Barry In Charge: Ft Hood Slayings Don't Move The Coldhearted

President Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should occur.

Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.

Did the president's team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on -- and the initial words coming out of their president's mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.

It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that the president and his political team couldn't produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where the president won by 15 points one year ago). And now this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through.

If the president's communications apparatus can't inform -- and protect -- their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a focused commander-in-chief and a compassionate head of state, it has disastrous consequences for that president's party and supporters.

All the president's men (and women) fell down on the job Thursday. And Democrats across the country have real reason to panic. (source)

MSM Diary: What Media Bias? (election night, 11/03/09)

Barry In Charge: His Idea Of "Stimulus"

After a flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up

November 3, 2009
The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went:

- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.

- $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.

- $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.

- $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day.

- $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway.

- $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.

- $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid.

- $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.

- $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla.

- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.

- $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.

- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.

- $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.

- $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota.

- $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.

- $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.

- $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio.

- $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.

- $356,000 for Indiana University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech.

- $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.

- $148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine.

- $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri

- $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in New York state.

- $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.

- $71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle's energy efficiency.

- $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles. (source)

When The Lion Lies Down

Russian tankers invade Georgia

Now that Barry has reneged on the protective cover President Bush extended to the Polish and Ukranians last year, we see what the Bear must be thinking:

The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast.

Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus.

The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.

Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the "potential aggressor".

The documents state the exercises, code-named "West", were officially classified as "defensive" but many of the operations appeared to have an offensive nature.

The Russian air force practised using weapons from its nuclear arsenal, while in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which neighbours Poland, Red Army forces stormed a "Polish" beach and attacked a gas pipeline.

The operation also involved the simulated suppression of an uprising by a national minority in Belarus – the country has a significant Polish population which has a strained relationship with authoritarian government of Belarus.

Karol Karski, an MP from Poland's Law and Justice, is to table parliamentary questions on Russia's war games and has protested to the European Commission.

His colleague, Marek Opiola MP, said: "It's an attempt to put us in our place. Don't forget all this happened on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland."

Ordinary Poles were outraged by news of the exercise and demanded a firm response fro the government.

One man, identified only as Ted, told Polskie Radio: "Russia has laid bare its real intentions with respect to Poland. Every Pole most now get of the off the fence and be counted as a patriot or a traitor."

Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, has tried to build a pragmatic relationship with the Kremlin despite widespread and vocal calls in Poland for him to cool ties with Moscow.

After spending 40 years under Soviet domination few in Poland trust Russia, and many Poles have become increasingly wary of a country they consider as possessing a neo-imperialistic agenda.

Bogdan Klich, Poland’s defence minister, said: “It is a demonstration of strength. We are monitoring the exercises to see what has been planned.

Wladyslaw Stasiak, chief of President Lech Kaczynski’s office, and a former head of Poland’s National Security Council, added: “We didn’t like the appearance of the exercises and the name harked back to the days of the Warsaw Pact.”

The Russian troop exercises will come as an unwelcome sight to the states nestling on Russia’s western border who have deep-rooted anxieties over any Russian show of strength.

With a resurgent Moscow now more willing to flex its muscles, Central and Eastern Europeans have warned of Russia adopting a neo-imperialistic attitude to an area of the world it still regards as its sphere of influence.

In July, the region’s most famed and influential political figures, including Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, wrote an open letter Barack Obama warning him that Russia “is back as a revisionist power pursuing a 19th-century agenda with 21st-century tactics and methods.”

Moscow and Minsk have insisted that Operation West was to help "ensure the strategic stability in the East European region". (source)

Life Without Phoebe

I first noticed Phoebe's decline when she couldn't walk up the stairs like she used to. What used to be a steady stride up the 20 steps turned into a chore for her. Life now dictated that she slowly attack the first 10, then rest. I had a feeling of panic when I saw the look in her eyes as she rested before scaling the final 10. "Oh my God", I thought. "She's having trouble with those stairs. It must be arthritis", I remember telling myself.

Phoebe was 9 and a half years old, and I'd never experienced a health problem with her, save for the time she had an ear infection about 6 years ago. My beautiful Golden Retriever never spent a night away from Daddy for ten years, and he was accutely aware of any deviation from her normal behavior.

She was my child. And my dearest friend.

Me and Phoebe visiting my home place.

It was late 1999, in rural Virginia. The mountains have a sky full of grey, low clouds, contrasted with the ridges, hollows, and mountaintops full of bright oranges, purples, reds, and browns. I was travelling on rt 460, to a puppy farm of Golden Retrievers on the edge of Montgomery County. I turned right on srt 624, heading east on Mt Tabor Rd. It was only about 8 miles down this road where I found Phoebe's birthplace, a typical small farm with nice folks who ran it. I saw her parents: a masterful, barrel-chested father with energy, and her reddish-haired mother who showed great interest in this newcomer without any scent of other dogs on him.

The owner led me to the barn where the pair had given birth to 6 little beautiful pups. They said that mom and dad had just had a litter 6 months before, and that this one started right after that one. It was an "accidental litter."

There was a short segment on one of the news channels shortly before this, detailing methods of attracting the right dog for you when in one of these exact situations. Standing on the December soil, scattered with straw, I could smell the distinct mixtures of manure, wood, and livestock. At my feet were half a dozen squirming, cute, puppies. The temptation to fixate on the one with markings that appealed the best arose quickly in me, but I came with a plan from the experts on the news channel: I knelt down with them and licked my hand, then held it down among them.

