The Saga Continues.



Dad continued to loose his strength and his will to live. With ever increasing pain, he could sit or lay down with his pain medication kept up. Joan continued to harass Helen and Dad with her daily irrational phone calls from the nursing home. Dad revised his will and made a provision for Joan to have a trust fund with 50% of the proceeds of the sale of his house. The place is a wreck and Joan of course claims the house and everything in it as hers.
Maguire continues in her employment and we try to manage the best we can on my unemployment. I have resumes out and I have been on several interviews. The collection market for an experienced employee of my background is small.

In June 2008, I went to work for Snap-On Credit located in Vernon Hills IL. One of twelve recovery specialists, our department acted as an in house collection agency. We each had about 3 or 4 thousand accounts that we would attempt to collect or recover the tools.
The work was demanding with the requirement of making 100 calls a day and working 100 accounts per day. The pay was fair. The benefits good, the working conditions good. The commute was tiresome at 27 miles each way on small two lane roads. The motorcycle helped.
90 days as a temp, I was put on the full time payroll in September 2008.


Robert John Bingham "Guns"
Bingham, Robert John "Guns" retired Lieutenant C.F.D., beloved husband of the late Irene (nee Hoff), loving father of Peter (Terry Adams), Joseph (Jackie), Helen (Mike) Hvorcik, Jean (Mike) Metware and Joan Bingham, cherished grandfather of 12 and great-grandfather of 3, devoted brother of William (Catherine), Ann(Jack) McMillin, James (Florence), Mary (the late William) Wertz, Catherine (the late Vern) Schnell, Margaret (William) Woltkamp, Thomas (Sharon), Maura Rooney, John (Carmen), Harry (Diane), Charles (Mary), Dorothy (Thomas) Hazer, Michael, Jean (Joseph) Bullaro, Girard (Marie) Pringle and the late Rita Kras, dear uncle to many. Visitation Saturday, 2:00 p.m., until time of service at 8:00 p.m., at Lawn Funeral Home, 7909 State Rd. (5500W), Burbank, IL. 60459. Interment private. Funeral info. 708-636-2320

Dad gave up his fight with the pragmatic view that there was no point in fighting a battle that could not be won. He did not wish to see a priest. He was convinced that god was a figment of the imagination of man. Dad’s ashes are at peace in the Lincoln Veterans Cemetery in Joliet IL.
Over a year later, we have yet to sell the house. Joan now squats there continuing to accumulate “stuff “.

The Cabin in WI is complete. We have been furnishing it monthly. Our Retirement home yes, but also your hope is to rent it when we can to defray the cost of keeping it.
On the eve of moving to a new apt. in Chrystal Lake IL to be closer to my work in Vernon Hills, I received a call from Larry Dinaso of Cash Recovery LLC. asking me to return to work in the Loop.

At great hardship we purchased out of the lease we signed and packed our belongings and lived in a motel while we located a new apartment in Schaumburg. As luck would have it, we moved back into a building we had previously lived in for 5 years. In the process of moving, we lost a box of most of our treasured pots, pans, and kitchen utensils.

Snap-On Credit was a good job but it was not as good as Cash Recovery.

Time on my hands

The boomers are aging.

Is this our fate?

It has been a while since I posted.

I lost my job at the end of January.

My plan was to take it easy. Relax a little and then return to the work force. I didn't think I would have too much trouble.

My Father "Guns" Robert Bingham has cancer. It has spread to his bones. He is in constant pain. The pain is kept in control with strong pills he takes about 4 times a day.

His first two treatments of Chemo gave him such a bad reaction that he required hospitalization. He was so reduced that we thought he would die. (Rewind 30 years.)

My Father a retired City of Chicago Fireman, has always been a strong man.

An outdoors man. Avid hunter, Trapper, gun collector. When his wife Irene (Maiden nam Hoff) (mom) died of cancer, he and my sister Joan (now 49) set up house keeping. Joan has a mental illness that could be Bi Polar with Schizophrenia. For many years she was hard to deal with because she didn't have a strong a grip on reality or her place in it. After years of struggling, she was convinced that she was not well and obtained a social security disability. This also provided her with drugs to treat her mental and emotional disorder. My father has been enabling her all these years. He is now 82 and over the years rather than confront her or deal with a solution to her illness he has let her have her way most of the time.

