administration will mean for their influence and agenda in the coming years. Heads We Win, Tails You Lose.


• The Greek Tragedy that is the Bush presidency. A revealing interview of Dubya with his sister Dorothy Koch.


• Fascinating stuff from Sean Penn. Conversations with Chavez and Castro. Send this one off to your conservative friends. I dare ya.


• Please contribute to the George W. Bush Library. Thanks so much.

Remembering Dad

A note to all of us from Uncle Bob's son, Steve. Thanks Steve.

To all who have not heard or have been waiting for more information about my father, I apologize for taking so long to write with the word. Dad died of complications from congestive heart failure on November 10. The obituary/tribute published in the Eugene Register-Guard can be found at: Register-Guard Tribute

Dad went from his last hospital stay in late September directly to home hospice care, a decision that turned out to be right for everyone. He was in familiar surroundings with his family when the end came. During his last week it seemed that his mind was ready but that his heart just wouldn’t let go. That his heart would hold out until the birthday of the Marine Corps seems only fitting.

Dad requested no special ceremony, but Dorothy, my sister Chris and I know that he would appreciate a gathering of family and friends to celebrate his life. The tentative date for that is looking like next June 6 or 7, which is the best time for children and grandchildren to travel to Eugene. We will finalize the exact date and location for the gathering and get the word out well in advance. Everyone is welcome. Dad’s remains were cremated at Rest-Haven cemetery in Eugene and we have decided on a plot where his ashes will be interred next June. The site will be a short distance from the gravesites of his parents.

For now, Dad’s ashes reside in a place of honor at Chris’s home in Orange. Last week Chris and I took him on his final road trip to southern California, his favorite winter vacation spot since he moved back to Eugene, and where he was stationed for most of his military career. For Chris and me, it brought back childhood memories of almost nonstop cross-country auto trips that happened with every change in Dad's duty station— a part of every military family’s life.

With cousin John’s help, Chris and I were able to load and transport by U-Haul his much-loved but heavy player piano to her home in Orange. It was a back-breaking, finger-smashing act of love and Dad would have been proud of us for the effort. It will remain in Chris’s home and will always bring back memories of Dad and his quaint and slightly peculiar renditions of the oldies.

As many of you know, Dad worked intermittently on his memoirs over the past several years and shared drafts and final chapters with family and friends. I'm not sure that he ever considered any chapter "final" since he would update or change some of the story as he remembered or was reminded of other events or facts. At least one chapter circulated anonymously through the internet and landed on a Marine tribute web page. Dad contacted the web site manager with the intention of having him remove it, but eventually agreed to allow posting that would attribute him as the author. However, it still incorrectly indicates that it is an excerpt from the book “Wake Island.” Even if you read just a few paragraphs I think you’ll agree that he was a skilled and engaging narrator.

I have inherited Dad’s electronic and hard copy files and plan to consolidate and publish his memoirs for all who are interested. In time, I intend to build a web page that will post the final version and also try to honor in some small way all of the Wake Island Defenders. Unfinished and more personal chapters will probably remain unpublished.

We were surprised to recently discover that Dad was interviewed as part of the Veterans History Project. As was his way, he apparently failed to mention the interview to anyone and was surprised that it was available on line when we showed it to him last month. His videotaped story (88 minutes long) can be watched here.

Here are a few random thoughts about Dad’s character and worldview. He lived through and directly experienced nine decades of astounding world events and change: the Great Depression and its poverty, World WWII combat and imprisonment, Vietnam. The severity of those experiences had to shape his thinking, but Dad would admit that there was a lot that was already “built in” at birth. He was an innate skeptic who constantly questioned all beliefs, including his own. Some of his greatest heroes were freethinkers and philosophers and he would quote them freely and indeed did believe that “man is the measure of all things” and that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He strongly believed that mankind should use reason and science to solve the world’s problems and that supernatural or superstitious explanations of natural phenomena should be abandoned. As everyone who met him soon found out, his political views were liberal and his attitudes toward using military force and war to resolve problems were pacifistic. He was appalled by the idea of “pre-emptive” or “preventative” war. His objectivity and sense of fairness toward others would often override his personal interest. Despite being a prisoner of the Japanese, he did not harbor bitterness against the Japanese people for the rest of his life as many of his comrades did. Later in life he would disagree that the U.S. needed to use nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force the Japanese to surrender earlier. He believed this even though he knew he would not have survived another winter in Japan if the war had gone on that much longer.

Regarding faults, Dad would be the first to acknowledge that he had many. Put as diplomatically as possible, he didn’t always do a good job of sustaining and balancing the give-and-take necessary to make a relationship work over the long run. He was a gentleman, but as someone very close to him recently told me, he was also “quite a rascal” at times. The wonderful women who shared their lives with him have my admiration and respect for trying to look beyond his faults and for loving him for his outstanding qualities, including his charity and generosity toward others, his altruism, and keen intellect. As time goes on, I know it will be for these qualities that he will be most remembered.

Thanks for remembering Dad with me.

Steve Winslow

Weekend Update - November 22nd

• Still think owning your own home is part of the American dream? Mark Morford doesn't think so. In fact, he thinks it's just a little bit insane.


• Okay, Gail Collins has an excellent idea. Since Bush doesn't seem to care anymore, why doesn't he give us all a big Thanksgiving gift and resign? Oh, and Cheney too.


• So what d'ya think about Hillary as Secretary of State? We think it'll be a good move. And besides, she's got all that experience ducking sniper fire in Bosnia....


• Creepy former Bush ass-kisser Senator Mitch McConnell now says he's glad Dubya is leaving. Someone get a towel and clean this idiot up.


