This one goes to a certain Liberal newspaper publisher here in my town of residence. Not a bad sort, and he's always reliable in returning my e-mails.

I hope he heeds the wisdom of your words. I doubt that he will.

Damn well said, as always.

I have given up on wondering if you may ever cease to better your previous posts. There is a difference sir, between a talent and a gift.

You sir, are possessed of a magnificent gift. I do truly believe that your works will echo far, far into the future.

Respectfully,

Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX

Wow! A truly poetic and visionary rant.

Ditto on what Jim said. You have a gift.

I just could not/would not log off for the night without one last peek. Bedtime is now put off, for I must distribute as far and wide as my email list allows!

As always, I pray that God keeps you safe and healthy for decades more, so that you may continue to share your wisdom by the gift of your word.

Love you dearly.

From the rural hinterland of the UK please accept my profound thanks for today's wonderful exposition. As long as the human spirit continues to manifest itself in the unique mind of Gerard Vanderleun we can be assured that all is not lost. You voice with great clarity the concerns that we less inarticulate sad souls are unable to express. It is good to know that there is still at least one poetic philosopher extant. May the special relationship flourish, despite the attacks that are being currently made to undermine it.

I apologise for the typo: 'less inarticulate' should have read 'less articulate' and of course the error proves the point!

"Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me." Sigmund Freud

I have nothing intelligent to add to this discussion. I just wanted to say I saw Dylan in concert perform "All Along the Watchtower" a couple weeks ago.

Gerard,

I'm one of the red state knuckle dragging boobs who hasn't watched the Perkster in 20 years. It's not so much that I can't stomach the media's predominant political view--and I can't--it's jsut that I won't be insulted in my own home.

Let's not worry our little heads about the fine points of political nuance and interpretation. Let's focus on getting the simple things right. Tell me that the DJIA fell 30 points. I could care less that the airhead news reader thinks that rising gas prices caused it. My God, they are dumb, and arrogant, and condescending, and nauseating.

In the words of the poet, "there is some shit I will not eat."

Awesome article. And accurate.

I love the way you put words together.

Van der Leun RULES!

I was about to correct you and say "Watergate, Vietnam, Sports and Weather." However, with the focus on scandal, sports has been Watergated. And with George Bush being the cause of global warming, weather has been Vietnamized.

I was about to correct you and say "Watergate, Vietnam, Sports and Weather." However, with the focus on scandal, sports has been Watergated. And with George Bush being the cause of global warming, weather has been Vietnamized.

I 3rd Gagdad!

Some parents just can't let go. Their kids grow up and start independent lives. But they refuse to acknowledge that their young now have to make, and correct, their own mistakes. Their children are now responsible for themselves.

How much more terrible when the guardianship is self imposed? When the wardenship is not merely thrown off, but outright ignored? Our watchers watch as we assume the responsibilities of maturity that are ours by right, and have tizzies at the thought of being made irrelevant.

Oh the blow to the ego, to learn you're not even necessary. At a time when you know you are needed as never before. And your charges, your precious lambs insist on wondering out into the noisome wilds; seeking wolves to mug and strip of their possessions.

(Helpless and vicious criminals. Just one of the many contradictory beliefs held by our self chosen surrogate parents.)

Well, as Bob Dylan once said,

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't critisize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old role is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a changin'

Well said. As usual.

Sometimes a relentless consistency becomes boring, even when what's repeated is excellence. Not in your case. Thanks for this.

Well said. As usual.

Sometimes a relentless consistency becomes boring, even when what's repeated is excellence. Not in your case. Thanks for this.

I love words, and you are an
elegant word smith.

I love danger, and you are a
dangerous man.

I love war, and you are a
fearless warrior.

Outstanding as usual, Gerard. The only problem is that there are still enough uninformed and therefore dangerous people out there to elect a Democrat majority in the House and the Senate in '06 and the White House in '08. If that happens we are all in deep fecal material. The first thing they'll do is raise taxes. The second thing they'll do is initiate articles of impeachment, and the third thing they'll do is retreat from fighting the hard but necessary World War IV.

"Bells of Rhymney" was written by Idris Davies.

Luke G.

Uncle Bob's been doing great lately (i.e., the past 10-15 years or so).

I saw him last fall (kick-ass version of "Down Along the Cove"), and I'm looking forward to the next time he comes my way.

His last three albums, "World Gone Wrong", "Time Out of Mind", and "Love and Theft" are among the best albums he has EVER recorded.

Bob Dylan a nostalgia act? I think not.

Dear Schuler,

Thanks for the information about Idris Davies. Duly noted and corrected above.

Gerard

Brought all this back here for Chester and others who are very concerned. There are actions we can plan.

Clarice Feldman at The American Thinker:
The middle class bails on the Democrats

She quotes Martin Frost's piece at RCP as to the percentages of the middle class of all races that the Dems have lost. She ends with this:

... they are now the party of rich elitists, working with the loony left to cater to the losers at the cost of the middle class. And everyone knows it.

