I am grateful for indoor plumbing, electricity, spacious Western-style housing and all its conveniences, and my ability to drive or travel via boat, rail or air anywhere I need to go in hours.

I’m grateful for modern telecommunications. (I think.) I can call, text, picture-text or email anyone, anytime, anywhere. I can access the Internet anywhere via computer and handheld, and have Google and GPS at my fingertips.

I am grateful that I am a modern woman in a modern, free society. I can vote, drive, own property, dress as I prefer, work in any profession, marry and divorce as I choose (with the exception of a same-sex marriage) and have and raise children as I choose.

I am grateful that I live in a free country. I can speak as I choose, even if my words are unpopular. I can travel in and out of the country as I’d like, and live anywhere. I can choose to worship in any faith, or none at all, although, sadly, the latter choice is likely to disqualify me in the public eye from holding political office.

I am grateful for friends and family, and most especially for my amazing sons. I’m thankful for love, community, and hope. For work, medical care, and good health. And for the amazing future, full of possibilities, we have in front of us.

I am blessed.
___________

Prompted by a post from Hot Chick Janiece, who is also counting her blessings today.

This is not one of them. Why? Because, sadly, I don’t care. I should care. I should be part of the government of the people, by the people and for the people. I should be asking not what my country can do for me, but what I can do for my country.

Instead, I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of congressional corruption, of votes for sale to the biggest-ticket political action group. I’m tired of pork barrel spending, turning badly needed legislation into a travesty. I’m tired of my hopes and ideals being dashed to bits, while our elected officials lose sight of all meaning and embrace partisan pissing contests.

I have a son who is medically uninsurable on an individual basis. He’s also in an employment category not likely to provide him with corporate-sponsored benefits. Hello, health care crisis.

I have a dear friend whose spouse has been unemployed for a year, although he’s well qualified and searching daily. She’s disabled and they’re trying to raise a daughter. They have no insurance, he has no further unemployment benefits, and disability applications can take two years to process and be approved. How do they live? Hello, economic crisis.

There are millions of stories just like that across America, but rather than focusing on finding solutions, our government flops and flails around like a snagged silver salmon. “That’s socialist.” “That’s an invasion of privacy.” “That’s not fiscally responsible.”

Really? And leaving a large fraction of our population to live on the streets and die of untreated medical conditions is fiscally and morally responsible? My mistake, I thought we were a first world nation.

Actually, politically, I’m a huge fan of Robert Heinlein, the golden age SF author. He postulated a concept called “rational anarchy” in his book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – one of my favorites.

The novel defines the political philosophy as “a rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals.”

He continues, “In terms of morals there is no such thing as a ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts,” he says. “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free, because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything that I do.”

This seems to be closely related to libertarianism, where the best government is the least government, at least in theory. As I’ve said before, the libertarian philosophy tends to support strong personal rights to life and liberty, free market capitalism, private property rights, minimal government regulation, minimal taxation, and rejection of the welfare state, all within the context of the rule of law. Bottom line – they’re fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

How do I reconcile my fairly staunchly libertarian beliefs with my sense of disgust with the government’s handling of the multiple crises facing America today?

First, personally, I’m generous. I think a lot of people just naturally are, the golden rule and all. Given a choice to help their neighbor or not help their neighbor, most choose the former.

Second, there’s a difference between welfare and empowerment. Would my son buy medical insurance if it were even possible, and reasonably priced? Of course! Would my friend take any job he could get to provide a roof over his family’s head and medical care for them? In a heartbeat. One of the saddest aspects of this recession is how hard it’s hit the working, educated professional.

I don’t think anyone is advocating the return of a welfare state. Instead, we need to fix the broken system so that those who work hard, who want to make a contribution, have an opportunity to do so.

Maybe I do care after all; I’ve just lost faith. I want our elected officials to remember this is not about partisan politics, not one bit; it’s about real people, like my friend. And my son. And the millions other like them who wake up needing a reason to keep hoping.

• How does talking about bra color raise awareness of breast cancer? Is it an attempt to outsmart cancer by figuring out which color it doesn’t like? (Thanks, Eric!)

• How does a failed terrorist attack by a Nigerian, screened and boarding his plane in Amsterdam, demonstrate a systemic failure of the US TSA system?
• Why are baristas in bikinis still a source of headline news and community outrage? I know, it must be the inhumane, winter cold working conditions for the exploited women.
• How long before we won’t be able to buy groceries at all without bringing our own bags or other containers at some politically correct stores?
• Washington state has been debating the parameters of allowing convicted felons to vote. The latest ruling supports voting from prison, based upon civil rights concerns. If I recall my long-ago civics class, didn’t a felony conviction once cost a citizen the privilege of voting?
• Why do teen boys never manage to pack toothbrushes when they travel? And does this change with maturity?
• Does this headline annoy the snot out of anyone else? “Day One For Obama’s Transgender Technologist” How about “Day One for Highly Qualified Test Pilot/Technologist”, instead?
• Speaking of technology, do you care about the upcoming Mac tablet computer? Personally, I’m ambivalent – Apple does shiny well, but is about as closed source as a vendor can get.
• Why do Joan Osborne’s blues make me happy, not sad?
• What would it take to make Sarah Palin go away? And don’t you think we could raise the price of her silence, whatever the total?