• Gotta feel bad for those poor execs at General Motors. The government is balking at giving them billions of dollars in loans to stay afloat. Oh well, at least they're still keeping their private jets. Chutzpah of the year award?


• Remember the wood chipper scene in Fargo? We've posted the Sarah Palin turkey pardoning fiasco video for you, but it may be changed out soon for more entertaining footage. Here it is again, and remember, it's not for the squeamish.


• This is rather bizarre, but we personally think it's a good start. A county prosecutor who brought indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday about special treatment for high-profile defendants as a routine motions hearing descended into chaos.


• From the Only a Matter of Time Dept., The former Ludlum Elementary School, in Long Island's Hempstead Union Free School District, was renamed at a school board meeting Thursday — effective immediately. The new name is the Barack Obama Elementary School.


• And here's your Bad Hat Weekend Treat: David Sirota instructs us on tuning out "the braindead megaphone." Good stuff.


• Now go out there and rake those leaves.

I Am Inclined To Vote For Ass

What are we supposed to do when we've "won". Whatever that means. The last eight years have been fairly gruesome. We started with our budget running a modest surplus, not huge, but capable of gradually paying down the national debt. For the moment let's forget about those who say that HAVING a "national debt" is really a good thing. Those who say that are the same dolts who say that school shootings are "highly educational". Owing money, as a nation, is pretty much the same as owing money as an individual. Think about it as a mortgage. Can anyone honestly say they enjoy having a mortgage? Oh come on, not while they are sober and not in the middle of a complete emotional breakdown. When anyone is lucky enough to pay of a mortgage, what do they do? Do they (a) weep from a sense of loss, or (b) crack a bottle of available champagne because they no longer owe some goddamn bank that monthly payment. The answer is (b).

As a nation we owe a massive amount of money to a large group of nervous Eurotrash financiers and various foreign governments who are trying to curry favor in the US by holding our increasingly shaky mortgage note. We are on the cusp of giving other nations and assorted Eurotrashistas the power to tell our government what it may do, or not do, and when. Let me speak slowly and clearly here: any part of that is a very, very bad idea. If assorted foreigners wish to mismanage their own nations, I applaud their zeal towards public service. The poor, as they always have, will bear the brunt of their mismanagement by dying young. But not in my country. At our worst we have done some awful things. We can argue over which of the things we have done, as a nation, that are the most awful. The point is, whichever awful things we do, even when we do them for a long time, eventually we shake ourselves and turn away from those actions and express the strong wish to never do such things again. Sometimes we screw up and go do it all over again. Sometimes less than honorable people do it in our name, though most of us cannot recall asking them to do so. But most of the time we struggle towards something better, something more just, something more compassionate. Often our efforts are lame, halt and spastic. Often our political leaders are lame, halt, spastic and corrupt. But we seem to be capable, judging by the recent election, to rise above ourselves, shake off our depression and malaise and believe in something again, when many may have thought that such a suspension of cynicism was beyond them.

So while I am a huge fan of the long-suffering (trust me on this, they are) Chinese people that does not translate into my being willing for the monumentally creepy Chinese government to tell our government what to do. Their idea of responding to dissent, if we can judge from their actions toward restive members of the slightly deranged Tai-chi exercise cult Falun Gong, strongly suggests they are Neanderthals. Handling dissent by mass imprisonment and execution, often timed to permit the harvesting of human organs for resale on the secondary market to "transplant tourists", is not my idea of a government who has anything much to tell us about what choices we should make, as a people.

But we're really stuck right now. Including the in-process "bailout" (aka "rescue package") the Bush administration came very near to doubling our national debt. For nothing. What do I mean by that? I mean, we ran up our national credit card for a Chuck Norris fantasy, leaving us nothing to show for it but a bad hangover. We paid out a massive amount of money for nothing in return. Seriously. Are we more safe? Nope. Are wages up? are we a more competitive economy because of all of the investments we made in manufacturing and infrastructure? Oh, no? Well, did we invest that money in building our international stature, in light of our investments in selfless and farsighted good works? Gee, flubbed that one, too? So wait, we pissed Five Trillion Dollars down the drain for nothing? And we're worse off than we were eight years ago?

Wow. Isn't that special.

And now? Now we've seen more progressive political forces win a significant victory. We can look forward at least to some accounting for the various things done over the last eight years, though it is impossible to roll back those actions to return us to a more innocent era. But it feels... sort of okay. We really did kick some ass.

What now?

When you get done "kicking some ass", then what?

How does one translate that achievement into something useful and enduring? More importantly, how the heck do we bail ourselves out of the massive "mortgage" that the Village Idiot and his coterie of second-rate minds fob off on us? The only sensible way to grasp our plight, as a nation, is to see ourselves as a people who have suffered a terrible natural disaster or a devastating plague. Historically terrible events have overtaken other nations, leaving them reeling but eventually able to recover. We have enormous advantages today because of vastly improved communications and technology. What it takes is to know what to use those tools for. Far worse things have happened in history. The "Black Plague" managed to kill nearly half of the population of Europe, yet those nations survived. There was a time in Chinese history when through war, plague, famine and flood China's population fell from sixty million to fifteen million over a ten year period, yet that culture survived that terrible period. Compared to that, this is child's play.

