* Voters, Do the Right Thing"The will of the mass of the people must prevail."Alcuin (735-804),in a letter to CharlemagneAn 11-Year Old and His ClassmatesWhen Obama said: "I don't think the young people of America are a special interest—they are the future of this country," Turner perked up. He looked as if he were being addressed personally."I'll make this deal with you," the candidate said. "You invest in America, America will invest in you, and together, we will move this country forward."It was the beginning of his speech's crescendo, the rhetorical trumpet-flourishing that built to the finale in which he reiterated the promise of America — "you and I, together, will change this country and change this world" — to a generation of its citizens who have never heard it uttered before, at least not outside the dusty confines of a textbook.*Desperately Seeking Kitchen SinkOne does not have to be a pundit to sense desperation of the McCain-Palin team. It has thrown everything but the proverbial kitchen sink at Barack Obama. To its frustration, the tactics have not worked in halting Obama's lead. Four days before the election, if you believe the polls the race is over and all we need is the fat lady to come out and sing. But the polls don't tell the whole story, and then there is the kitchen sink. Rest assured that the masters of dirty tricks will keep trying.

*Odds and EndsCold gray morning. Dense fog outside. It is the season of falling leaves; root vegetables; hot soup."Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn."-- Elizabeth LawrenceTurning Leaves©MusafirTelegraph Hill Area, San FranciscoAngel's Trumpet©MusafirParrots of Telegraph Hill© Arundhati BhowmickAngels Trumpet©MusafirFuchsia©MusafirThe Angels Trumpet (Brugmansia) flowers are reported to be toxic and to have hallucinogenic properties.

*Bullies Looking for Another WarThis could be what McCain and the neocons were waiting for. Opening of another front in the volatile Middle East and then emphasize "experience" and "national security" in the hope that vulnerable voters will switch to the Republican ticket? Nine days before the election, they had no other cards in the deck.Is it going to work? After what we learned about the Bush Administration's cooked up war against Iraq it would be unthinkable that the American public would fall for another con game. But for the McCain-Palin team it is the answer to their prayers. If some more of our young men and women lose their lives in the phony war they will say they died for a good cause -- to keep Republicans in office. Sickening.BBC News 26 October 2008 ...

* Has He Forsaken Them ? * Sexual PoliticsThe Bible thumpers are in panic. Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian reported on October 21st about her visit to Colorado Springs, CO.As the words to the Christian rock song fade from the giant screens at Mountain Springs church, Pastor Steve Holt steps forward to speak to his congregation. These are perilous times, he says, but he urges them not to despair."There are still two weeks before the election," he says, before announcing a week of fasting and prayer in the run-up to polling day.A sorry lot with tunnel vision. Their America -- the Judeo-Christian America is changing and there is nothing they can do about it. We are truly in a melting pot. This America is for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, tree worshippers, and....for Muslims. This America is for the devout and for atheists; it is for straights and for homosexuals; it is for the whites and for people of color -- black, brown, yellow."Fasting and prayer", that is real desperation. How many of them will actually follow Pastor Holt's call for fasting is open to questions. But one can rest assured that they are praying. The Pentecostals are good in praying against satanic influence. To them Obama is a representative of satan. Sarah Palin has already gone through a blessing to protect her from witchcraft. John McCain might benefit from one. One gets the feeling that Republicans have been deserted by the god they claimed to have on their side. Makes me think of Mel Calman's cartoon (see below). © Mel Calman - My God ...

* Or The Midget's Revenge * Colin Powell's AtonementDoing what he does best. The mean-spirited, hubristic president whose approval rating is currently between low and mid 20's range, is all set to add another dastardly act to his dismal record before he returns to Crawford to chop wood. "Compassionate conservative" -- yes, think of Attila the Hun. He has 3 months and 4 days left in office and we haven't seen the end of his gifts for special interest groups.The Last Mischief (Editorial,NY Times, Oct 18, 2008)All presidents indulge in end-of-the-term environmental rule-making, partly to tie up bureaucratic loose ends but mainly to lock in policies that their successor will be hard pressed to reverse.President Bill Clinton’s midnight regulations were mostly good, including a rule protecting 60 million acres of national forests from road-building and most commercial development. Not surprisingly, most of President Bush’s proposals are not.Exhibit A is a set of six resource management plans covering 11 million acres of federal land in Utah. They would open millions of acres to oil and gas drilling and off-road vehicles, risking priceless cultural artifacts and some of the most breathtaking open spaces in America. The plans, each more than 1,000 pages, were dumped on an unsuspecting public in the last few weeks by the Bureau of Land Management.The bureau claims that it wasn’t trying to pull a fast one and that drafts were available months ago. But the final documents are what count. The public now has only a few short weeks to register objections before the secretary of the interior makes them final.Why the rush? The agency says it had to wrap things up before it ran out of planning money. What we are really seeing, though, is the last gasp of the Cheney drill-now, drill-everywhere energy strategy; one last favor to the oil and gas drillers and the off-road vehicle enthusiasts before a more conservation-minded president (both Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have far better records than Mr. Bush) comes to town.Are Republicans going to express opposition to this? That would be the day. They never see a drilling site they do not love.General PowellFormer Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama was not unexpected; reports began to appear last week that he was likely to do so. For the McCain campaign and Republicans, it is a blow.Despite being shabbily treated by the cabal of neocons in the White House, he faithfully served President Bush. Perhaps the low point in his career was when he was duped into appearing before the UN to sell Bush's war. But the good soldier remained silent. Unlike some others, he has yet to write a tell all book. His public support of Obama is, perhaps, atonement for his failure to act when he was part of the Bush administration. And it is a kick in the face of the Republican Party.

