The Blogfather

Cindy Sheehan's patriotism

I hate to weigh in on the snit-fit between Dead Bloggers Society and RappCity, but questioning MS Sheehan's patriotism is unkind and uncalled for. A grieving mother's words should not be taken out of context. She paid a very high price for her use of the First Amendment.

The woman, who was arrested in front of the White House today, lost a son in Iraq, and she's confused and angry at "why" she was forced to make this horrible sacriface. The rest of her statement this weekend was, "This war is immoral, it will end. The darkness will never overcome the light... We mean business, George Bush. We're going to Congress and were going to ask them, how many more of other people's children are you willing to sacrifice for the lies? We're going to say shame on you. Shame on you for giving Bush the authority to invade Iraq. Not one person should have died for that, not one more person should die."

In her complete statement San Francisco State University on April 27 she said, "I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people ... since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that [expletive] to my son and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms: 'This country is not worth dying for.' "

A recent comment on Dead Bloggers Society offered a web site where anyone else can see a thousand of the faces of service persons who have died in our latest wars, not only Robert Rooney (on the left), but also Casey Sheehan (on the right).

They are all brave American's who I fear have died in vain. 

Cape Wind after Katrina

There has been a sea change in America and on Cape Cod.

It is named Katrina, and it's nickname is $3 a gallon.  No one with a brain in their head, or a heart in their chest can any longer be against a wind farm in Nantucket Sound or anywhere else.

This isn't about Teddy or Dougie's view from the deck any longer. This is about tens of thousands of lives, and the very existence of tourism on Cape Cod or anywhere else. What do imagine will happen totourism, cCape Cod biggest industry, when gas goes to $4 and then $5 a gallon and then stops being available as happened in 1973.

Any man, woman or child who raises a voice or spends a penny to stop "renewable energy anything" from this day forward will be branded a scoundrel and a fool.

Let's see how long it takes the APCC and the Cape Cod Times to figure this out. 

Two local newspaper views of the gas price effect

 The headline in today's Upper Cape Codder reads ;
Gas prices didn't scare weekend visitors 

The headline in today's Cape Cod Times reads,
Gas woes deflate holiday trade

Which is correct? It depends on whom you ask. The daily always asks the same people which is a form of wish fulfillment. If you read the both stories the weekly seems to have spent more time "on the street", and my own observations confirms their view.

The Labor Day weekend's business on Cape Cod was terrific everywhere I looked.  I ate on the Main Street sidewalk in front of Alberto's Ristorante in Hyannis Sunday as I do every Sunday in season, weather permitting, and I have never seen more people on the street.

On Monday evening I expected to have no difficulty getting into a restaurant in Orleans, but every one I tried had a line out the door, and I tried them all, Barley Neck Inn, Land Ho, Rosina's, etc. 

Only the room tax numbers will correctly confirm how business was here last weekend after the spike in gas prices. But as someone who's been involved in tourism here for over forty years, through four or five recessions and two gas boycotts, I assure you no one cancels a vacation in which they expect to spend a couple thousand dollars because the drive here will cost an extra $10 to $20 for gas.

Are YOU canceling your holidays this Fall? 

Brewster's Lefty is world class

There is a blogger in Brewster named "Lefty" who is reporting on the government's failures in the Gulf Coast as well or better than any newspaper or other media in the U.S.

Here's the first 'graf of today's post, "There are some who feel that, since the people of New Orleans knew they were living in an area vulnerable to natural disasters, the rest of the country, including our federal government, bears no responsibility for the fate of that city. A sort ofcaveat emptor philosophy, based on the belief, not in itself without merit, in personal responsibility for one's own choices. A city is built on a flood plain; that city gets wiped out -- their problem, not ours.

I disagree..."   See the rest here.

Wareham's Davis as Bush's replacement

Actress Geena Davis is from Wareham where she attended High School and is well remembered by her local peers. This Fall she will star in a new ABC sitcom called "Commander in Chief" where she portrays America's first woman President. No one is more apt for the part. Columnist Maureen Dowd wrote this about her new role;  

A lipstick president

September 1, 2005
WASHINGTON — The president is working up a sweat, keeping that perfectly toned body perfectly toned. I slide past stone-faced men with earpieces and ask the president how it's going.

"Good," she says, grinning. "People ask me if there could really be a woman president and I say, 'Of course, it's the 21st century."'

Geena Davis was shooting a rowing scene at the Potomac Boat House on Monday morning for her new ABC show, "Commander in Chief," about the first woman president.

Luckily, the first woman president is tall, a shade taller than W., so she's eyeball to eyeball with generals and ambassadors. And she's a redhead. Redheads, a recent study showed, have a higher tolerance for pain. In the show's premiere, a lot of pain is dished up for Davis' character, Mackenzie Allen, the vice president of a conservative president who keels over before the first hour is over.

Nobody wants the vice president, a political independent, to be Madame President. Not the president, who tells her before he dies to resign so his ally, the archconservative speaker of the House played by Donald Sutherland, can get the job. Not the president's chief of staff. Not her sulky, sexy conservative teenage daughter. Even her supportive (and faithful) politico husband gets skittish after East Wing staffers begin calling him "the first lady" and arrange his meetings with the White House chef.

Sutherland's Nathan Templeton condescendingly asks her, "How many Islamic states do you think would follow the edicts of a woman?"

"Well, not only that, Nathan," she replies sarcastically, "but we have that whole 'once a month will she or won't she press the button' thing."

He laughs nastily. "Well, in a couple years," he says, "you're not gonna have to worry about that anymore."

The creator and writer, Rod Lurie, also had an embattled woman vice president in his 2000 movie "The Contender." (He named his TV president and vice president Bridges and Allen; the stars playing those roles in 2000 were Jeff Bridges and Joan Allen.)

He told me he modeled his female president not on Hillary Clinton but on Susan Lyne, the smart, elegant former president of ABC Entertainment who is chief executive at Martha Stewart Inc. He said he wanted someone "of rather unimpeachable integrity, very kind, very calm."

As Geena Davis was bursting into the Oval Office, and the other TV president, Martin Sheen, was dropping in on Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Hillary was plotting for real...  (You can read the rest of the column - mostly about Hillary's campaign for the same job - in the Rutland Herald  here. )