Understand, there is some real stuff going on. Painful things will happen, but this is far from the gravest challenge our nation has faced. The Civil War probably takes pride of place as "the gravest challenge". Most American families can trace their descent from those who fought or were connected in some way to those who died in that conflict. It is said that two percent of America's population died during in that war. As a reference to our current population that would mean the loss of Six Million Men. The death toll in World War II was smaller than the death toll in the Civil War. As a percentage of the American population it caused the death of 0.32% of our population. As horrible as the losses were, they were less than one- sixth as devastating as the losses in the Civil War. Oh, and the Revolutionary War? A shade over four thousand Americans died. No, the Civil War was the test of our resolve, as a people, a test of our capacity to take a terrible loss and somehow rise above it. Again, despite the wonderful hyperbole the pundits are spouting, this is no big deal. Will it last for years? Will it be a grinding loss of our marvelous prosperity? Is the American Dream a goner?

Naah. This is a sort of "thing" that seems to happen every once in a while in modern economies. Economic systems seem to lurch from panic to euphoria without ever stopping to rest in between. This could be a grinding mess, or a depressing period of "stagflation" (a stagnant economy coupled with inflation) but it is far more likely to be a badly needed correction to the exuberance of recent years, where great minds seemed to think that relatively modest homes should sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars to buyers without the income to afford buying a house that cost that much. What a genius idea! Who imagined that was going to work out well? Did anyone? or isn't it more likely that most of the players ASSUMED that the entire house of cards was going to tumble eventually, but they were making so much money that they were afraid to say anything? I vote for the latter. It looked like easy money, it felt like easy money, temporarily it was "too good to be true" and you know what they say? "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is".

Will it all be okay? yeah, I am inclined to think so. Will this be a "fun" period of time? only when looked at from a longish distance in the future, say twenty to thirty years from now when people may feel all nostalgic about it. Again, not to dwell on China, but there is a theme-bistro that is keyed to nostalgia for the period of the "Cultural Revolution" in China (1966-1976) which is generally agreed to be one of the worst periods in recent Chinese history, where parents were turned against children and children betrayed their parents and life was often short and nasty. As big a mess in its own way as our Civil War, and yet, and yet, some ten years ago that nightspot opened up with memorabilia of the period, to cash in on nostalgia for that really horrible period. One of the odd things about the human race is that we seem to have the capacity to become nostalgic about the damndest things. So my advice would be to relax and enjoy the turmoil and the stress of this year. It will all work out and we might as well enjoy it while it is happening, instead of waiting twenty years until it is trendy to recall it fondly. We'll be okay, I think. No one can say anything with certainty, but it is a lot more enjoyable to be irrationally optimistic than rationally depressed... and since the world will do what it is going to do, pretty much independently of whether we are grumpy or cheery, we might as well make a stab at trying to enjoy ourselves, but without any grand expectations. Then when good things happen we can be pleasantly surprised.

Meanwhile, sales of Ferraris, Maseratis and Rolls Royces are holding up quite nicely. How can that be? Warren Buffet made $9 Billion in September. How can that be? Let's all take a deep breath and see how this all plays out. Who knows? maybe after a needed readjustment of our economy we will not see the road to wealth and fame as through real estate speculation and day trading of stocks. What will we fantasize about then? Rest easy. Another of mankinds' great gifts is the ability to dream up improbable paths to wealth. Some other fiscal fad will replace those of today and have no more substance than the current ones. And we will survive them as well.

In the meantime it might be worth going out and kicking some more ass, since it worked out pretty well this last time. There are two Senate races left, that between Al Franken (no, seriously... ) and cosmetically-enhanced Norm Coleman in Minnesota and the race between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin in Georgia. Franken appears to be pulling even, probably ahead, but the December 2nd run-off between Jim Martin and Saxby Chambliss is going to be a symbolic battle for the soul of... I guess the south and Georgia? Who knows. Chambliss is a nasty piece of work, Martin looks like a slighly vague Sunday School teacher; too nice to qualify. Esquire Magazine voted his opponent Senator Saxby one of "The Ten Worst Senators" and since he is still in his first term, he is a quick study. Martin needs your love, your money and you can even hook up through the Obama phone bank to make calls on his behalf, though presumably you have to fake a Georgia accent to have any luck convincing anyone. Click here.

Or we could sit around and fret, but given a choice between fretting and kicking some additional ass, I am inclined to vote for ass.

Arthur

Postscript:

Does anyone think I am being too harsh about our national priorities? Hah. Remember the HUGE looming crisis of the bankruptcy of the Social Security system, which absolutely REQUIRED us to set up private investment accounts? Does anyone else recall the massive, impossible amount of money it would cost to make the SSI account solvent again? Take your time. $75 Billion. Yup. Now remember, it was such a HUGE CRISIS to do this $700 Billion bailout/rescue that Congress agreed to toss in $140 Billion in pork to get it passed, to save our economy and the world. So the cost of the bailout/rescue was really about $840 Billion. That is more than eleven times larger than saving the SSI system. Okay? So how many people benefit from Social Security? As of 2005 more than 47 million Americans received SSI benefits. So one in every six Americans. But understand, the Republican conservatives have always HATED Social Security. Hard to believe? They have hated it ever since FDR put it in place. They think people should (a) save (b) work hard (c) never get sick, or (d) rely upon their church for help. What, you say some people do get sick and do not belong to a church? In that case, they have made their bed, let them lie in it and die in it, unless they get evicted first. In which case, who cares about them? Let them go live in a shelter. That in a nutshell, once you strip away all of the lies and public relations bullshit, is the core of the Republican Party's world view. And no, I don't much care what Mitch McConnell thinks the Democrats in the Senate should do. Silly, feckless, dishonest dough-faced moron that he is...

Speaking About The Unspeakable

During the election coverage Karl Rove opined on Fox News that America, despite Obama's decisive win, "Remained a center-right nation". Oh yeah. And I remain the buffed 145 pound that I was when I graduated from High School. In both cases time has marched on and the body and body politic have changed significantly. But we have continued to hear holdouts from reality telling us that all was well, since America was a bedrock conservative nation, just cheating on their core principles this one time with that hot black guy, a sin which they would spend the rest of their lives atoning for by voting straight party-line for Republicans.