Are there any other random things you think about in the oh-dark-thirty hours of the night? Share them, please!

I am gravely disappointed.

I am, politically, most accurately described as a libertarian, however, I’m definitely not a candidate for membership in the libertarian party. (Staunch stronghold of freeze-dried-whackaloons!) Philosophically, libertarians cover a wide spectrum, but tend to support strong personal rights to life and liberty, free market capitalism, private property rights, minimal government regulation, minimal taxation, and rejection of the welfare state, all within the context of the rule of law.

The Patriot Act, initially passed by a bipartisan majority just 45 days after the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombings, has been highly controversial.

The Cliff Notes version of the act is:

Title I: provides for enhanced domestic security services
Title II: expands availability and flexibility of surveillance procedures to law enforcement officials.
Title III: extends anti-money-laundering provisions to detect and prevent terrorism
Title IV: beefs up border security, the INS, and associated detention guidelines.
Title VI: provides aid to victims and families of victims of terrorism
Title VIII: redefines criminal law around terrorism, cyberterrorism and support activities
Title IX: establishes priorities for collection of foreign intelligence
Title X: adds miscellaneous provisions not covered under other sections

The primary arguments against the Patriot Act are that it:

• Expands terrorism laws to include “domestic terrorism” which could subject political organizations to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy.

• Expands the ability of law enforcement to conduct secret searches, gives them wide powers of phone and Internet surveillance, and access to highly personal medical, financial, mental health, and student records with minimal judicial oversight.
• Allows FBI Agents to investigate American citizens for criminal matters without probable cause of crime if they say it is for “intelligence purposes.”
• Permits non-citizens to be jailed based on mere suspicion and to be denied re-admission to the US for engaging in free speech. Suspects convicted of no crime may be detained indefinitely in six month increments without meaningful judicial review.

On September 11, I posted an update on Facebook, “I’m grateful for America’s freedom today.” Responses were mixed – some shared my gratitude, and some were dismayed at our eroding freedoms. My response?

You know, we may have lost some of our innocence and some of our perceived freedoms – I’ve written about my loathing for the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay before.

Still, I can post whatever I want here without getting thrown into jail. (Myanmar) I can protest for or against anything I want downtown without getting shot in cold blood. (China) I can wear whatever I like – and drive alone – and execute my own legal agreements. (Iran)

It may be far from perfect, and the pendulum has swung well toward paranoia since 9/11, but America is still my country and I’m still grateful.

Still, I’d have to agree, in principle, that our freedoms are eroding. We are losing our civil liberties and privacy. I’m neither a constitional law scholar nor a political analyst, and I can’t say where the line should be drawn. I do strongly feel that the Patriot Act is Orwellian and goes too far. I’d hoped for better from our current administration.

Here is my proposed starting lineup:

The rules, so far?

1. Contestants begin the competition by paddling to Cuba from the Florida Keys on their own makeshift rafts. First team on the ground gets food.
2. Challenges could include surviving waterboarding, the longest filibuster, the longest silence, shooting & dressing prey (not hunting partners), hunger strike, media deprivation, listening skills, navigating a gauntlet of hostile protestors, skin diving for silver dollars, etc.
3. Halfway through the show, the tribes must combine into a purple tribe without killing each other.
4. Here’s the twist: anyone voted off the island has to disappear from the public media scene and the national stage for, oh, at least four years.
5. The winner could earn his or her own private island, to rule in perpetuity. It might be an empty island, but it would be his/her very own. Mail plane optional.

Can anyone think of additional contestants? Rules? Challenges? I think this has real potential, Hollywood!

Note: I am not a fan of reality tv, and politically I’m independent/libertarian, annoyed by both extremes. This is satire, and anyone who takes it too seriously will have to join the winner on his/her island.

I also am not particularly a Bush fan – although I did not detest him either. I consider him a weak and unintelligent man, easily led, who made poor choices of both counsel and executive direction.

My position, as usual, is more moderate/libertarian than fervent partisan supporter (or opponent).

With that perspective, I am more than a little disturbed by the tone of much of the discussion across twitter, blog and comment feeds, as well as the crowd’s reaction to Bush at the event itself.

A relevant tangent:

This Sunday night, Bryan and I watched the excellent movie “Defiance”. It is a story of the Bielski brothers and the forest encampment survival of nearly 1200 Jews in Belorussia during WWII. There is a fairly powerful scene midway through the movie, where a Jewish camp guard captures a young, terrified German courier soldier. While the camp leaders look through the courier dispatches for useful intelligence, the mob in the background begin to kick and beat the solder to death, their pent-up terror and rage and revenge given a target. The leaders take note, but decide not to intervene; still, their grief at the violence is tangible.

It’s feeling more than a bit moblike out there, in the aftermath of Bush & Cheney’s departure. I found Anne’s plea for tolerance and mutual respect to be a refreshing breath of fresh air.

