Let There Be Hearings

The Democrats are playing way too nice. This White House has secrets it has kept and lies it has told. It is our service men and women who suffer for those secrets and lies. Those newly in power may want to leave impeachment off the table for the time being, but asking questions and demanding proof is their job.

This President has ignored the will of the people. He appears not to have noticed that an election was held last November. He stubbornly sticks to a failed policy with the aid of cohorts who enjoy their power and influence more than ethical conduct.

The major problem with secrets and lies is that someone eventually finds out what really happened. It is best when this happens while those responsible can be held to account, but sooner or later the truth will out. One of the most famous cases of secrets, lies and the desire of a government to protect its power structure happened in France. To this day The Dreyfus Affair is the symbol of the miscarriage of justice.

Richard Dreyfuss, a descendant of Alfred Dreyfus, spoke at The National Press Club and called for President Bush to be impeached for his role in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. So history repeats itself one more time. The public demands truth and openess and those in power deny that demand.

So let the hearings begin before anyone else is killed for the pride of a President.


1895 : Dreyfus Affair in France

French officer Alfred Dreyfus, condemned for passing military secrets to the Germans, is stripped of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony in the courtyard of Paris' Ecole Militaire. Convicted on flimsy evidence in a highly irregular trial, he began his life sentence on the notorious Devil's Island Prison in French Guyana four months later.

In 1896, evidence disclosed that French Major Ferdinand Esterhazy was the guilty party. The army attempted to suppress this information, but a national uproar ensued, and the military had no choice but to put Esterhazy on trial. A court-martial was held in January 1898, and Esterhazy was acquitted within an hour.

In response, the French novelist Emile Zola published an open letter on the front page of the Aurore entitled "J'Accuse," which accused the judges of being under the thumb of the military. By the evening, 200,000 copies had been sold. One month later, Zola was sentenced to jail for libel but managed to escape to England.

In 1898, Major Hubert Henry admitted that he had forged much of the evidence against Dreyfus and committed suicide. Soon after, Esterhazy fled the country. The military was forced to order a new court-martial for Dreyfus. In 1899, he was found guilty in another show trial and sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, a new French administration pardoned him, and in 1906 the supreme court of appeals overturned his conviction.

From George to George

January 7 is the anniversary of the very first Presidential election in 1789. It had taken 13 years since declaring independence from England and King George to get to a point where a war had been won and an election could be held. In case you haven't heard, George Washington got the job and our second president came in second. If the founding fathers had actually been all wise, they would have given us a parliamentary system so that we could throw the inadequate out of the office.

Unfortunately, even they, couldn't envision some of the duds that have followed the first George. They certainly would have been appalled by our current George who seems to have crowned himself king and is studiously trying to single-handedly destroy the documents they cherished and the office they created for an honored leader.

From now until November 2008, we will be taking a look at some of the potential replacements for our locally grown King George. Whomever we select, let's try to do at least as well as the men who ran for the office in the first place. We certainly couldn't do worse than what we have.

Name, State, Electoral Votes Received

George Washington, Virginia, 69
John Adams, Massachusetts, 34
John Jay, New York, 9
Robert H. Harrison, Maryland, 6
John Rutledge, South Carolina, 6
John Hancock, Massachusetts, 4
George Clinton, New York, 3
Samuel Huntington, Connecticut, 2
John Milton, Georgia, 2
James Armstrong, Georgia, 1
Benjamin Lincoln , Massachusetts, 1
Edward Telfair, Georgia, 1

Dear Diary

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
J M Barrie

One thing that modern historians constantly bemoan is the fact that people no longer write letters and rarely keep diaries. The keeping of diaries has even been banned from many political venues. The excuse is that they are a security risk. The truth probably is fear of dirty laundry aired in some eventual book. Today we write blogs. Let us hope some among us are printing out hard copies.



In Helene's Hamff's marvelous "84 Charing Cross Road" she expresses a love for non fiction by wishing that Chaucer had written about his life as a diplomat in the court of Edward III rather than wasting his time with "The Canterbury Tales". It is the insight of a time and place from someone saying, "I was there".

Over the centuries many famous diaries, memoirs, and autobiographies have been written. Today's pictures are Ann Frank, Anais Nin and Samuel Pepys, three famous diarists who have virtually nothing in common but all of whom shed light on their lives and time. This is the heart of the diarist, the need to speak quietly about their surroundings and then leaving behind a treasure to be discovered by the rest of us.

You work is appreciated Presidents Adams, Grant and Truman. Please accept our gratitude Mary Chestnut, Oscar Wilde, and Ralph Emerson. A bow in your direction Lewis Carroll, Ellen Terry and Frida Kahlo. What would the struggle for civil rights be without a record of your thoughts Frederick Douglas and W. E. B. Dubois? To all the thousands of diarists known and as yet unknown across the centuries: Thank you.

Well don't just sit there: Go write something!

Endings and Beginnings

Janus is the Roman god of gates and doors (ianua), beginnings and endings, and hence represented with a double-faced head, each looking in opposite directions. He was worshipped at the beginning of the harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of beginnings, especially the beginnings of important events in a person's life. Janus also represents the transition between primitive life and civilization, between the countryside and the city, peace and war, and the growing-up of young people.

We come to the beginning of a new year that we hope will be better than the last. It is fitting that we should today send a very elderly, respected man to his rest in line with the stages of a person's life. Gerald Ford's life was well lived.

Between the countryside and the city, we need to consider the massive changes in weather. Places that shouldn't be under three feet of snow are. Places that should still be cold are seeing the flowers bloom. Mother nature is out of whack and our attention needs to turn to global warming and the other ways that man has injured his surroundings.

Between primative and civilized behavior, there needs to be a call for all members of society to respect each others beliefs and customs. We saw the worst of this with the hanging of Saddam. Justice being carried out and then marred by the sectarian cat calls, virulent hatred, and the retreat to barbarism very much like that practiced by Saddam himself.

Peace still seems illusive and an unnecessary war still rages thanks to a deluded Presidency. Unfortunately too many young people may follow their current commander to their graves. There is nothing Janus can do about the young people who grow up to be soldiers when they are sent where they don't belong. Still those funerals will be a tribute to the individual and the group that does their duty even when leadership is misguided.

The name of this blog "Durward" is the Scottish version of Door Ward, someone who protects the gates of churches, castles, and cities. So as one door closes and another opens, may we all have a better year and positive changes until the next time Janus looks our way.