At the time of my fathers hospitalization, Joan was drinking up to 10 cans of beer a day and smoking perhaps a pack or two of cigarettes. Getting up and getting dressed was a big event in her day. Dad was in the hospital 3 weeks. During that time, we called Joan and we checked on her and brought her beer and cigarettes at my dads request. Our goal has been to reduce his level of stress over Joan's care while he was getting well. Joan's health had deteriorated to a point where she was walking with a walker and wearing diapers. I went the house to bring Joan food and cigarettes. She has been hostile to me in the past because I don't tell her what she wants to hear. I tell her about life the way it is and I am honest with her about her place in it.

I didn't like to confront her and didn't intend to do much more than put the package on the door step and go. My life partner "Maguire" Terry Adams knocked on the door and found it unlocked. We went in. It was strange. Joan never leaves the door unlocked.

We found her sitting by the door in a vegetative state. She was barely able to speak and was unable to articulate any coherent statement as to how or why she was the way she was.

We had her taken to the hospital by ambulance. It took 5 hrs in the emergency room to have her admitted to the psychiatric ward.

The house was a mess. Water had overflowed in the kitchen sink and was an inch deep on the floor. Over time, She had bullied my father into turning a five room house with basement and Attic into a shopping cart. Every room in the house was almost waist deep in clutter. Much of it consisted of new items purchased from the dollar store. I later found out that Joan was many thousands of dollars in debt with credit cards as a result of her impulse spending on line or at the dollar store or on TV. TV shopping was invented so that people like Joan could go into debt surrounded by kitchen gadgets. Bluntly, the house was not habitable. We told Dad we were not letting him go back there to live. We told Joan that she would not be going back there to live.

Of course She didn't see the problem.

Considering her need for a care giver, "a father figure" Joan needs to go to an assisted living care center. The fact that she is at risk for self medication and drug and alcohol abuse makes her a candidate for a behavior care unit.

We all see the abuse when it hits the News. Unless we have plans for family to care for us, we are all destined to end our days at a care center.

Dad, will be cared for by my sister Helen. If Joan could be managed, and trusted to be on her own, She could be cared for by my self or another brother or sister.

Our experience is that she will be good so long as she must. Given the opportunity she will live as she pleases and refuse to follow the rules of good sense.

Do we want the administrators of a facility telling us how to live? Do we want to share a room with 1, 2 or 3 others? It is not pretty. The demand for such centers will continue to grow over the next 10 years as our generation, the generation of free love, sex, drugs and rock and roll become aged.

The Truth is, its bad enough to have to make the transition to such a life as exists in a care facility. To have to face it at age 50 and have to give up all that you know and your freedom too would make any sane person want to lay down and give up.

Joan has confessed that it will kill her soul to do this. I share her view. I would call my self normal and I share her view. It is possible that Joan will grow up mentally and emotionally enough to take hold of real time expectations for her self. If she can conquer her substance abuse issues and understand and deal with her emotional illness. I think she may be able to have a very high level of freedom and society within a structured care center. I don't think she will ever be able to live in the outside world on her own. Could any of us do it on $650.00 per month?

This transition with my dad, the house and Joan needs full time attention. I could not have done my best if I was working every day. Let me re phrase it. does it require my attention 8 hrs a day? No. The time I have been needed, have been week days during working hours.

Had I been working, I would have had to leave the job and rush to deal with the issues.

The larger task at hand now that Dad and Joan are place in positions to receive care, is the disposition of 50 years of hording of valued junk. Tools. Art projects. bags and boxes of you name it. Can someone use it. yes. Will Joan or my Dad ever use it No!

They can't store it forever on the snowballs chance in hell that they will ever need any of it.

But how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? How do you put in the dumpster the volumes of junk and crap that the two of them accumulated while thinking I will need that or want to use it some day? We are common folk. While you may think an estate sale would help.

They won't touch it. The ratio of crap to gold is too narrow. As family, it better that we look in each bag and box and give it a look. This goes to the good will store, this goes to the family heirloom pile, and that goes to the dumpster.

The moral of the story is make plans for your life, make plans for your possessions and make plans for how you and your possessions will be cared for when you can no longer do so.

Fake History, and a Divided America

I have posted this information for educational purpose.
I invite the reader to make their own choice what to believe.
The U.S. Military and the Political parties in America have been taken over and controlled by Evangelical Christian Right Wing Nationalists.
Never was the phrase "onward Christian soldiers" more true than it is today.
As we watch our presidential candidates campaign for election in the coming year, we need to have a reality check on where religion stands as a building block of our Nation.

