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A grey and wet St. Patrick's Day morning. The weather pundits were right; rain and more rain. Two days before spring solstice, it is unusual weather for us in the San Francisco Bay area. Couldn't escape reading about the president but decided to stay away from him in my blog. He is mentioned but just in passing....in an item about Jessica Simpson, that she dodged an appearance at The White House. I am not familiar with her music but she looked pretty and wholesome in Washington Post. My favorite music: Bach, jazz, and blues. Recently, I watched a movie (Swedish, with sub-titles) that is not only named Saraband, Bach's cello suite is a part of the story and could be heard in the background. Made for Swedish TV, 86-year old Ingmar Bergman returned as director (he was also the author) for this 2005 sequel to his acclaimed 1973 production Scenes From A Marriage. While I wished that the story ended differently, it was a feast. Bergman announced that Saraband was his last appearance as a director. Magnificent.Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann in Saraband - © Sony Pictures ClassicsJulia Dufvenius and Börje Ahlsted - © Sony Pictures ClassicsIngmar Bergman © Sony Pictures Classics Actors Liv Ullmann Marianne--Lawyer Erland Josephson Johan--Professor Emeritus Borje Ahlstedt Henrik--Professor Julia Dufvenius Karin--Cellist I am listening to Bach's Concerto in C Minor, Allegro, Band III. An old LP titled Two Concertos For Two Harpischords & Orchestra. George Malcolm and Simon Preston conducted by Yehudi Menhuin. Comments Anonymous — 2006-03-17 I am a pianist and I grew up listening to a lot of classical music, piano and otherwise, but I have ignored those roots for some time in favor of doing my own thing. I'm looking to get back into listening to more classical music, primarily for inspiration, and I am hoping to get some recommendations since I've been out of the loop for so long. Having read your blog for quite some time now, I have the impression that you are quite the connoisseur, and I wondered if you might give me a few suggestions from amongst your favorites. Anonymous — 2006-03-17 I am a pianist and I grew up listening to a lot of classical music, piano and otherwise, but I have ignored those roots for some time in favor of doing my own thing. I'm looking to get back into listening to more classical music, primarily for inspiration, and I am hoping to get some recommendations since I've been out of the loop for so long. Having read your blog for quite some time now, I have the impression that you are quite the connoisseur, and I wondered if you might give me a few suggestions from amongst your favorites. Anonymous — 2006-03-17 Some jazz and blues suggestions would be welcome as well. musafir — 2006-03-17 Thank you. A "connnossieur" I'm not but I'll be happy to send you a list of some of my favorites to check out.

What a difference three years make. The bluster has not completely disappeared but cracks have begun to appear in the facade of our warrior president.Three reports point out the president's loss of ground and his so far unsuccessful efforts to reclaim it."More rallies, no sale" David Broder in The Washington Post: On the third anniversary of the war in Iraq, President Bush once again finds himself trying to rally American public opinion to support that costly venture. The series of speeches that began this week comes against a background of deepening skepticism on the part of voters about the effort that began in March 2003 with a lightning strike against Saddam Hussein's forces. A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, taken just as Bush began this latest oratorical push, found 57 percent of those surveyed said it was a mistake to start the war and 60 percent believe the struggle for democracy and order in that country is going badly. Only 1 voter in 3 believes Bush has a clear plan for winning or ending the war. *"Can Bush rally US Public?" Linda Feldmann, Christian Science Monitor: "Preemption was the name of the game in President Bush's first-term foreign policy: Undo Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before he harms the United States. Now, with the three-year mark for the start of the Iraq war coming this Sunday, Mr. Bush has launched another preemptive campaign - to answer the war's critics before the media flood of anniversary coverage." * "The Other Face of Bush", Matt Frei BBC News:"The man who gave the world jitters with his "let's go it alone", "you're either with us or against us", "smoke 'em out!" rhetoric and who peppered his speeches with words like pre-emption, evil and axis has turned out to be a soft-centred, fuzzy-lipped moderate who cannot stop talking about globalisation, inter-dependence, nation building and the UN." ...

Let us hope that Operation Swarmer would succeed in curbing insurgency and the cycle of violence raging in Iraq. For civilians in the area it is a time of terror and anxiety. Deaths of innocent civilians are unavoidable. They receive very little attention. The term collateral damage has ceased to be meaningful. Think of the hapless men, women and children caught in the maelstrom. "U.S. and Iraqi forces today launched a sizeable helicopter and ground attack on a suspected insurgent stronghold northeast of Samarra, the city where a mosque bombing last month triggered a wave of deadly sectarian violence across the country, the U.S. military said. More than 1,500 U.S. and Iraqi troops, more than 200 tactical vehicles and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation, dubbed "Operation Swarmer," according to a statement released by the U.S. military command in Baghdad."

