Me and John

Barbara is off to Salt Lake City for a long weekend of General Conference and family. On Saturday she and her sisters are throwing a baby shower for one her nieces between sessions of conference. Should be a busy day at the Walkers.

John and I are on our regular routine during her absence. We have already been to the mall today and made purchases at the regular stores. I like shopping with John, we go into the store, he finds what he likes, and is ready to go. For instance, at the GAP today he found two new shirts that were on sale. We were in and out in less than five minutes.



I doubt if anyone actually reads my blog, and if they do if they click on the read more link.

I think a lot of people feel sorry for me when I am alone with John, but I actually enjoy the experience. For some reason he is much easier to handle when the two of us are alone. No head banging, crying fits or public displays. We had dinner last night at IHOP and had an enjoyable dinner. It helps that our favorite server has switched over to evenings on the weekend, we might end up there again tonight.

We are totally accepting of each other, faults and all. Plus we never have to worry about keeping our end of a conversation, so we both are alone in our thoughts a lot.

It hasn't always been this way. I don't if it was because of the times I was raised, or the influence of the church where you always had to look good and in control, but the first several years with John were a real challenge. I still have nightmares of trying to keep John quiet at church. I would take him out during services and walk him up and down the hall. Invariably someone from another ward would come out and tell us to be quiet. I would then end up taking him for rides until church was over. As time went on, it was just easier to stay home from church.

One year Christmas fell on a Sunday and I thought it would be nice for the entire family to go to church. I figured that we could keep John under control for an hour service. We sat down, and John started getting noisy. A man a few rows in front of us turned around and gave us the evil eye. Barbara took John out and they tried to get the nursery open so he could play during church. Being Christmas, the classroom doors were locked, so I ended up driving John around in the van looking for something that was open while he screamed. We went back to church when services were supposed to be over. We ended up waiting in the van in the cold for another 30 minutes because the speaker decided that the best way to spend Christmas for was for him to talk. It didn't occur to anyone in my family to leave even though we were waiting outside.

I guess I sound bitter. The last straw was when Barbara was called to be the Relief Society president in our ward. The bishopric called me in to get permission. I told them that they could call her but that meant I would not longer be able to attend church. They said they could live with that.

The bishop was later excommunicated and one of the counsels a few years later shot himself in the head when he had been stopped by police. It turns out that he was a collector of child porn.

I belonged to a men's therapy group, and among other issues I worked on dealing with being the parent of a child with autism. One week I brought John in, thinking that one session with John present would be worth many hours of explanation. It was a turning point for me. First, the group told me how much they liked John. Second, they told me that they thought I was doing a great job with him.  That was a very big contradiction from what I had been hearing from people at church, and from family members. To be fair, it was what I was hearing, not necessarily what was being said.

Another turning point was when I started taking John to church at University Baptist Church here in Austin. For decades they have had a mission of reaching out to everyone. I had mentioned to the associate pastor that John and I were not comfortable attending services in our own church, and she insisted that we bring him to services there. Over the next couple of weeks, countless members of the congregation and all of the ministers made a point of welcoming us to the services. The funny thing is that for the most part John was, for lack of a better phrase, very reverent in the services.

If anyone is actually reading this, especially members of the church, I hope I haven't offended you.  But these are my experiences.  I suppose a better person would have found a way to stay active in the church.

According to LDS thelogy, when we are all gone John will be among those in the celestial kingdom.  I guess my mission in life is to take care of him while I can and hope that he visits me in one of the lesser kingdoms from time to time.

With the Party of Dobson

Another example of the wit and wisdom of Dr. James Dobson.

With the Party of Dobson: "But as Allen sought to dampen the public controversy over his mishandling of his Jewish heritage, his association with these 'Four Horsemen' simply called attention to Dobson's and Perkins's problematic utterances. Dobson's Focus on the Family, for example, published an article in its Citizen magazine last February attacking the parents of federal judge Stephen Reinhardt (whose step-grandfather was a Holocaust survivor) for telling their son 'tales of horrific violence' about the Holocaust 'that lacked the redemptive power of Christ's atonement.' The Anti-Defamation League has repeatedly condemned Wildmon for his conspiratorial diatribes against 'secular Jews.' And Perkins, for his part, paid $82,500 to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke for his phone-bank list and then spoke at a 2001 fundraiser for the Council of Conservative Citizens, America's largest white supremacist organization. (When I asked Perkins about his links to Duke and the CCC, he replied tersely, 'There are no links.')"

Picture show | Salon.com

Picture show | Salon.com:

Another great column from Garrison Keeler.

But the camera can be fearfully truthful. Look at the picture of the Current Occupant, reading a speech to the troops at Camp Pendleton, wearing a zip-up jacket with little epaulets on the shoulders, a presidential seal sewn on the right breast, and on the left breast the words "George W. Bush, Commander in Chief." Is this for his benefit or that of the troops? No president ever needed to wear a name tag before. He is the first. Insecurity is written all over him. Look at Dick Cheney. No need for a name tag there.