PART 1: Fake History, and a Divided America

As Frederick Clarkson, in a recent Public Eye piece entitled History is Powerful - Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters wrote:

The notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is a central animating element of the ideology of the Christian Right. It touches every aspect of life and culture in this, one of the most successful and powerful political movements in American history. The idea that America's supposed Christian identity has somehow been wrongly taken, and must somehow be restored, permeates the psychology and vision of the entire movement. No understanding of the Christian Right is remotely adequate without this foundational concept.

But the Christian nationalist narrative has a fatal flaw: it is based on revisionist history that does not stand up under scrutiny. The bad news is that to true believers, it does not have to stand up to the facts of history to be a powerful and animating part of the once and future Christian nation. Indeed, through a growing cottage industry of Christian revisionist books and lectures now dominating the curricula of home schools and many private Christian academies, Christian nationalism becomes a central feature of the political identity of children growing up in the movement. The contest for control of the narrative of American history is well underway. (emphasis mine)

America is splitting into two distinct political camps, each with its own worldview, each with its own understanding of history.

The dominant view of one of the two camps holds that America was founded as a "Christian nation", and that view is based in a falsified narrative of American history that's been promoted, by Christian conservative activists [1], for decades and is now held by a considerable segment of America.

Why, you may ask ?

Why Should You Care ?

Well, because fake history is being taught in hundreds of American public schools, because America is splitting into two opposing political camps and one of those embraces a falsified version of American history, and because that fake history has even become cited pervasively in Congressional debates and the consequences are not minor:

At stake are the rights of minorities in America, the separation of church and state, and the preservation of religious liberty. In fact, pluralistic American democracy is itself at risk.

America, and the American electorate is bifurcating, wrote political science professor Tom Schaller, in a recent Baltimore Sun editorial. So, we should ask ourselves, which political camp, and which narrative of history, will exert more influence in America in the coming decades ?

What view of history did recently resigned US Department of Justice staffer Monica Goodling, and her 150-odd fellow graduates from Pat Robertson's Regent University, hold ?

Almost assuredly, they were taught, at Regent, that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. In fact, up to 1/2 of Americans may believe in some version of the "Christian nation" myth, and many of those Americans who do will also tend to believe the separation of church and state to be a pernicious myth.

Things have gotten so bad that fake "Christian nation" history is being taught in hundreds of American schools [see end of post] and American politicians across almost the whole breadth of the political spectrum seem to have forgotten that the United States was founded as a secular nation, and why America's founders chose to do so.

Recently, hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens rallied in support of secular Turkish government but, as Frederick Clarkson and I have written about, at length, many of America's national political and religious leaders seem to have lost an understanding of what secularism, a core foundational principle of American government, is about.

The consequences are not minor ; as more and more Americans have come to believe in falsified "Christian nation" history, the admixture of church and state in America has grown, and incidents in which minorities, Jews, Wiccans, atheists, and others, are persecuted seem to be growing more common [footnote 1]. The logic is simple ; if the US was founded as a Christian nation, minorities should simply shut up and get out of the way.

Until recently, falsifications in that "Christian nation" narrative have not been effectively rebutted.

Until now.

The work of rebutting is painstaking, tedious, and critical for America's future and for the role America will play, in coming decades, on the world stage for better or worse;

An entire generation of American children growing up now is being taught a falsified, heavily politicized version of American history, and to the extent that we neglect to pay attention to that we will continue to be surprised to find, as with Monica Goodling and her cohorts today, partisan religious ideologues ensconsed in American government, warping our nation's agenda, for decades to come.

Schaller makes this grim diagnosis:

America seems to be coming to the end of a period of partisan dealignment that began with the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. The so-called vital center is collapsing." [emphasis mine]

Let me take Schaller's analysis one step further:

America is slowly splitting in to two diametrically opposing politically camps.

Each camp has its sense of reality, grounded in its own understanding of history. One camp holds an orthodox historical interpretations of American history built up by historians over decades and centuries.

The other political camp holds a view of American history that has been constructed, quite recently, by activists on the Christian right, from fake quotes and misquotes, lies, distortions and omissions and which holds that America was founded as a "Christian Nation", and that the separation of church and state is myth and America's true heritage has been stolen and the intent of the nation's founders thwarted by liberals and "secularists".

That second view is a lot more common than many on the left believe:

According to a 2002 Newsweek poll, 45% of Americans at that time saw the United States as a "secular nation", while 29% saw the United States as a "Christian nation" and 16% as a "Biblical nation, defined by the Judeo-Christian tradition".