Spineless Democrats * Mullahs and Reverends * NCCC Program Facing the Axe, the Bush Axe*Will the Democrats ever recover from being gun shy about 9/11 and the president's exploitation of it ? Senator Feingold's speech on March 13th, calling for a resolution to censure President Bush has caused turmoil in and outside the Beltway. The Democrats sat on their hands. "Many Democrats, while sympathetic to Feingold's maneuver, appeared to be distancing themselves from his resolution yesterday, wary of polls showing that a majority of Americans side with the president on wiretapping tactics." Excerpts from the speech by Senator Feingold (D-Wis): "The President authorized an illegal program to spy on American citizens on American soil, and then misled Congress and the public about the existence and legality of that program. It is up to this body to reaffirm the rule of law by condemning the President's actions." All of us in this body took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and bear true allegiance to the same. Fulfilling that oath requires us to speak clearly and forcefully when the President violates the law. This resolution allows us to send a clear message that the President's conduct was wrong. *Mad Mullahs ....and ReverendsNo dispute about the fact that there are fanatics among the muslims. Fanatics exist among followers of all religions. There are times when one gets the feeling that perhaps Islam generates more fanatics than other faiths. Christianity has its share of them. When Rev. Pat Robertson called muslims "crazed fanatics" he conveniently forgot about himself. If anyone deserves to be in a padded cell it is Rev. Robertson. Pitiful, his efforts to draw attention to himself. The only way he can do so is by issuing outrageous statements. "Outspoken US Christian evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson has accused Muslims of planning world domination, and said some were "satanic".On his live television programme, The 700 Club, he said radical Islamists were inspired by "demonic power". A US religious liberty watchdog called the comments "grossly irresponsible". ...

The Mess in Iraq * Retired Justice O'Connor speaks out about "those who strong-arm judiciary" *Veni Vidi Vici (I came,I saw,I conquered). That was the message sent to Rome by Julius Caesar in 47 BC after he defeated the army of Pharnaces. Our warrior president,flush after the army walked into Baghdad and toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein, put on an aviator's suit and crowed in front of a banner reading "Mission Accomplished". That was on May 2, 2003. Three years after the president's victory speech, 2270 soldiers have lost their lives (at the end of April 2003 the figure was 139, today it is 2309). The mission remains far from being accomplished. Iraq is a mess, largely due to faulty planning for civilian rule after removal of Saddam Hussein. The president not only failed to install a handpicked regime, the much vaunted election resulted in emergence of Shiites with close ties to Iran which was not in his game plan. The neocon scenario for post-war Iraq is in shambles. Iraq is no longer secular; mullahs are in power. The end of sectarian violence is nowhere in sight. Americans are questioning the direction of the war and the president's handling of it. Billions of dollars pouring into Iraq have meant immense profits for some favored contractors and corrupt Iraqi officials without much effect on rebuilding of the infrastructure. The president is on record that he does not pay any attention to polls. Right, and Karl Rove is an alien from outer space! War, war, the president needs another war. Time to democratize Iran and liberate the Iranians? "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind. And again, I wish it wasn't true, but it is true."---President Bush on NBC's 'Meet the Press' - Sunday, February 8, 2004; 12:03 PM No wonder that the latest USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll reflects the president's failure to persuade the American people to support him. "The latest results show only 36% of those polled saying they "approve" of the way Bush is handling his job. Bush's previous low was 37%, set last November." No matter what he says to lessen the negative impact, the president is no longer able to convince people. Republican lawmakers faced with mid-term elections are staying away from hanging on to his coattails. The Democrats,too, are paying a price for being without a clear message and for their failure to oppose the war. Opportunity to change the imbalance in Congress exists. If the Democrats cannot win back enough seats to make a difference then they might as well give up. *Sandra Day O'Connor on attacks against the courts by Republicans No, not a wacky liberal but retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor expressed her concern about attacks by Republicans against the courts for liberal bias. Addressing a meeting of corporate lawyers at Georgetown University on March 9th, Ms O'Connor said: "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary." She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."Nominated by late President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the 102nd justice and first female member of the Supreme Court.*

It was on March 20, 2003, that the first missiles fell on Baghdad. Almost three years have elapsed since the beginning of Operation of Iraqi Freedom. "Three Years On" is the title of an article in the Sunday Observer (Guardian), UK, in which eight persons affected by the war express their feelings. The poet; the journalist's widow; the politician; the Iraqi mother; the civil servant; the British soldier; the American mother; and the US veteran. Visit the Guardian website and spend a few minutes to read what they said. Here is the poet: 'My mission was to try and rehumanise our society'Abdullah al-Baghdadi, 41, a poet, lives in the Karrada district of Baghdad ...