But something is starting to happen. The Happy Face crowd has had its say, the circular firing squad is too busy blaming each other to care, and the reality-based conservatives are starting to speak up. What I find particularly interesting about Parker's article is this; if the Republican Party cuts loose the horde of modern-day Corporate Elmer Gantrys that have been its "base" then who is left? Southerners who liked the good old days a lot better? Mmm, that seems to be a shrinking demographic. Fiscal conservatives? you know, the ones who like balanced budgets and low deficits? Mmmm, no so happy right now. Those who believe in limited military involvements in foreign lands. Ugh, a bit of a problem there. Okay, so what is something everyone can agree on? Fighting against same-sex marriage? Outlawing abortion? Throwing all those shifty fruit-picking Mexicans out of the country? Wow. Is it just me, or does it seem that the Republican Party seems increasingly reduced to being defined by the things that it wants to ban or deport?

It's a feel-good platform, isn't it?

Arthur

Robert E. Winslow - August 31, 1921 - November 10, 2008

I met Bob Winslow in the early 90's.

I had just found my birth family after years of research and tracing family stories surrounding my adoption. The adoption itself had been an arranged affair, made in the early winter months of 1945, between a scared single mother and an old family doctor. The doctor arranged for the young woman, named Betty Winslow, to be taken to a Portland hospital to have "a tumor removed." No one but them were to know that the "tumor" was a baby. The old doctor arranged for the baby to be adopted by a local family, Cy and Louise Perry. The young mother was sworn to secrecy about this affair, for the rest of her life. She was to tell no one what happened. Ever. And she kept her word.

Early in 1990 an elderly and loving Aunt of mine finally spilled the beans. After I had my birth mother's name, things went quite quickly. Betty Winslow had died just a few scant years earlier, taking her secret to her grave, but her daughter was alive and well and working as a legal secretary in downtown Eugene. My new sister, Jody. I wrote her a letter explaining everything and we met soon after. She accepted me as her brother. I discovered I also had another new sister, Lisa, and a brother, Bob. And I learned of the family patriarch, my birth mother's brother, Uncle Bob Winslow, who was living in San Diego at the time.

Jody and Lisa didn't tell me much about Uncle Bob, except to say he was a life long (retired) Marine, and a former POW. When pressed for details they just smiled and said, "you'll find out." Soon he was on his way up to meet me, and I was getting a bit nervous about meeting this man. What possible thing aside from the blood relation could he and I have in common? I foresaw the meeting being a stiff, uncomfortable affair, short, sweet, and all too polite. What actually happened was much different indeed. Uncle Bob greeted me by hugging me, touching my nose, and saying "Yep, you're a Winslow."

The rest of the first afternoon was spent sitting out by the hot tub, drinking beer, and talking about everything under the sun. I knew at once that I was in the presence of a great man, an individual like no other.

In 1939, Bob Winslow and his friend Pat Malone, just barely graduated from High School, escaped from Eugene, Oregon and set out to find adventure. The boys soon split up and went their own ways, and Bob found himself in California, where he was hired by a carnival to replace their departed MC, who also doubled as "Eco, the Human Ostrich." He was instructed how to chew up double-edged razor blades, show the rubes that there it was on his tongue, then swallow it. Oh, he was advised to eat lots of bread. So at 17 young Bob was the Master of Ceremony for 10 acts and also, by the way, became a fire-eater. He performed this "miracle" while seated cross-legged on a platform wearing only a loincloth and a turban. It wasn't too long before some of the chewed up razor blades refused to pass through his body as advertised by his carny mentor, so just before the show was to cross into Mexico, Bob quit show business. It was November, 1939, and with the U.S. poised on the brink of war and talk of a draft in the air, he set out to join the Navy. But discovering that the enlistment required a six year term, which to an 18-year-old is a third of a lifetime, he chose a four year enlistment in the United States Marine Corps. And that was The Beginning.

In January 1941, Bob sailed to Oahu, Hawaii on board the carrier USS Enterprise. While there his battalion stood guard duty and trained as anti-aircraft gunners. In October, 1941, a portion of his unit was shipped to Wake Island. Much has been written about the defense of Wake Island, many books written by individual survivors themselves. They are usually tales of individual heroism. Uncle Bob writes "As in all histories that rely upon the unreliable memories of men, some of what has been written about Wake Island is accurate and some of it is balderdash." Uncle Bob's written narrative of the Wake Island story is that of a rank private who is only aware of events taking place within a radius of a hundred yards around him. Of all the stories I have subsequently read about Wake, his is by far the most fascinating. Bob survived 44 months in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Japan.

If you have some time, you can see and hear Uncle Bob tell of his Wake Island and following experiences by clicking HERE.

After retiring from the Marine Corp with the rank of Sergeant Major in 1970, he returned to the States and went to school. He graduated from San Diego State with a degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences History, with honors, in 1978, and received a Master of Education from Central State University in Oklahoma in 1980. He constantly continued his education by reading virtually everything he could get his hands on, and he had a tremendous personal library. He was the smartest man I've ever met.

Uncle Bob was my friend and my mentor. Before he moved back here to Eugene, I flew down to his home near San Diego twice, each time spending a week with him, then traveling with him in his motorhome (dubbed "The Enterprise," by me) up the coast highway to Eugene. He would spend a month or so visiting, then return to San Diego. With possible exception of the birth of my son, those trips, and that time I spent traveling with him are the times of my life. His favorite brand of beer at the time was "Bitburger," a German import. There is something almost religious about barreling up I-5 at sunrise on a beautiful morning, and being commanded to break open a couple of "Bits" for breakfast. And the stories I heard. Oh the stories.

