Patriot Games

I love my country more than you do. To prove it I’ll purchase this automatic assault rifle and paint this flag on my underwear.

And so the madness continues. The patriot police rolled out in force last Sunday afternoon, sticking their flag lapel pins in the eyes of those deemed unpatriotic. This week’s victim is former Democratic presidential candidate and NATO General Wesley Clark. In response to a question from the host of the show in reference to Senator McCain, Clark made the mistake of uttering the phrase, “...I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.” From the reaction of the McCain campaign - among many others - you might think Clark had accused the senator of inviting Satan over for dinner and soliciting his foreign policy advise. Clark’s statement has somehow been interpreted as some kind of attack on McCain’s military record and by proxy, his patriotism. Really? What part of the sentence in question is false? If I’m reading my Constitution correctly, there are only two qualifications to be president. One must be a natural born U.S. citizen, and over the age of 35. Everything else is gravy. There was no attack on McCain, merely a statement of fact. Of course, Clark didn’t help himself by failing to clarify his statement. What he meant to say was that he doesn’t think McCain’s status as a war hero entitles him to be president. Anyone with an interest in fairness and accuracy can see that. I guess the problem is not too many people are interested in such antiquated notions.

Patriotism is not about how many flag pins you can fit on your collar. Any idiot can tack on a pin, salute a flag or recite a pledge. All it means is that they want people to believe they love their country. Doesn’t mean they do. Get beyond the token gestures and examine real thoughts and actions.

Sixty vehicles owned by the city of Orlando were found spray-painted with "Obama smokes crack," and other hate messages late last weekend. Business cards also found at the scene contained negative messages about both Senator Obama and McCain, but positive messages about Senator Clinton. Orlando police think the vandalism may have been politically motivated. Uh huh. The vandals seem to have confused Senator Obama with former Washington D.C Mayor Marion Barry. But I guess that's an easy mistake to make. I mean, all black people look alike, right? Morons.

A Texas man who has spent the past 15 years in prison is set to become the 33rd convict in the state to be exonerated by DNA evidence since 2001. Patrick Waller was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and robbery and cocaine possession largely on the basis of, what now turns out to be faulty eyewitness testimony. Fortunately for Waller, Dallas County archives it’s evidence instead of destroying it like many other counties do. He is also the beneficiary of the election of District Attorney Craig Watkins, whose willingness to re-examine closed cases has exposed what appears to be a chronically defective justice system and provided a second chance for nearly three dozen falsely accused and wrongly convicted men. Perhaps a state with this many erroneous convictions shouldn’t be quite so anxious to stick needles in people’s arms.

In another example of Texas justice, a Houston grand jury refused to indict 62-year-old Joe Horn for killing the two men he caught burglarizing his neighbor’s empty house. Horn placed a call to 911, telling the dispatcher that two men had broken into his neighbor’s home and asking for the police to be sent. He then went on to indicate he had a shotgun and was going to kill the intruders. The dispatcher spent the next six minutes on the phone with Horn trying to prevent him from following through with his intentions. But when Horn saw the men climbing out of a broken window with two bags of loot in hand, he decided he’d had enough, went outside and shot both men in the back as they were fleeing, killing them. Some people think Horn should have shown a little restraint, maybe waited for the police to arrive and take care of business. But to his neighbors, most of the state of Texas, and a sizable portion of the country, Horn is a hero. Heck, judging by the comments attached to the story, Joe Horn should be elected president. Many commend him for getting two more “scumbag illegals” off the street.

Horn’s lawyer notes that Horn was within his legal rights to do what he did. According to Texas law, a person is allowed to respond with deadly force to defend life and property, and someone else’s property, even if there is no immediate danger to the respondent (a fleeing burglar for example.) I just don’t understand what kind of a civilized society passes that law. Make no mistake about it, if Joe Horn had shot two intruders breaking into his own house, I wouldn’t be writing this, and the story wouldn’t be news. But Horn murdered two individuals who broke into a house he knew to be empty in broad daylight, as they were fleeing from him, with the police on their way. And Texas believes that trading irreplaceable lives for replaceable stuff is a perfectly reasonable, civilized thing to do. Advocates claim that allowing people carry weapons everywhere at all times and shoot people for whatever reason is key to reducing violent crime. If the criminals don’t know who’s carrying guns, the theory states, they’ll be less likely attack people. Yet, according to FBI statistics, the violent crime rate is Texas, where everybody and their dog has a shotgun and a semi-automatic, is about equal to that of Illinois, where firearms are much more tightly regulated. But I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for that.

Horn claims he regrets his actions, and given the same circumstances, would not repeat them. I don’t believe him. A listen to the recording of his 911 call tells me the opposite. He had multiple opportunities not to shoot two people in the back. He even had a voice in his ear begging him to stay inside and refrain from killing people. Yet he chose to do otherwise. And with all the support he is receiving, there is absolutely nothing to indicate he wouldn’t do it again. I wonder if the response would have been different had the victims been two college students who had forgotten their keys home for the weekend, breaking into their parents house?

Starbucks has announced it will close 600 stores nationwide as part of an attempt to return to profitability. The gas-guzzling SUV of the coffee industry is worth only half of what is was last year, suffering from reckless expansion, unwise diversification, cannibalistic competition and seven-dollar coffee that tastes like 70 cent coffee. The moral of this story, American’s need to drink more coffee! How am I going to survive without the six Starbucks cafes along the four mile route between my house and my office?

Finally, a 24-year-old American hiker was rescued from a ledge in the Bavarian Alps after she used her sports bra to attract the attention of lumberjacks working in the area. Jessica Bruinsma had been hiking in the Alps with a friend when she lost her way in bad weather and fell 16 feet onto a rocky overhang. She spent the next 70 hours on that ledge with a bruised leg and separated shoulder while rescuers searched for her in vain. However, in a flash of pure genius (and a feat of flexibility with a dislocated shoulder), Bruinsma was able to remove her sports bra and attach it to a (luckily) downed cable used by lumberjacks to transport timber down the mountainside. When a repairman restored the line, the cable car, along with Bruinsma's bra, began moving up the mountain to the lumberjack's base. Finding the undergarment, the men realized that somewhere along the cable car line was a young woman without her underwear, and immediately sprang into action. Bruinsma was picked up by an Alpine rescue team a short time later. So let that be a lesson. If you're ever going hiking or camping or wandering off in nature, carry an extra bra. It just might save your life.