* The Right to Die * Daniel JamesLive with dignity, die with dignity--DignitasIn December 2006, I wrote about 67-year old British physician Anne Turner who was suffering from "progressive and incurable degenerative disease called supranuclear palsy" (BBC), and decided to end her life with assistance from Dignitas.On September 12, 2008, 23-year old Daniel James of Worcester, UK, died at Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Assisted suicide is illegal in the UK. British authorities are investigating this case and Daniel's parents said: "...................................that their son had tried 'several' times to kill himself before he 'gained his wish'.BBCDr Richard Nicholson, editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics and a retired GP, said the public may react differently to the idea of a young man with paralysis killing himself to an older person with a terminal illness such as cancer but from an ethical point of view the cases are similar. "Firstly it depends how you define a terminal condition," he said. "This young man had a condition which would eventually lead to his death and the timing of his death would be related to the level of medical intervention he had to keep him alive." He said that people do not usually expect people who are so young to want to kill themselves. "At that age, one would want to know if he was depressed and if that was adequately assessed and treated because that would be a very high probability for a young person, after an accident, becoming aware of how limited their life is." But Dr Nicholson added that from an ethical point of view he could not see much difference between the case of Daniel and an older person with a terminal, provided they were of "sound mind". ...

*McCain-Palin Team Catering to the Worst in America"Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat."--John Frederick BoyesCall them nuts, loonies, fanatics, extremists, white supremacists, what you will. The fact is that they exist in all societies. Here in America there is no dearth of them. Normally, they remain on the fringe; their rants and raves do not receive much attention. But now, with the presidential election 23 days away, the lunatic fringe is being assiduously courted by Republican nominee John McCain and his vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin. It is Palin, as McCain's attack dog, who is making most of the rabble-rousing speeches.While they deny that their objective is to incite violence that is exactly what they are doing with their outright lies and distortion of truth. And because the Democratic contender is black, their veiled messages of hatred is resonating with bigots in America.At this point, their dirty campaign appears to be not making much headway. However, there is always the unknown, unquantifiable number of voters to whom the color of Obama's skin overrides everything else. So the race is far from locked up despite the polls that show Obama ahead. And in worst case scenario, an unbalanced person in the mob could very well try something drastic. Let us hope that the Secret Service will prevent any such calamity from taking place. We have had enough of political assassinations. Are McCain and Palin aware of the impact, and possible consequences, of their hate mongering? You betcha.

*"Bigotry is the sacred disease" - Heraclitus 535-475 BC * Autumn MorningForget about the high road. As the countdown to November 4th inexorably draws closer, desperation of the McCain-Palin team becomes evident. Both of them out to demonstrate how to butcher truth and serve red meat to howling mobs. Race, color, threat of terrorism -- they are going for broke. Reportedly devout Christians both, do they ever pause to think WWJD ?This election will prove whether American voters can be manipulated by lies or are able to base their decisions on real issues facing us and the world. These are troubled times.The Youth VoteBy all accounts the the number of newly registered voters is huge. Majority of young voters are supportive of Obama. They can make a difference. *Autumn...

*Some Like it Cute * Palin and Medicare Program * McCain. the Mud WrestlerShe winked, shrugged, dodged the questions and, yet, some people thought that she more than made up for her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric which exposed her lack of knowledge about today's world. Comments that she was "like a wound up doll" very aptly described Sarah Palin on Thursday evening. Cute and perky maybe, but it is not a cheerleader's position that she is aiming for .Her supporters, who loved her mention of remarks by late President Reagan, didn't have a clue that Reagan was talking about his opposition to the Medicare program. Many of them will howl like stuck pigs if they are deprived of the benefits. Maybe the Kenyan bishop who exorcised witches during blessing of Sarah Palin will be invited to pray for them.If Palin, and the handlers who coached her for the debate, knew what Reagan was talking about then one can assume that they think that the program is another entitlement that should be done away with.See Raising the White Flag of Surrender -- to Medicare*McCain, Beware of Witch Doctors"No holds barred"? You can say that again. 29 days before November 4th, John McCain is demonstrating what down and dirty means. He is going to outdo the Swift Boaters; show that he can wrestle in the mud.Are the voters going to be swayed by the dirty tricks? One never knows. If they do, we could have the first cute and perky woman vice president. McCain would be well-advised to get some voodoo for himself to ward off prayers of Palin's witch doctor. ...

* Rich Gets RicherGreat weather. There is no cause to rejoice about anything else. The bailout bill, packed with pork to appease special interest groups, cleared Congress with a good margin ( 263-171).An example: LONDON (MarketWatch) -- There can't have been a more ridiculous bit of legal fluff in recent memory. Yet there it is, in plain view, as part of the much-ballyhooed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 that's been passed by the U.S. Senate. Namely, Section 503 -- "Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for children." The toy arrow provision, also dubbed the "William Tell amendment," was jointly introduced by Oregon's two U.S. senators: Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Gordon Smith, a Republican.It's hard to know which is more depressing: The fact that this provision found its way into the "urgently needed legislation" at all, or the fact that the U.S. tax code is littered with this kind of stuff.Those who opposed the bailout found themselves between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" with dire predictions about loss of jobs, retirement benefits, and credit squeeze if the rescue package was not approved. The Bush administration, which allowed the free-marketers to run amuck without any oversight -- one of the reasons for the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage finance sector -- shamelessly promoted bailout for corporate America. It was Saddam Hussein's WMD redux.Passage of the bill didn't do anything for financial markets today.The First Walk in Autumn ...