Around 1994 Uncle Bob moved to Eugene, and if I may presume with all due modesty, I believe it was to be closer to me. We were hitting it off famously, as they say, and I think my personal brand of insanity amused him. Plus he had just broken up with a lady in his old mobile home park, but I'm sure that had little influence on his decision. He found a beautiful place out Hwy. 99 in Lakewood Court, and settled in. In 2001 Uncle Bob met and made his companion the widow of a former Marine, his beautiful Dorothy. They moved into a larger even more beautiful place at Lakewood together, and she became the love of his life. He and Dorothy bought a new larger motorhome, and traveled extensively. He was incredibly happy.

Uncle Bob and I would get together on a regular basis, drinking brandy and discussing and cussing the Bush administration and firing off E-mails to our friends and fans. I began this blog at his urging, and he was pleased, amazed, and proud of it. He felt like we were finally able to do something to affect a positive change in the world. He became a big fan of Arthur's writings on Bad Hat, and would send copies of them to many of his long time friends.

Several months ago he had a series of small strokes, nothing major on the surface, more annoying than frightening. After one, he suddenly began vomiting, over and over. Couldn't stop. Dorothy got him to the hospital and they finally got it stopped, and he dismissed the whole thing as just odd. Then later, another one. This time he had great difficulty breathing. That was much more frightening. Dorothy was in Portland so he called me, out of breath and said he had fallen and needed help. I rushed through 5 o'clock traffic and got him to the hospital. He partially recovered, but I think we all began to fear that something bad was coming. Little did we know how fast it was coming. More little episodes were to follow, and eventually it all led to him being hospitalized at River Bend. Congestive heart failure was the diagnoses. It was the beginning of the end. The doctor gave him 3 months. His son Steve came up from Cedar City, Utah, and then his daughter Chris came up from California, and my sister Jody came down from Olympia, Washington, and my other sister Lisa came down from Portland, and even my elusive brother Bob came down from Mars. Dorothy, Steve, and Chris decided to move him home. With the help of Hospice they set up a hospital bed in the front room, brought in oxygen, and for a while he was quite comfortable. Everyone went home, and Uncle Bob improved for a while, even allowing Dorothy to visit her relatives in Portland for a week. Hospice was over every day and I was over every other day, and he and I even went driving around one afternoon. He seemed to actually be improving. But barely a week later it became evident that the end was at hand. Uncle Bob himself called Steve and told him to come up as soon as he could. Steve, Dorothy and I sat with him the evening of the national election, and although he was very ill we all watched the pundits on TV with great anticipation. At 8 o'clock when they announced Obama had won, I turned to Uncle Bob with a big grin. He had fallen asleep. I didn't wake him, I just gathered my things and went home. It was the last time I ever saw him.

For the next 6 days he lapsed in and out of conscious reality, his mind willing to go but his body stubbornly hanging on. Steve says he seemed at times at peace, sometimes puzzled by what was happening, and sometimes even the old skeptic was tormented by conspiracy theories and unknown demons. He did not go easy. Bob Winslow died on the birthday of his beloved Marine Corps, November 10th, 2008, with Steve, Chris, and Dorothy at his side.

If I ever have the wherewith all to write a book of my own, it will be about the time of my life I spent with my beloved and learned Uncle Bob. Reserve your copy today.

Uncle Bob has been cremated. It has been decided to have a memorial service sometime in the spring when all of the family can once again gather. His only request was that absolutely no religious references be made during any service in his name. While he disliked the term "atheist," he did enjoy being referred to as "a militant agnostic." I have lost more than an Uncle, more than a friend. I have lost a part of me.

Semper Fi
John Perry

Veterans Day 2008

(This is the first of several articles dedicated to the memory of Robert "Uncle Bob" Winslow this week. Stay tuned for more, and if any of you have anything to be included please write it to EPRush1@aol.com. )

One of the most enduring benefits of being connected with "Bad Hat" has been the privilege of getting to know Uncle Bob. The serial account of his life is one of the more interesting bits of personal history I can recall reading. Those of you who have not read it, I suspect would find it as fascinating and concise an account of history as you are likely to read. (The family is working on it. Uncle Bob's account of his exploits is indeed wonderful and fascinating, a portion of which can be read here. A bound and edited copy should be available to anyone interested in a few months, we'll let you know.)

My wife recently read the new translation of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" which runs 1275 pages. I declined the honor of grabbing it and reading it, but I found it fascinating to hear her talk about the story. I also cheated and read the last page, so I could save time. Not to spoil the ending for you, but Napoleon's attempted conquest of Russia did not succeed and Tolstoy came away from his study of that period to write what some believe is the most reasoned and passionate argument against war ever written.

So you can read "War and Peace", or you could read what Uncle Bob wrote. I am reminded what the last French veteran of WW I said last year, prior to his death. To paraphrase, he reported that he spent the entire war being convinced that he was going to be killed, while conscious that those on both sides who got killed were all someone's son, brother, husband or father. He said that glory did not figure into the experience. Those are words to remember when Chicken Hawk political figures speak of the noble sacrifice of our troops.