While the issues and the change in leadership are major events in US history, behaving with class and dignity through this transition are also important. With apologies to Janiece, who coined the phrase in relation to an entirely different subject, a message of “we rock” is often more effective than “you suck”.

SMITH Magazine and the National Constitution Center ask you to help President-elect Obama inspire America.

In six words, give him guidance. Or offer ideas for his inaugural address. Or share six memorable words for January 20th and beyond.

In six words, a President can say a lot: “Malice toward none, charity for all,” “Nothing to fear but fear itself,” “Like a thousand points of light.”

So give your speechwriting a try.

As a request – if you do come up with a six word entry – copy it here as well as on SMITH Mag’s site – I’m curious to see what people come up with!

Thanks, Bill, for the link.

Note: the fabulous Bill and Barb frequently and graciously open their home to me when I visit AK – and they are made of awesome. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

This year, one of Seattle’s artists decided to submit this ornament, on the right. Looks colorful, eh? Click for an expanded view.

This activist artist submitted an artistic piece – to be hung by Laura Bush on a tree in her own home – with the words “Impeach Bush” on the surface, as well as a picture and quote from uber-liberal Washington Rep. Jim McDermott, who signed the House resolution to consider impeachment.

There is a time and a place for political activism, and there are many excellent venues for free and vehement speech. I’m not entirely sure that Christmas trees and controversial political statements mix well, and I’m really certain that common courtesy would indicate not creating an ornament designed specifically to provoke and offend the recipient.

Note that I’m not even addressing the message here – whether you love Bush, feel he’s misguided or actively detest him, it doesn’t matter – I still think that this particular artists’ submission was pretty offensive.

Update: an article in my local paper, the Kitsap Sun, featured a peninsula artist and indicated the artists were instructed to avoid ‘politically touchy subject matter’.

Details and image courtesy of the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

My friends, we have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly. A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Sen. Barack Obama — to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love.

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans, who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president, is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I’ve always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Sen. Obama believes that, too. But we both recognize that though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to visit — to dine at the White House — was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.

Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day — though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her Creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Sen. Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

It is natural tonight to feel some disappointment, but tomorrow we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again. We fought — we fought as hard as we could.

And though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours.

I am so deeply grateful to all of you for the great honor of your support and for all you have done for me. I wish the outcome had been different, my friends. The road was a difficult one from the outset. But your support and friendship never wavered. I cannot adequately express how deeply indebted I am to you.

I am especially grateful to my wife, Cindy, my children, my dear mother and all my family and to the many old and dear friends who have stood by my side through the many ups and downs of this long campaign. I have always been a fortunate man, and never more so for the love and encouragement you have given me.

You know, campaigns are often harder on a candidate’s family than on the candidate, and that’s been true in this campaign. All I can offer in compensation is my love and gratitude, and the promise of more peaceful years ahead.

I am also, of course, very thankful to Gov. Sarah Palin, one of the best campaigners I have ever seen and an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength. Her husband, Todd, and their five beautiful children, with their tireless dedication to our cause, and the courage and grace they showed in the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign. We can all look forward with great interest to her future service to Alaska, the Republican Party and our country.

To all my campaign comrades, from Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, to every last volunteer who fought so hard and valiantly month after month in what at times seemed to be the most challenged campaign in modern times — thank you so much. A lost election will never mean more to me than the privilege of your faith and friendship.

I don’t know what more we could have done to try to win this election. I’ll leave that to others to determine. Every candidate makes mistakes, and I’m sure I made my share of them. But I won’t spend a moment of the future regretting what might have been.

This campaign was and will remain the great honor of my life. And my heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Sen. Obama and my old friend, Sen. Joe Biden, should have the honor of leading us for the next four years.

I would not be an American worthy of the name, should I regret a fate that has allowed me the extraordinary privilege of serving this country for a half a century. Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much. And tonight, I remain her servant. That is blessing enough for anyone and I thank the people of Arizona for it.

Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Sen. Obama, I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president.

And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties but to believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history. Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America.

I admire the man who could make this speech; it brought tears to my eyes.

President-elect Obama’s excellent speech, as well, is published on any number of sites.

1. You failed to register. Why aren’t you walking around with a big red “L” inked onto your forehead today?
2. You have been kidnapped and held captive by a member of the opposing party, tied up in the basement with duct tape and baling wire. And really, didn’t you watch that Macgyver episode?
3. A natural disaster/nuclear explosion/meteor strike has wiped out your city/region/continent and all your polling places, but you have survived with no way to exercise your franchise.
4. You have been abducted by aliens for xenological experimentation and they refuse to mail your absentee ballot.
5. Your religion forbids voting, observance of secular law and payment of taxes. See item #6.
6. You are a convicted felon. Voting might indeed be a challenge, but you can always run for office in Alaska instead.
7. You woke up in a strange town this morning wearing someone else’s underwear and you can’t remember your name. The pictures on the ID in your wallet don’t match your face, and there’s no voter registration card and no cash.
8. You are in the hospital. I have three words for you: wheelchair, orderly, gratuity.
9. You have died, and your state has not yet extended zombies the right to vote.
10. You are not an American, which is OK, really. 95% of the world population is not. What a concept!

For everyone else – go VOTE. We did!