It is fair to say, I think, that those in the poll who saw America as a "Biblical nation" would also tend to agree, except for a small percentage of Jewish Americans, that the US was also a "Christian nation", and so Newsweek's poll indicated that Americans were almost evenly split.

But the United States was founded as a secular nation in which church and state were intentionally decoupled ; the first government in history to expressly prohibit the use of religious oaths as a precondition for holding national political office. Almost 1/2 of America seems on the verge of forgetting those historical facts ; history is being overwritten by myth.

PART 2: Testimonials To Chris Rodda's Work

Having spent many years writing in opposition to the distortions and falsehoods foisted on the world regarding religion and the founding fathers, I am a fan and supporter of Chris Rodda's work. She has done an incredible job of debunking some of the most commonly repeated myths about our nation's founding, myths that distort both our view of history and our ability to make needed public policy changes. Rodda's work in this regard is indispensible.

Ed Brayton, Dispatches From The Culture Wars

Chris Rodda works to set the historical record straight and she does it with extensive documentation showing how the distortions found in the pseudo-history of David Barton and other revisionists are intentional and aimed at leading many well intentioned Christians into false conclusions about the faith and the intentions of our Founders. As a pastor I am thankful for her work.

Rev. William N. Esborn

I have been writing about Christian nationalism for about 15 years and recognized, and written about how David Barton is an influential leader in promoting a bogus-but-appealing version of American history that has helped to animate the Christian right, and its role in the Republican Party. That's why I am grateful that Chris Rodda is busy debunking Barton and telling the real story of America -- authoritatively and with credible, checkable documentation. It is a tremendous -- and tremendously necessary project --one that Chris has taken on with gusto and a dedication and scholarship that is turning history into a vital tool in combating some of the worst elements of dominionist politics in the U.S. She is writing this stuff like she was born to blog, and is using the medium as effectively as anyone in the blogosphere.

Frederick Clarkson Journalist, Researcher, Co-Founder of Talk To Action

"Liars" seems a harsh term to apply to professed Christians and until lately I had--admittedly without paying too much attention--assumed that Christian fundamentalists were engaged in wishful thinking and selective quotations when they complained about activist judges subverting both the Constitution and the clear intent of the Founding Fathers to establish a Christian government. But after reading Ms. Rodda's book I realize that there is something going on far beyond taking words out of context. When she digs out the words and records that clearly demolish the assertion that no "wall of separation" between church and state was ever intended, "liars" does seem the appropriate word. Those of us who fear that the intrusion of "faith based" activities into our government and the flow of subsidies, in the guise of "contracts", to favored churches, is a step toward a theocracy, will find much useful and carefully documented information in 'Liars for Jesus' ".

Ramelle Macoy
Time Magazine, 1945 to 1957 (Roving Correspondent in Central America; War Correspondent in Korea; Bureau Chief in Buenos Aires; Correspondent in Bonn)

PART 3: Chris Rodda Explains Why David Barton and His Work Matter

"Because the portrayal of history so affects current policy, some groups have found it advantageous to their political agenda to distort historical facts intentionally. Those particularly adept at this are termed 'revisionists.' "

Who wrote these words? The answer might surprise you. It was David Barton, in the foreword to his book Original Intent. And, Barton has certainly proved this statement to be true. No group has found it more advantageous to their political agenda to have "revisionists" as adept as himself on their side than the religious right, and, in fact, the entire Republican Party. Just how influential is Barton? How valuable is he and his distorted version of American history to the religious right and the Republican Party? For those who don't already know, the following, from the 2005 Time Magazine article naming him one of Time's 25 Most Influential Evangelicals, will give you an idea.

David Barton
The Lesson Planner: Even before he got directly involved in politics, David Barton was a major voice in the debate over church-state separation. His books and videotapes can be found in churches all over the U.S., educating an evangelical generation in what might be called Christian counter-history. The 51-year-old Texan's thesis: that the U.S. was a self-consciously religious nation from the time of the Founders until the 1963 Supreme Court school-prayer ban (which Barton has called "a rejection of divine law"). Many historians dismiss his thinking, but Barton's advocacy organization, WallBuilders, and his relentless stream of publications, court amicus briefs and books like The Myth of Separation, have made him a hero to millions -- including some powerful politicians. He has been a co-chair of the Texas Republican Party for eight years, is friends with House majority leader Tom DeLay (whom he has advised on the Pledge Patriot Act, which seeks to keep the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance) and was tapped by the Republican National Committee during its election sprint as a liaison to social conservatives. Those elected as a result of his efforts need not feel lonely in Washington: Barton conducts tours of the Capitol, during which he shows his rare copy of the Bible that Congress once printed -- for use in the schools.