Clinton vs. Bush: A foolish fight for the GOP to pick

There is a disturbingly strong willingness on the part of many Bush supporters to refuse to recognize even indisputable facts if those facts undermine their desire to believe that something is true. That is how, to cite just a few examples, they continue to believe that things are going well in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein really did have WMD, and that their unpopular views on war and terrorism are shared by a majority of Americans. But it is difficult to recall anything that more vividly illustrates this fact-denying dynamic than the reaction of Bush supporters to Bill Clinton's now-famous interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace.

One right-w festivals, Snowdown in the ...


Dodge - Durango
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The terrorists have won

This American Life - Autism story

A difficult segment for me to listen to. See act two below.

Stories of unconditional love between parents and children, and how hard love can be sometimes in daily practice.
Prologue. Hard as it is to believe, during the early twentieth century, a whole school of mental health professionals decided that unconditional love was a terrible thing to give a child. The government printed pamphlets warning mothers against the dangers of holding their kids. The head of the American Psychological Association and even a mothers' organization endorsed the position that mothers were dangerous – until psychologist Harry Harlow set out to prove them wrong, with a series of experiments with monkeys. Ira talks with Deborah Blum, author of Love at Goon Park, a biography of Harlow. (10 minutes)

Act One. Love is a Battlefield. Alix Spiegel tells the story of a couple, Heidi and Rick Solomon, who adopt a son who was raised in terrible circumstances in a Romanian orphanage, unable to feel attachments to anyone, and what they do about it. (27 minutes)
Song: "Loveless Town," Sarah Blust

Act Two. Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Dave Royko talks about the decision he and his wife faced recently about his autistic son's future, and whether he should continue to live with the family. (19 minutes)

Five years later, Richards' reflections ring true

Interesting article from today's Austin American Statesman.

"It's the first thing I thought of. The very first thing," Richards told "Eklektikos" host John Aielli that day. "This thing, (this attack), is so awful, so anxious-making, it's going to be used to (do) some things people would have liked to have gotten done a long time ago. That is: to be able to do wiretaps at will, to be able to interfere with immigration. They're going to be questioning a lot of people because of the color of their skin, or their national origin.

"Yeah, that worries me to death. I think we need to be super vigilant that we do not destroy the very tenants that this country was created for."

Just eight weeks after the attacks, Richards was thinking about what many Americans are discussing today — a governmental wiretap policy, the longterm effects of the Patriot Act, the right of Americans to speak freely in dissent.

Ann Richards and guns

One of the points in the earlier post didn't ring true so I did some research and found the following article. I clearly remember seeing pictures of Ann Richards going dove hunting.

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/003539.html

I learned something new about the late Gov Richards...

Then came the anti-gun stuff. Of course, the smear machine contended, what else would this drug-addicted, feminist do, if elected, but take away Bubba's guns. So, on Labor Day 1990, capital press corps in tow, Ann Richards trekked into East Texas to a lease rented by a state senator to put everyone's mind at ease by killing some birds.

It was a charade, and everyone including Ann knew it. But she never complained. She was in the race to win, and she embraced it every day, one day at a time. Whatever came her way, she did what she had to do.

I wasn't along on that trip, but it has been recounted hundreds of times. Celia Morris gives a great recap of it in her book, "Storming the Statehouse: Running for Governor with Ann Richards and Dianne Feinstein."

The hunt was successful, meaning Ann actually fired the gun and didn't shoot anyone; she wore the appropriate clothes and refrained from doing anything too feminine like giggling. The Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston television stations showed film of the trip, and the statewide papers wrote it up dutifully.

Later in the day, something much more important happened. Something that told many of us much more about how tough Ann Richards was than whether she could fire a gun. A woman who later became a judge in Dallas County told me about this much later in casual conversation.

The last stop Richards made that day was at a mega flea market near the tiny town of Canton. Ann and the group were drawing a crowd that kept growing as they walked though the cars and tables shaking hands with voters.

As always, young girls flocked to see her. At one point she stopped to talk to them. Ann told the girls – about a dozen of them, all grade school age - that she had been Dove hunting; and that afterward, she had cleaned a few birds. One of the girls asked, "Cleaned the birds?"

Ann said something like, "Yeah, after you kill the birds, you have to pluck out all the feathers. Then, you cut them under their rib cage and stick your hand in there and pull out all the guts, so you can cook them."

The girls let out a near simultaneous cry of "EWWWWWWWWWWWWW. EWWWWW. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW."

Then came the Richards magic, as always at the most unexpected moment. Dropping to one knee, looking them in the eye, Ann responded. "EWWWWWWWW???!?! EWWWWWW?????!?"