I'd like to tell you a story that I just learned last month, when helping the family of a WW II vet who has gone into a nursing home, one he is not likely to leave ever again. The story he told about his service was remarkable. He was in the 1st Marine Brigade who were sent to China at the end of WW II. Their mission? to accept the surrender of the Japanese army of occupation. The war was over, but the Japanese refused to surrender to the Chinese, out of fear that they would be slaughtered. They indicated that they would be willing to surrender to Americans, even though the United States had just dropped two Atomic bombs on Japan. The 1st and 4th Marine Brigades were dispatched to China, where they accepted the surrender of close to two million Japanese troops, who were supported by an additional million and a half support staff. So far, so good. The Marines' task was to organize the repatriation of the Japanese back to Japan, by escorting them to ports so that ships could ferry them out of China.

Now the story gets interesting. China was in the midst of the civil war that ended with the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. That outcome was not certain at the time, but the Communists were interested to make a statement by being more badass and patriotic than the Nationalists. One of their ideas was to kill the Japanese before they could leave China. The Marines were seriously outgunned, since at the height their numbers were no more than 40,000. And here is where the story gets interesting. On a number of occasions when the Marines were conveying Japanese troops toward the coast their detachments were attacked by Chinese forces. To defend the column the Marines handed back to the Japanese their weapons and the two forces fought side-by-side until the attack was over. Then the Japanese turned back in their weapons and the march towards the China Sea continued.

It is impossible to exaggerate the ferocity of the battles between American forces and the Japanese during WW II. Yet here, a few scant weeks later, those forces, now at peace, were cooperating.

Uncle Bob would have appreciated that story. I see a lot in that improbable story to be optimistic about. The United States and Japan went on to became allies, putting aside the horrors of their battle to destroy each other. If our two countries could do that, and if our foot soldiers found it in themselves to cooperate with each other, it seems to me we should all be looking beyond the "endless war" we are currently saddled with. The "War on Terror" (TM) is a war without borders, uniforms, rules of war or any obvious end. That is not a happy prospect. Neither was the Second World War. If nations could make peace at the end of that monumental conflict, surely the nations and people enmeshed in all the world's current battles can also. Or so we must believe... and work towards.

Arthur

Veterans Day Update

(Been quite an unhappy week for several people, but an enormously happy one for political junkies. Let's grin and bear it for a moment and look at some crazy stuff happening lately....)

• Okay, so California votes big for Obama, great. The whole nation beginning the destruction of the old prejudices. Getting rid of the mindless, unreasonable hatreds of generations passed. Ah, except for Prop 8. You know, the one about those people. Mark Morford congratulates all of you.


• Should it be Hillary, or John Kerry for Secretary of State? Or should one be saved for the Supreme Court? GoshAlmighty this is fun! Happy days are heeer again...oh the sky's......


• Consider the state of the Republican Party. Newt Gingrich says it should be honest "about the level of failure over the past eight years." Well, hell. That would be a good start. Then maybe they could tell us what they did with all the money.


• Think Right-Wing talk radio hosts are depressed? Ha. They're ecstatic! One of them even played a portion of Obama's acceptance speech, then said "Go screw yourself!" They can't wait. They've finally got 8 years of slanderous hate to vomit out at us. It's okay. You can come in here and hide. We have hot chocolate and cookies.


• I'm so excited about Sarah Palin. She just won't crawl back into the cave she came from. She's going to keep talking, and talking, and talking. "Show me where the open door is. Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door." I told you this would fun from here on.


• Oh, and Happy Veteran's Day, Bush Administration style.

Italy

Silvio Berlusconi is a wealthy, racist, rightwing media mogul.

He is also apparently a tanning-bed addict who works hard to appear tanned and (surgery enhanced) fit at all moments. His relationship with his wife can be described as tenuous and often strained because Berlusconi is a philandering, trash-talking moron. To his credit he is such a dolt that he imagines that everyone else is also. He can best be described as a comic opera version of Bush and Rupert Murdock combined. Too much money, too much control over the media in Italy, for anyone to ignore. He is a powerful argument against media consolidation. I believe he controls something like 60% of the private television programming in Italy, and when in office (as now) he can also fiddle with their state broadcasting system, just as Bush decided to do.

Fortunately he also keeps saying such stupid things, that the Italians sound as though this last reference to Obama as "suntanned" appears, finally, as though it may be the last straw. Italy is in an economic mess that makes ours seem like child's play.

Arthur

Showing Compassion Toward The Bereaved

One wonderful thing about such a decisive outcome to this election is that it affords the Republicans no room to claim that the election was somehow stolen. But they are trying. On the news this morning the discussion is all about race, how race played such a huge part because all those damn blacks and mexicans voted for Obama. And there is another theme; the press LOVED Obama, instead of loving McCain. How unfair! Former RNC head Haley Barbour described the press's bias towards Obama as "the world's longest wet kiss". Ooops, hints of interracial sex there? How completely unfair for McCain, who used to call the press "my base" and take them on bus rides. And then he stopped talking to them on the orders his campaign staff of secretive Lobbyists and Karl Rove acolytes. To some degree McCain even started to run against the press and that pretty much ruined the relationship. But we will hear a shopping list of excuses, complaints and whines. What we will not hear are claims of election fraud. Not with a seven million margin in the popular vote.

That should, logically, make it easier for Republicans to come to terms with the outcome and the new President. Logic does not always work. Logical people will easily be able to move on and get behind the new administration. Others will not. Those are probably the sort of people to deal with fairly cautiously. For several months it probably would be wise to not make sudden movements near them. In addition I would suggest that one avoid all use of the term "yes we can" or any one of the individual words: "yes" "we" and "can". It will take a certain amount of ingenuity to avoid these words, but with care it can be done. Let me give an example. If one is asked "Would you be willing to go on a date with my Supermodel cousin tonight?" or... "I am tired of my great wealth so I wonder if it would be okay if I just gave it all to you?" a person's normal reaction might be to say "yes". But note, during this transitional period that could be a mistake. Acceptable responses could be "sure" "okay" or "I'll say!" but for obvious reasons it probably would be wise to avoid the use of the term "You betcha!"

At first this may be somewhat awkward, but with practice it should become second nature in a few days. Another option is to only speak to Republican stalwarts in another language such as French or German, but that could be misinterpreted, so a change in normal usage is probably to be preferred.

Despite one's best efforts, on occasion one may encounter a true "red stater" who is in a very, very, lousy, no good, angry mood. The best approach when dealing with such an individual is simple. Lie. One must treat the situation exactly as one would if the task was to talk a distraught man off the ledge of a building; one says and does whatever is needed to get the person back in through the window so they can be overpowered and transported to a psychiatric ward. In this instance, of course, the last part is not appropriate, but talking down a troubled individual, and leaving as quickly as possible, is the next best thing. A sample response might be "You know, in the end I just found that the older guy seemed (insert complimentary term) than the younger one, so I had to vote straight Republican". Be aware that some more troubled individuals may be at risk of fainting, so be prepared to assist them if they collapse. This line, or a variation on it, should be delivered with a mournful shaking of the head. With any luck the individual you are speaking with will stop shaking the blunt object they are holding and begin shaking their head in sympathy. In such an event one should be on guard for the possibility that they next will throw their arms around you and begin to weep uncontrollably. If this happens, guide them to a chair and tell them you must leave to go cry by yourself in a dark room so as to not appear "unmanly" in public. With any luck they will find that suggestion so appealing that they will leave immediately to do the same. A two or three days bout of crying may, in the end, do them a world of good.

Next week we will discuss public demeanor and the importance of not breaking into spontaneous laughter and end-zone victory dancing in public places. Remember, the best way to avoid confrontation is to keep one's shoulders rounded, walk with a dragging step and weep occasionally. In short, just remember some of the ways you behaved during the darker days of the Bush administration, and exhibit such behavior at any point where you are uncertain about the company you are surrounded with. Such behavior will either be harmless or entirely appropriate. The important thing is to survive long enough to enjoy having a really intelligent President. Getting into a bar fight with a deranged conservative could risk all of that.

As a final note, do not under any circumstances attempt to have a substantive conversation with any such individuals. Follow the "DLF" rule: Distract, Lie, Flee.

Arthur

Yes We Did Update

• Bygawd, we did it! Thanks to all of you, and of course, Mark Morford. (Who asks us right off the bat not to gloat, but damn....)


• Meanwhile, in spite of the fact that the Associated Press called the election in Minnesota for Norm Coleman, there's still a chance that Al Franken can win this thing. Keep your fingers crossed.


• Here's "a toast to the Obamas as they enjoy a brief, golden moment before beginning the grueling business of disappointing their followers, astonishing their enemies and doing what is right for our country." By one of our favorite writers, Garrison Keillor.


• What's the difference between Sarah Palin and a pit bull? The pit bull eventually lets go. Bad joke? Probably. But it's a John McCain joke. Heavy sigh.


• Joy, hope, relief ... and an ominous reminder from Jesse Jackson.


• You've already met Joe the Plumber. But John McCain waited until the day before the election to bring out his ultimate weapon: Pepe the Feather Duster. Dana Milbank comments on McCain's final moments.


• Here's an ugly little article about McCain's mother, of all people, giving up on all us misguided people. Man, if the whole family's like this, it must be real fun at Thanksgiving.


• And love him or hate him, Michael Moore is never at a loss for words. For our part, we love him. Thanks for all you've done, Michael.

Barak "No Drama" Obama

Okay, with but two days to go I think we can stop being completely paranoid about the outcome of this election. Not complacent, but not frantic, either. The choice of Sarah Palin served to reduce the McCain campaign to a parody of its former self. That took some doing, but Palin was so creepy and in the end so corrupt that she pulled off what seemed to be impossible.

That has left the McCain campaign flailing to find a message, a theme, an issue that they could use to blunt the momentum of the Obama campaign. Ten hour lines to vote early? That is astounding to me. I find it hard to believe that voters would be willing to stand in such lines. The determination to make their voice heard in this election is greater than I can recall in my lifetime. My guess is that the Democratic Party is going to make fairly stunning gains. What my hope is that with those gains they can make their first priority to mandate election reform. A lot has been done, some a success, some not, but far, far more is needed. A ten hour line? Absurd. We look like a fixed election in Haiti during the tenure of Duvalier. Enough machines and staff should be assigned that the wait is no more than a few minutes. And a verifiable paper copy should be produced for every vote cast.

Having everyone vote is pretty close to our national core value, to the extent that there is such a thing. The idea that a voter would be asked to stand in line for hours in order to vote seems to me to violate the spirit of everything this country attempts to stand for. I'd like to comment briefly on the idea of voting as a core value in this country. Originally there were restrictions based on land ownership in some areas. It was a given that women could not vote and in most areas it was blithely assumed that African-Americans could not vote. And American Indians? Oh please! Latinos? Not likely! If one looked at the numbers who voted in historic elections, as contrasted to the population of the nation in those years, my guess is that the percentages of voters to the adult populations has steadily risen over the years from a low of perhaps ten percent of the adult population to where it is today. And with this nonsense of not enough voting booths and selective use of poor voting machines in low-income districts, we still have a good distance to go.

The bright spot on the electoral map is college campuses. Our two boys have each registered at their colleges. Further, each college has a polling station. Each college also has good-looking women manning Obama information tables. By Federal law, even if a student is legally a resident of another state, by law they may register to vote on campus if they choose to do so. Where their vote is more valuable there those nice looking ladies (and young men) at the information and registration tables are counseling students to register on campus, then tell them where and when to vote. On election day, with the support of the colleges, there is going to be a massive "harass the voter" effort on each campus, to make sure the students DO vote. Stickers and hugs will be handed out. My guess is that "turnout" will be in the high 90s. Needless to say, the trend on college campuses is running more than 2:1 Obama. Obama's youth and vigor strike a chord with the young while McCain keeps making references that baffle them. When he talks about Herbert Hoover their eyes glaze over. They don't even want to know who that is, they just want to head for the exit. Sarah Palin does not seem to be doing much better among the college demographic. She seems to be coming across as a nasty-spirited Dolly Parton wanna-be, better know to the young through Tina Fey's parody of her on Saturday Night Live than by her own repetitive campaign appearances.

Meanwhile Barack Obama seems to just be focused on the job in front of him, without letting much distract him. No drama, just a steady consistent effort. I had no idea what Obama's half hour info-politics-mercial on Wednesday night would be like. I assumed that it would be a lengthy fireside chat, which might or might not work. Instead it was a skillfully edited series of four different stories of people dealing with the challenges of keeping their heads above water, as our economy goes through the many adjustments of this period of time. Each story was different and I thought they were cleverly chosen to appeal to different demographics. I could not help but notice that one was in Ohio, one in New Mexico, one in North Carolina and the other in some other battleground state. Not missing a trick there, were they? I thought the stories were representative and did a good job of illustrating some systemic problems our nation has. The cost of healthcare seemed to jump out at the viewer. As it should. Anyone who has had any kind of health issue can testify that the costs of medical care just seem to spiral into the ozone layer. The cost of medical care per person in the United States is the highest in the world but our actual delivery of services is wildly uneven and far from the best in the world, or the most fair. We are fools to be complacent about this issue. Preventive care can slash the cost of keeping our population healthy, whereas relying on sending very ill people to emergency rooms is probably the most costly and inefficient system one could possibly design. If our population is healthy, logically it is a more productive population. When people are sick that can impact entire families. A lot of health conditions are avoidable, unless one is too stupid to do so.

Does anyone recall when Sarah Palin went on a rant during her debate with Joe Biden about "waving the white flag of surrender", which was a long quote from Ronald Reagan? She quoted Reagan as saying "we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free". Did you ever hear what Reagan thought would destroy our freedom? Medicare. I kid you not, it was not capitulation to Communist forces or pacifism or any of those evils, it was the loss of our freedoms caused by the adoption of that terrible Socialistic... medicare. Oh horrors!

So that's really what this is all about. The forces of stupidity versus the forces of common sense. The forces of the future, as exemplified by college volunteers who are not willing to take no for an answer, or the forces of those who imagine the world is about to end and the Rapture could happen during the next four years. Seriously, Sarah Palin really suspects we may ALL be about to get evicted, and our global house may be demolished as having become the moral equivalent of a Crack House. No problem for her, as she believes she will be among the elect. The rest of us? Hmmm, not such good prospects, no, not so good at all. And the whole issue of public health? That just will not be an issue, as we are being consumed by a sea of fire.

I'm not sure how many of you saw Alex Baldwin talk later about his meeting with Sarah Palin, speaking of her as "Bible Spice" (a dated Spice Girls reference). A kind of hot young Tammy Fay Bakker, as it were, minus the tears and dripping mascara. Meanwhile John McCain has settled on all slander, all the time. When you are sitting in the mud and are out of good ideas, I guess that mud is about all you have to work with. My impression then is that the Republican ticket has become:

Commander Slander and Bible Spice

A fine variety act, but not something one would care to have a steady diet of.

I will close by making a potentially faulty prediction. If Obama and Biden are elected, as seems statistically likely, my hunch is that the world stock markets will jump by 5% to 10% on November 5th. Will they then fall back? Can't say, but I think there will be at least a temporary burst of relief and enthusiasm. Polling done in other countries suggests about a 4:1 preference for Obama over McCain, pretty much worldwide. I guess one could say they are looking for a change.

Arthur

P.S. Check out Sarah Palin getting punked on the radio. Hilarious.

Socialism

When I listen the McCain campaign I hear him giving shout-outs to... Herbert Hoover. Say what? say who? I don't know much about Herbert Hoover except tht he managed to make the depression worse. By the same token, when McCain lashes out at Barack Obama and say that he is a "socialist" I really want to ask, what the heck is that? Who cares? McCain and three of his friends? Does he think Social Security is evil? apparently so. Does he think that medical care for every American would produce a nation of healthy but morally bankrupt children? Oh please. Our children are our most precious natural resource. If you are a dolt you use them as a talking point, instead of recognizing them to be our nation's most precious resource.

When McCain stands up at a podium in front of a small crowd of Republican zealots to tell them that he believes Barack Obama is a "redistributor" we must ask ourselves this, what the heck is he talking about? Has John McCain lost his mind? This is the John McCain that said that DROPPING the Reagan tax rates was "irresponsible" at a time of war. Yup, he called out his President. But it's okay, because several years later he said he just loved, loved, loved those Bush tax cuts and he would fight like a rabid chipmonk to make sure that they stayed, ruinously, in place. I mean, there is good sense, then there is getting elected. When it comes to a choice a real toad like McCain will always choose getting elected.

And Sarah McPalin? Oh my. Ted Stevens. She is sooo upset by the terrible things that "Uncle Ted" got caught for doing. She renounces, rejects, reviles and revisits all of her good feelings toward him. But guess what? Sarah Palin used to be the head of a 527 organization formed to support Ted Stevens. Cool, huh?

Arthur