That rare Bible that Barton carries around and whips out during his tours of the Capitol and other speaking engagements, which, by the way, was not printed by Congress for the use of schools, is an original 1782 Aitken Bible. The cost of this book alone -- this one single item in David Barton's library of "70,000 original documents predating 1812" -- would fund my work for several years. (The Bible Museum, Inc., an Arizona based dealer in rare and antique Bibles, currently has one for sale, priced at $149,000.) This is what I, a person who wakes up every morning hoping that my electricity and phone are still on so I can keep working, am up against. I am determined to bring David Barton and all the other Christian nationalist history revisionists to their knees (in something other than hypocritical prayer), but I need your help to do this.

The pseudo-history lessons of Barton, the "Lesson Planner," were once confined to churches and homeschools. Now, however, these lessons are making their way into more and more of our public schools via the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools (NCBCPS), an organization whose advisory board includes Barton. The NCBCPS curriculum, which not only recommends Barton's materials, but contains an entire unit devoted to promoting the Christian nationalist version of American history, has already been implemented in 382 school districts in 38 states.

Over the past decade, the lies of Barton and and other revisionists have been used with disturbing frequency in debates in Congress -- by senators and representatives who learned American history before the days of Christian homeschooling and the NCBCPS. If those of the generations currently in Congress have been so greatly influenced by this Christian nationalist pseudo-history, what will our Congress be like in a few decades from now, when it is packed with a generation who were never taught real history?

Historical Revisionism from the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools - 3/10/07
More Historical Revisionism from the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools - 3/18/07
Barton Revises History to Promote the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools - 3/24/07
Historical Revisionism in the NCBCPS Curriculum - 3/31/07

More Historical Revisionism in the NCBCPS Curriculum - 4/5/07
The Influence of the Ten Commandments on American Law - According to the NCBCPS - 4/12/07
Chuck Norris Helps the NCBCPS Spread David Barton's Lies - 4/15/07
Even More Historical Revisionism in the NCBCPS Curriculum - 4/22/07
"Revisionism: A Willing Accomplice" -- The Remarkable Hypocrisy of David Barton (Part 1) - 4/29/07

footnotes

1. David Barton is one of the principle architects of the Christian right's "Alternate" version of American history. See Barton's Wallbuilders website.

2. See Frederick Clarkson's grimly funny Who's Secular Now ? quiz series for an example of the sorts of language politicians and religious leaders across the politician spectrum use in relation to the word and concept of "secularism" ; Clarkson's multi part quiz series demonstrates just how degraded and twisted American understanding of the principle of secularism, a foundational principle of American government, has become.

. For an example of where Christian nationalism can lead, see Jewish family flees Delaware school district's aggressive Christianity from Jews On First

What do I believe?

What do I believe?

After hearing “This I believe” on NPR, I started to question what it is I believe.
I asked my self how we come to know what it is we believe. Is belief the same thing as faith?

I began by thinking that what we believe is not intellectual but instinctive.
There are concepts and ideas about our self and our life that we just know to be so.
However, when tasked with making these concepts concrete in the form of words on a page, words in our mouths and words in the ears of others, what we believe may not be so clear. In fact what we believe may even be contradictory. I have had no education in philosophy other than the basics of a liberal arts education provided by 2 years of Humanities so this exploration of belief will be amateur in nature. What do I believe?

Let’s find out!

Thinking back, it is my opinion that our beliefs are formed early in life. Perhaps they are formed as early as our preschool years. Subsequently, evaluations of our beliefs take place periodically as our personality matures. Elements of our belief may be forged and dissolved and forged again as we journey through this experience we call life.
I believe in justice. I believe in fair play. I believe in the duality of mankind. I believe there is nothing so evil nor anything as glorious as the products of the human mind. I believe in sustainable agriculture. I believe in renewable energy. I believe in a successful business plan that doesn’t require endless expansion. I believe that mankind is a social being. I believe that mankind requires a life of passion and challenge. I believe that mankind is superstitious. I believe that when Mankind is unable to explain something in our physical world a supernatural divine explanation fills the gap.

I believe that the truth of a matter is so subjective and elusive that there may be two different truths in existence in the minds of two different people at the same time.
I believe that only to be true in social matters. Where the laws of nature interact with the consciousness of man, the laws of nature are to be respected and should be expected to prevail.
I believe that Man in his best condition is the most divine being we will ever know.
I believe that Man in his most criminal is the most evil being we will ever know.
I believe there is no Heaven or Hell anywhere but in the hearts and minds and physical world we inhabit. I believe that man is a self aware being.
I believe that faith in anything beyond Mankind is misplaced.
I believe that Truth, Trust, Courage, Loyalty, Passion and Respect are earned and found internally in that self aware concept of our indomitable spirit.
I believe that power corrupts and that ultimate power corrupts ultimately. I believe that a government that values the bill of rights and the constitution must undergo a metamorphosis in a crucible periodically to avoid the evil of mankind.
It has taken me 56 years to come to these understandings. I have faith that nothing can be trusted beyond the strength and weakness of man.

My second birthday I share with my brothers

What are you doing on Sunday November 11, 2007?

At 11 AM on November 11, where will you be? It is not too late to make plans. You can decide today where you will be. Will you be at Church, At home or in the sports bar getting ready for lunch? Looking forward to watching Football on the big screen? On your way back from the store with meat to grill? Putting some thing on ice to drink?

Now, think of our brave sons and daughters on duty in uniform throughout the world.

What do you think they are doing? Those of us who can remember when we once wore a uniform and snapped a salute to our nations flag can take a moment from our busy schedule and write a few words of encouragement to those who stand between us and wars desolation. I know you remember how important mail was to you. Write something to let them know that they are not forgotten.

After lunch, after the football game, in the crisp November air, ask the wife and kids or your best friend if they would like to go for a drive. Visit your local War memorial or cemetery. Almost every small town has one. From the lone Civil war statue that faces north or south in the town square, to the elaborate memorials of WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Take a walk in the gardens of stone if you have the chance. Step back and render a smart salute. Remember those who shall remain forever young in our hearts. Stop by the old folk’s home and say thanks. When you see that guy in the camo, or fatigue hat, give him a smile and tell him welcome home. When you look in the mirror, give your self a wink and a nod and do something within your means to share the memory and remember. Those who treat this day as just another day will wonder what you are about. Let them wonder. Walk a little taller, put your shoulders a little more square and look people in the eye.

Remember?

The Stupidest People On Earth

The Stupidest People On Earth

By Angie Riedel

09/08/07 "ICH" -- - The overwhelming majority of the American people are not breaking any laws.

We cannot say that about the government.

It looks increasingly hypocritical when the government insists that it must break the law in order to save us. It's become the government's mantra that it cannot protect us unless it breaks the law at will, without oversight, and without our knowledge or consent. It's been openly stated that unless our basic rights are fully yielded to the government, further terrorist attacks will come, and because of our failure to yield what literally defines us, those attacks will be our own fault.

The implications of this illogic are chilling. Our reticence to allow the government to break the law at will makes us complicit with terrorists.

As revolting a notion as that is, and as obviously untrue as it is, nevertheless, Congress has systematically passed laws forcing us to lie down and take it, in the name of security.

Several of the amendments to the constitution, our basic inalienable rights, have been thoroughly and systematically undermined due to government urging and incessant claims that they need our rights in order to do their jobs.

Every shred of our privacy has become a thing of the past, as we now know that every electronic communication in this country is collected, scanned and archived even though it is patently illegal and clearly unjustified. A real time national surveillance grid is being established and interconnected with every possible government and private interest that can utilize our most personal information against us, or for it's own benefit and profit. This is further darkened by the concerted efforts of government to refuse to allow us the ability to look into these situations, much less reject them.

The sweeping banner of national security is always unfurled when we are alarmed by bizarre government activity, and seems to be all it takes to prevent the people from obtaining the truths we need to be able to discern whether government activity is warranted. The people need to know whether what the government is doing is in our own best interest or not. That can never become something that is too much to ask. To the extent that it has, we have been seriously diminished, undermined and disempowered.

Why is the focus of government activity regarding national security so widespread when they obviously need to be focused only where needed? Why look at 100% of the grid when only a small fraction of it is of actual pertinence to their efforts to provide security to the nation? Not only does this spread their efforts incredibly thin, it wastes time and energy and man-hours, and it dilutes whatever successful outcomes this unprecedented microscopic surveillance could ostensibly turn up.

Why are they making their own jobs so much harder and so much less successful by looking in all of the places that will never bear fruit?

It's time to ask for clarification of the term 'national security'. Exactly what do they mean when they say those words? Because we as a nation have never felt less secure, in fact we have never been less secure than we are right now.