She paused. Then, the silver-haired, bee-hived grandmother in hunting fatigues told these girls something she wanted them to remember all their lives. Ann wasn't sure if she was going to win that race, so she wanted every moment to count.

"Well," she said slowly, lovingly, "if you can't put your hand in the EWWWWWW, you can't be governor."

And she stood up, put her arms behind two of the girls and kept walking. Right into the history books.

Ann Richards on How to Be a Good Republican:

From Rosie O'Donnell's blog. Remember when she used to be nice? I like her better this way.
No telling if Ann Richards actually ever said this though. I do remember that she was someone who would go hunting for instance.

1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault.

2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.

3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.

4. You have to believe that AIDS victims deserve their disease, but smokers with lung cancer and overweight individuals with heart disease don't deserve theirs.

5. You have to appreciate the power rush that comes with sporting a gun.

6. You have to believe…everything Rush Limbaugh says.

7. You have to believe that the agricultural, restaurant, housing and hotel industries can survive without immigrant labor.

8. You have to believe God hates homosexuality, but loves the death penalty.

9. You have to believe society is color-blind and growing up black in America doesn't diminish your opportunities, but you still won't vote for Alan Keyes.

10. You have to believe that pollution is OK as long as it makes a profit.

11. You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don't pray to Allah or Buddha.

12. You have to believe Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde were really faithful husbands.

13. You have to believe speaking a few Spanish phrases makes you instantly popular in the barrio.

14. You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.

15. You have to be against government interference in business, until your oil company, corporation or Savings and Loan is about to go broke and you beg for a government bail out.

16. You love Jesus and Jesus loves you and, by the way, Jesus shares your hatred for AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton.

17. You have to believe government has nothing to do with providing police protection, national defense, and building roads.

18. You have to believe a poor, minority student with a disciplinary history and failing grades will be admitted into an elite private school with a $1,000 voucher.

Great expectations | Salon.com

Great expectations | Salon.com: "But the deeper truth is that Clinton's tireless worldwide outreach to the business, nonprofit and government sectors -- many of whose most important players showed up for the second CGI gathering this week -- represents a profound rebuke to the policies and priorities of the Bush administration. That became obvious on the morning after the first lady's appearance, when Clinton introduced Richard Branson to make an extraordinary promise. Over the next 10 years, Virgin Airlines and Virgin Rail will devote all corporate profits, estimated at $3 billion, to research and investment in technologies that have the potential to mitigate global warming"

War Room - Salon.com

War Room - Salon.com: "Clinton on Clinton, the war and Karl Rove

David Remnick profiles Bill Clinton in this week's New Yorker. You'll have to kill a tree or two to read the entire 23-page production, but a press release from the magazine offers up some of the choicest bits from the former president:

On his role in his wife's presidential campaign: 'If she decides that's what she wants to do, I'll be for it, and I'll work for it, and I know what the deal is.'

On whether he'll be a negative factor: 'Only if people thought she wouldn't be her own person, and I don't think that will be a problem.'

On upstaging Hillary at the funeral of Coretta Scott King: 'I read about that, and I said, 'Hillary, if we both spoke at the Wellesley reunion, you'd probably get a better reception.' I said, 'You can't pay any attention to this.' I said, 'This is my life. I grew up in these churches ... You don't have to be better at this than me. You got to be better than whoever.''

On Democrats, like Hillary, who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq: 'This deal with Iraq makes me want to throw up. I'm sick and tired of being told that if you voted for authorization you voted for the war. It was a mistake, and I would have made it, too.'

On the Bush administration's plan for 'postwar' Iraq: 'The sort of thing two students of international relations could have thrown together in forty-five minutes. They were arrogant. They thought it would be easy, and they thought there would be no terrorism, that everyone would be on their side.'

On Democratic losses in 2000 and 2004: 'I'm sick of Karl Rove's bullshit.'"

Fine dining at IHOP

Had a milestone of sorts tonight. I had dinner with a friend and took advantage of the senior citizen early bird special tonight, I got my entree for free. I felt funny about it so I tipped the server the difference.

I saw the son of one of the servers I have know for years. The kid is cute, around 3, and is a failure to thrive kid. The server told his wife that I am an inspiration because of the way I handle John. Nice to be an inspiration to someone. For me it is the opposite, I am not a waiter making minimum wage and tips so it is much easier to provide for John and the rest of my family than it is for him.

I guess we all have our own challenges, some of which are self inflicted.

No Spinach

I eat a lot of fresh spinach so I am having trouble with the current embargo. Don't want to get sick of course.

AlterNet: Remembering Ann Richards

I am really going to miss Ann Richards. I saw her in person twice, once flying in coach a few rows ahead of me on a flight from Phoniex to Austin (you could not miss her white hair), and another time standing behind her at the concession stand at a local movie theater.
AlterNet: Remembering Ann Richards:

At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin' and greetin' at a furious pace. A group of us got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar. Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, moi, