“Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day.”
- Alfred E. Neuman

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

If life imitates art far more than art imitates life, as Andy Warhol and Oscar Wilde both contended, then what are we to make of Alfred W. Bush?

What, me worry?

Blah, blah. Jibber, jabber.

I am just a humble reporter, right? So what do I know about art - or running a country?

Nothing.

But I do know something about doing nothing - and doing the impossible.

I do nothing almost every day.

Every once in a great while, I will gear myself up and do the impossible, like stopping a river from being dammed or a road from being built.

I once wrote a story with the zany, sensational headline: “Endangered Sea Turtles Killed by City Streetlights.”

The result was a new policy in the city of Gulf Shores, Alabama, to turn off the streetlights for two weeks every year - while the loggerhead sea turtles hatch on the Gulf Coast. You see, when the hatchlings come out of their holes in the sand, they are driven genetically to the moon shining off the ocean. It’s nature’s way of telling them what direction to crawl in so they survive, you see.

When they crawl out and see the street lights, well, they head for the road - and a bad fate.

So what if we as a country decided to just turn out the lights for a day?

I’m not kidding.

What I am proposing is a bona fide national strike to protest all that is wrong in the world.

To all my activist friends, what about it?

What we need is not a national day of protest. What we need is a national day of rest.

Wouldn’t it be grand to see the media, at least broadcast journalists, jumping all over themselves covering a story about a country completely shutting down because no one shows up for work?

We’ll let the TV media off the hook on this one. They have to work even on Christmas and the Fourth of July.

But the newspaper reporters? Why not. Take the day off. Give the printing presses a break. Save some trees. Strike your boss’s decision to endorse Bush, twice.

When the power shuts down and the phones don’t work and the Internet crashes, someone in Washington will freak out and wonder where all the people have gone.

Look at it this way. Consider how much energy we could save in one work day just by staying home and doing nothing.

According to the federal government, every day America burns 1 million Btus of energy for every man, woman and child in the U.S. The average single-family household in the U.S. consumes a little more than 100 million Btus every year.

A national day of rest would save enough energy to keep us out of any more wars in the Middle East, and we would not have to consider drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska or within 100 miles of the Florida coast.

We would not have to consider chopping down entire forests and turning all the trees into wood chips to make a new and strange form of biofuel.

So what about it? If you are pissed off about anything, anything at all, won’t you join me in this strike? This national day of rest?

Don’t call in sick. Just don’t show up.

And turn off your lights. You might find that you have a strange new peace of mind that you have never experienced before. You might experience some peace and quiet for a change. And we might all be the better for it.

Alfred W. Bush could spend the day on his Crawford, Texas, ranch, and think about life, art - or his legacy.

Who knows? We could come out of it a better country. Maybe the world would join us and we could have a worldwide day of rest.

Talk about saving the world, and savoring life…

Time may be running out for Congress and the American people to put in place any constraints on President George W. Bush before he plunges ahead with a new war against Iran.

Military and intelligence sources say the preparations for a major bombing campaign are moving ahead swiftly, with the deteriorating U.S. situation in Iraq adding to Bush’s urgency.

The thinking goes that if Bush’s position collapses in Iraq, a window of opportunity for challenging Iran may close, too.

For the full story on the war dangers ahead, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.

As George W. Bush and Dick Cheney make clear they won’t reverse course on Iraq, the new Democratic congressional majority finds itself facing a difficult dilemma.

Many Americans who put the Democrats in power want serious action to bring U.S. troops home now and - if necessary - to launch impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney.

But the Democratic leaders are afraid strong steps might open them to Republican attack ads in Election 2008.

For the full story on the challenges facing the Democratic leadership, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.

Bush’s Judicial Nominees Who Wanted No Federal Protections for Birds Withdraw Nominations

This is a prime example of why and how politics matters.

The Democratic Party’s victory in taking back control of the United States Senate has already produced benefits for the nation’s birds, according to the wildlife activist group Birder’s United.

President Bush nominated William G. Myers III, an arch anti-environmentalist, to a lifetime judicial appointment on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals May 15, 2003. Myers, an Eagle Scout who has spent 180 days over the past 15 years as a National Park Service volunteer, nevertheless contended that the federal Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act were unconstitutional.

In a straight party line vote, in 2004, Myers’ nomination was sent to the Senate floor. But Senate Democratic leaders were able to block the nomination using the cloture rule which requires 60 votes. Myers received 53 votes in favor of his nomination.

Now with the Senate in Democratic hands, the Myers nomination has no chance. On January 9, Myers asked the president to withdraw his name from consideration.

Then, in September 2003, President Bush nominated William J. Haynes II to a key judicial seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a Harvard-trained lawyer for the Department of Defense, Haynes argued that the bombing of an island in the Marianas, an important haven for many rare species of birds, would actually be beneficial for bird watchers. Haynes and his team of Defense Department attorneys contended that the bombing would disperse the birds to other islands so many more people would be able to see the rare species.

Since his nomination was doomed as well, Haynes has asked the president to withdraw his name from consideration.

So you see, politics and policy do matter, for the welfare of birds as well as people.