It's really no wonder that there's been little in the way of turning up actual terrorists in our own country. There are simple facts like, there aren't many terrorists here to begin with, if any. As of yet, all these years after 9-11, not a single credible terrorist has been discovered and taken out of operation. No one has been held accountable for 9-11 and of course, the infamous Osama Bin Laden, an intelligence operative, has vanished into thin air, and is all but forgotten. He seems only to turn up at those times when his prerecorded threats against us seem to serve the government's will to a "T", supporting their assertions and plans, providing justification for the continuing need for their uncomfortable way of doing things.

Why does the government suddenly find our rule of law so inconvenient? It seems to severely burden the highest office in the land to be confined to operating inside of the law. What is the law for then if it is not good enough for the government to believe in? Why have laws at all? Again, the hypocrisy is unsettling. It is the president's responsibility to uphold the law, yet it's now a situation where he decides the law, rejecting and redefining it at will. As no one in America is above the law, at what point does the president deem himself beyond it's confines? More importantly, why would he want to?

Why would our president find the law to be so repellent? Does he not believe in the value of the rule of law? The questions are left to answer themselves. The government no longer feels compelled to answer to us.

We have seen abuses of citizens here and of hundreds of private individuals abroad who have been arrested and imprisoned
without charges being filed. Certainly if there is sufficient cause to deprive someone of their freedom, there could be no problem
filing charges at the time of their arrest. An arrest can only come because of specific charges. It remains seriously difficult to
understand why charges are not filed, and those imprisonments continue for years. The right to know what one is being charged with,
the right to defend oneself and call witnesses and provide exonerating evidence, even the right to a lawyer, a phone call, or to contact
one's family, all of these rights have been stricken, and are bitterly fought against by the very government charged with upholding
these very laws.

One is left to conclude there are no charges to be made against these arrestees, and what follows is that the reasons for those arrests
don't truly exist. Why the arrests then? Why the torture? Why the refusal to provide the legal protections that define our beliefs?

All of it is wholly frightening and valid reason to worry.

The bill of rights defines our values. We don't look at those rights as something unusual or optional or arbitrarily reserved for ourselves. On the contrary, we believe our bill of rights represents what we deeply believe is right, not just for ourselves but for everyone on this earth. That is why anyone who comes here is entitled to the same legal protections that we are. We believe this is the right thing to do for everyone.

For that reason one is deeply concerned when our president, attorney general, and our military heads feel compelled to deprive people
of the rights we live by, on the grounds that people in other countries are not us. Or, that people anywhere who they deem to be suspect, without evidence to support that assertion, should immediately be deprived of due process. This is exactly the time and reason for due process. These are not grounds to mistreat anyone. If our government believed in our principles would they not take our principles with them everywhere they went on the planet? Would they not uphold them here at home? It seems outsourcing is confined only to our jobs and futures, not our human values. What a shame. What an inconceivable, perplexing shame.

I am no longer sure of what our government stands for. It seems completely opposed to everything we treasure most. It lusts for wars of aggression, it dismisses our laws, it disrespects our rights and contends they keep them from doing their jobs. They use the law against us, to tie our hands and keep us from knowing what they're doing, and worse, to prevent us from stopping them from doing things we abhor.

The endless string of abuses of law and human rights, the invasions of our privacy, the heavy handed treatment of law abiding people at
airports and by police, the exorbitant costs of their visions and philosophies, their refusal to consider the people while granting corporations every accommodation and benefit, the dollar in it's death throws, the perversions exposed in official after official, all combine to paint an obvious picture. These are not people who deserve to be trusted. These are not people who have our security in mind. These are not people we should hand the reigns of the nation to as they are driving us directly to our own demise.

Why is our Congress complicit in allowing this? Where is the belief that our nation is good, and the recollection that the people are paying for everything, and the knowledge that we don't want the country to be changed into a fascist dictatorship? We don't want to be bankrupt and jobless and homeless and hopeless. Does that really need to be said? Is that not self evident to our elected representatives?

When we have to make a case for justice, freedom, prosperity, privacy, human rights and peace, then we have lost them already.

When we are forced to beg for what supposedly defines us and keep hearing those requests denied for our own "security", we must face the reality that everything we once had is gone, and is not coming back.

Government has separated itself from us. It has abandoned the people and now seeks only to exert unlimited control over us, and to do with us as it will. Just as it can dismiss the law, it has dismissed the notion of the people being of consequence. This country has become their own property to do with as they choose, and we seem only to be standing in their way, along with our rights and the laws we once had that protected us.