We are going to vote and sure we are going to drag any hesitant/lazybones Repub we know.
But we must do more and this is truly important and frightening - if the Clintonistas have their way:

Clinton NSC Team Targets Weldon

In June 2005, Weldon went public with news that Clinton administration lawyers prevented the Defense Intelligence Agency's Able Danger group from blowing the whistle on two al-Qaida terrorists who would later pilot the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has given $500 to Sestak.

Disgraced former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger has given Weldon's opponent $1,000.

Disgraced ex-Clinton CIA director John Deutch gave $500.

Former Clinton Navy secretary John Dalton ponied up $500 to defeat Weldon.

Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta - $300.

Berger's predecessor as national security adviser, Anthony Lake - $500.

Even Hillary Clinton has gotten into the act, contributing $2,500 to defeat Curt Weldon.

Actually, they forgot one more Clintonista:

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon called yesterday for Democratic opponent Joe Sestak to return $350 in campaign contributions from Mary O. McCarthy, the CIA investigator fired last week for allegedly leaking classified information to the news media. {in addition to her $7,500.00 to Dems in 2004 elections}

Sestak's spokeswoman noted, in reply, that the CIA employee had not been charged with any crime and said she saw no reason for the money to be returned "at this time."

The Able Danger Blog has a link directly to Weldon's Campaign. We should not let them win this seat and stop the story of Clintonistas' many derelictions of duty.

Brilliant! And I say that even though I am coming to detest Bush (albeit for vastly different reasons than the dead-tree and dead-synapse media do).

Hey check out this awesome response letter to Iranian President by and Israeli student
http://tlv.newsvine.com/_news/2006/05/11/193709-letter-to-iranian-president-from-an-israeli-where-is-home#comments

Beautiful rant; seamless, poetic. Thank you...

Gerard, you must be told your beliefs as written here help keep many of us sane. You are, indeed, gifted. Thank you for being unable to keep it to yourself.

I hear the bells, bells, bells, bells, but I hear not what the ringers intend. What I hear instead is what you stated: their plan to kill us after taxing us half to death. So let them keep ringing, I don't want to shut them up, they're telling us who they are and what they want.

Well said!

Of course, I see the dilemma as running deeper. The bellringers wish to destroy this country, that's clear enough, but they are far less dishonest about supporting the policies that will undermine us.

On one side, you have the man who rings the bell, foams at the mouth, and screams at the top of his lungs "DOWN WITH ALL CORRUPTION!" On the other side, the man who carefully extends a friendly hand, smiles kindly and says, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing and I only want to HELP." I know whom I'd rather trust - but I also know who's being more open about their intentions, and it's not the same person.

I agree that the media only tells two stories Vietnam and watergate. The sad part is they always get the Vietnam story wrong.

Our cowardly withdrawl in the the face of adversity was a travesty. We could have and should have won that war. Milions of people killed in Cambodia and vietnam after the US withdrawl died because my country refused to do what John Kennedy said we would do.

"...Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."— John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961

VDL, thanks.

Perhaps the media keep repeating the same old same old because the people they are reporting are doing the same? The same old incompetent belligerence, the same old desire to destabilise the governments you don't like without the competence to do it properly, the same old refusal to admit that policies on many things to do with the environment are going to have to change, the same old protection of industries that give politicians money (or that are owned by those politicians in some cases).

If everything that is happening isn't changing, should the reporting of it change?

Perhaps when the government of the USA starts looking past the next election, and starts putting the good of its citizens before their own bank accounts, then the reporting will change. Maybe also, when corporate board members start putting the long-term future of their companies and the interests of their shareholders ahead of their next quarterly bonus, then reporting will change. Fat chance of either.

None of this ought to matter to me, of course; I live in the UK. But one thing Americans are very good indeed at is exporting their bad habits; junk TV with synthetic laughtracks, junk music that glorifies gangsterism and violence, junk movies with much more CGI than story, junk food, big flashy junk cars, government by lobbyists, DRM obsession, no win no fee lawsuits (leading to ever-increasing insurance rates and obsession with Elf 'n Safety) and (perhaps worst of all) Political Correctness.

As an example of what's wrong with America, am I not right in saying that every single American car company is in trouble, and cars from Far Eastern and to a lesser extent European countries are increasingly dominating America's roads? Maybe someone ought to think about why.

"[A]m I not right in saying that every single American car company is in trouble, and cars from Far Eastern and to a lesser extent European countries are increasingly dominating America's roads? Maybe someone ought to think about why." You are right. Answer: Labor Unions. BTW, looks like that pseudo-socialist paradise, the UK, will soon be returning to the good old days of the 1970s, with multiple strikes, including trash collection, planned for launch soon. Perhaps the IMF bail you out again. Finally, why are your fellow Brits abandoning the island paradise (largest out migration since 1908) in such numbers? Searching for a better life, perhaps? Finally, who was responsible for the death, destruction and misery visited on the world during the XXth century? Answer: Europe. Put a sock in it, pal.