I read the report about Tom Fox, the peace activist from Clear Brook, Virginia, found dead in Iraq with a deep sense of sorrow. Didn't know the man, never met him. But the news struck me with the same intensity as if it were a friend who died. The fate of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll is unknown. According to Newsweek,there are 46 hostages, including 15 Americans, unaccounted for. We question the violence raging in different parts of the world,we rail against the unjust war in Iraq, weep for the dead,but most of us are powerless to do much to prevent them. Selfless people like Tom who knowingly face danger to help the distressed and do what they can to bring peace are very special. The excerpts are from a piece "Why Are We Here", written by Tom Fox the day before he was abducted and published in CPTNet (Christian Peacemaker Teams) on December 2, 2005. As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to hunt down and kill "terrorists" are, as a result of this dehumanizing word,not only killing "terrorists," but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women and children in the various towns and villages. It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death. "Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls. Comments Anonymous — 2006-03-12 This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

An unabashed champion of unrestricted drilling for oil and downsizing of national parks,Secretary Norton, in her letter of resignation to President Bush, stated: ""Now I feel it is time for me to leave this mountain you gave me to climb, catch my breath, then set my sights on new goals to achieve in the private sector,........." It is a matter of time before she lands in a high-paying position as a lobbyist in the energy industry or as a consultant for it. Good riddance. People are waking up. Policies, domestic and foreign, of the Bush administration are no longer considered sacrosanct. For the president, Secretary Norton was the ideal person at DOI, always ready to expand drilling rights and move toward privatization of our national parks. While it would be naive to expect drastic changes in the way the Bush administration operates, the pace of the destructive anti-environment policies could slow down.

How sweet it is! It took a while but finally there are unmistakable signs that more and more Americans are beginning to see through the haze created by President Bush and his cohorts. The hollow man is no longer able to talk his way out. The Republicans are running scared. It is not time to break out the champagne.....not yet. The Democrats still paying for their abject surrender to fear of being branded unpatriotic and support of the president's war and the Patriot Act. They lack a message and a strong voice to be heard above the clamor. The Bush administration is not going to roll over. Expect to hear more about the danger from Iran, from Venezuela, from Cuba, and the ever-present terrorists lurking around corner. The American people can no longer be exhorted to respond to the call to back the president on Iraq. The president and his Strangelovian Veep desperately need a red herring...a bogey. They will try hard to create one. When President Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove mapped out plans for a political comeback in 2006, this was nowhere on the script. Suddenly, the collapse of a port-management deal neither even knew about a month ago has devastated the White House and raised questions about its ability to lead even fellow Republicans. "He has no political capital," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "Slowly but surely it's been unraveling. There's been a direct correlation between the trajectory of his approval numbers and the -- I don't want to call it disloyalty -- the independence on the part of the Republicans in Congress." It feels good to be proven right. From an Associated Press release this morning: More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency. Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq--- the bloody hot spot upon which Bush has staked his presidency. Nearly 70 percent of people say the U.S. is on the wrong track, a 6-point jump since February.

*The wonderful people who have been so successful in giving Iraqis freedom and democratizing Iraq, are asking for another $91 billion to complete the job. Most likely they will get it too. "Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that despite a surge in sectarian violence in Iraq, the process of creating a stable government is proceeding satisfactorily. "Satisfactorily" is a matter of opinion. One gathers that majority of Iraqis do not agree. Not only that--this is what our ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, said: "The US ambassador to Baghdad conceded yesterday that the Iraq invasion had opened a Pandora's box of sectarian conflicts which could lead to a regional war and the rise of religious extremists who "would make Taliban Afghanistan look like child's play". "Zalmay Khalilzad broke with the Bush administration's generally upbeat orthodoxy to present a stark profile of a volatile situation in danger of sliding into chaos." An opinion poll published by the Washington Post and ABC News yesterday suggested that most Americans agreed with Mr Khalilzad - with 80% saying civil war in Iraq was likely, and more than a third that it was very likely. More than half thought the US should start withdrawing its troops, although only one in six wanted all troops to be withdrawn immediately. Iran Next on the List to be Democratized?Drum beat getting louder for attacking Iran.