Does anyone really believe that we willingly gave it all away believing it would make us safe? The painful truth of it is, that's exactly what we did. It could not be any more clear. Americans are the stupidest people on earth.

Fairbanks 142

Fairbanks City Transit Bus 142











Self portrait of Chris McCandless

Fairbanks 142

View of the section of the stampede trail where Chris (Aka) Alexander Supertramp found peace. ((Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild. Alexander Supertramp May 1992))

The story of Chris McCandless can be found in an article written by Jon Krakauer in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine. Mr. Krakauer has also authored a popular best seller titled “Into the Wild”. Both the book and the magazine article chronicle the journey of self discovery that ended tragically in August 1992. I will not attempt to retell the story. (Click above on the title Fairbanks 142 to read the article in Outside Magazine.) Having read the book in 90’s, I realized that much of my life and perhaps everyone’s life is formed in that same journey of testing and exploring ones limits to define who we are.

I have long awaited the arrival of a feature film that would give voice to this universal quest that is born in the heart and soul of youthful innocence. Actor, Writer, Director Sean Penn has collaborated with Jon Krakauer to produce this film that shares its title with the book and follows the story that Mr. Kakauer so expertly weaves.

The move was scheduled for theatrical release in September 2007.

I visited my local AMC 30 Cineplex on a Wednesday evening.

There may have been 10 people in the audience. They all appeared to be aged above 30.

I say this because I believe there may be a point of view or a doorway of understanding that can only be earned by someone who has hiked a trail of self discovery them self.

There is no monopoly on the angst of an angry young man or woman. In spite of what we were taught at school or in the shelter of our homes, life is a continuous struggle with an indifferent natural world populated by predators and prey on both two legs and four. This realization and the need to find your place in that world is the crucible that smelts and forges our character and the way we cope with the challenges that must be endured.

With enough wealth and social connections, ones transition from adolescence to adult maturity can be achieved smoothly and seamlessly. With hard work and talent or luck most people come to terms with what they find to be the un fair and un just. They learn to cope with mankind’s inhumanity to man, ever more violent and less meaningful than anything found in the evolution of the natural elements.

Victory in this quest is to identify ones personal boundaries of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It may start early with an experience in the Boy Scouts or a Youth Summer Camp. It may begin later with College or University or a military tour of duty for many others. Being away from home and on your own is a trigger that forces us all to make decisions about how we will live without the immediate guidance of our parents. Learning to make the right choice or what we hope is the right choice at each fork in the trail will determine how comfortable our journey will be. For many, like Chris, the challenges of every day civilization appear to be false and hypocritical. It is imagined that a greater and more rewarding life will be found in the truths that only nature and stark existence in it can reveal.

The cult following that has transformed “Fairbanks 142” into a Mecca where countless pilgrims test themselves annually, has grown up because these people like my self felt a kinship connection with Chris’ rejection of the life and family that was given to him and his embracing of a life he carved for him self.

Hot, Cold, Tired, Hungry, Wet, Happiness, Despair, are served in a smorgasbord of reality that sharpens and satisfies the appetite. I found it impossible to read the 113 day (nearly three years if you count is entire journey after college.) epic struggle that Chris endured without constantly asking my self how I would have behaved. I found my self revisiting my own early challenges so that I could measure how well I fared compared with what I thought Chris would do. This must be true of most people who read this book or see this new movie. As Hollywood must do the story has been served to us with popcorn and a wonderful soundtrack. Our point of view has been decided for us.

Chris seems so noble and his sacrifice so pure. We want to believe that it served a greater good. However, there is much speculation that neither the book nor this movie really tells the Truth. In my opinion, the book may come as close as anyone may ever know of the truth. The questions are not silenced. They will continue to be asked. Why didn’t he do this, or that? The answers are always variations on what someone things could or should have been done. Few of us know what we would have done. That need to know and understand is what compels the pilgrims progress of discovery and enlightenment.

We all seek to “kill the false beast within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage.

Was Chris an innocent and noble dreamer who bit off more than he could chew?

Was he a unprepared fool who fulfilled a death wish that was fueled by the vengeance he needed to achieve against his family.

Was he a sick and emotionally disturbed young man who attempted to exorcise his demons and failed.

“When news of McCandless's fate came to light, most Alaskans were quick to dismiss him as a nut case. According to the conventional wisdom he was simply one more dreamy, half-cocked greenhorn who went into the bush expecting to find answers to all his problems and instead found nothing but mosquitoes and a lonely death.”

We will never know his truth, without knowing our own.