I picked the one that responded the most to my hand: Phoebe.

She was with me during my 30's, a somewhat chaotic period. She slept on my bed for the first 5 years of her life. It wasn't until I moved for the first time during her life to Florida that I started the "no more sleeping on Daddy's bed" rule. She seemed bewildered at first, but not especially mournful, as the floor was something new to her: carpet. Her bones and joints weren't resting on the same wood floors she had known.

Phoebe was the best friend I've ever known. She never complained about anything, despite eating the same food every day and living life on a cable run. I would have let her run free, but I haven't lived isolated from others in 25 years, now. My family always kept at least 4 or 5 dogs at a time. They all ran free on those Blue Ridge mountains while they lived. Having known that life until 17, I never knew how special it was. How I wish I could have given Phoebe more, but it was beyond my reach to live that life again. She lived now with close neighbors, close roads, all dictating that I needed to keep her on a run when I let her out every morning.

"Im not sure what's wrong with her. I saw her begin to have problems with the stairs a couple of weeks ago, and I wrote it off to arthritis. I went out and got her some daily supplements for dogs with joint problems, and some better food", I told the veterinarian a few months ago.
"Was she having trouble chewing her food?" he asked.
"Yes. She just all of a sudden stopped eating her dry food not long ago. When the supplements didn't seem to help her with the stairs, I decided to bring her in."

The doctor took a blood sample, and asked that I wait in the front office with her while he did some quick analysis. It was then that I started to get a worsening anxiety about my dearest friend. We sat there in the July heat, me wishing that the little building had better ac, as I watched Phoebe pant continuously.

Then again, she'd been panting a lot lately at home, too.

This last year was rough on her Daddy. Having lost my job a year ago, we had to move because Daddy couldn't afford the rent anymore. Off we went to a one-roomed existance, crowded by not only the bed, but desk for Daddy's computer, a chest of drawers, and boxes. She never complained, or acted like it was less than another adventure that her and Daddy embarked upon: strange at first, but all ok because she was with her Daddy.

God I miss her.

"It looks like Phoebe's white blood cell count is down", the vet said. "Before I do anything drastic, which could even mean a blood transfusion, I want to prescribe her some medicine and see how she looks in a few days. How about Monday to bring her back?"
"Ok", I managed to respond.

I followed the vet's prescription exactly for the next few days. She actually seemed to respond positively to it. For weeks I had to carry her up the stairs every time she went out. Soon, I had to carry her down, as well. But after a couple of days on the medicine, she could actually go downstairs on her own. I momentarily had a glimmer of hope. The next visit dashed my hope and spirit, though.

"Her white blood cell count is dropping", he said sympathetically to me. "I'm afraid for the worst for her. I'd like to send a sample of her blood to a clinic nearby to do a full analysis, but it's a little pricey."
"I'll do it", I replied. The results came back; Phoebe was suffering from anemia, and she was dying. The only thing that could be done was to either euthanize her or try to make her as comfortable as possible until the end.

I somberly told the vet that I may be taking the route of euthanization if I see her in pain. He prescribed her some cortisone, and told me that a week would be most likely the length of her remaining days.

I crushed up her pills each day and put them in a syringe for her, in the morning and at night. The illness progressed, and I continued to carry her up and down the stairs for three more weeks.

Here was my closest companion for the last decade of my life, panting and gasping for her every breath, but trying to smile for me. I couldn't pass her without laying on the floor next her, coaxing a kiss from her on my face or nose. Many a time I lay there at her feet over these 10 years, needing her exchange with me. She would nustle her nose in my neck, then start to wag her tail. When I have been at my lowest, she was there for me. Something that made me feel like my life hasn't been such a waste. I have no child, no wife, no one who depends upon me except myself.

But Phoebe depended on me. And she showed me ten years of utter devotion and worship. I am a better person because of Phoebe, and her time here on Earth. She forced me to think of someone other than myself in real, life-or-death aspects. I never had to lay a hand on her, and my voice was never raised in anger at her. A truer friend a man couldn't get.

Phoebe finally passed back in July. My girlfriend fed her some leftover gravy she made for our biscuits that morning, and she loved it. I fed her that gravy until the end, a couple of days later. I was in shock and deeply affected when it happened, at three in the morning. I had told myself only hours before that I would finally have to take her in the next day, to be put to sleep.

She left before I had to make that terrible choice, though, and that fact provides me with only a small amount of solace in her wake.

I hadn't been sleeping well at all for weeks, and was in and out at 3am when it happened. I stayed with her while the death throes shook her, and for a short time after everything stopped. I couldn't look at her face. I carried her downstairs immediately in a burial blanket. For the next hour and a half, I dug her final resting place in the middle of her run path, where she was always at ease and amused with all of the Florida critters only feet away from her in an empty, overgrown lot that had it's own small ecosystem of birds, snakes, armadillo's, rabbits, squirells, etc, that kept her fascinated when she wasn't resting in the shade.

Phoebe's pssing affected me more than I anticipated, but who can know what life is like without our loved ones until it happens? I find myself thinking about her at least once during the day now, three months since she left us. The house is quieter, there's no one waiting for me when I get home, and there's no one who licks my face anymore.

I'd give anything to have her back.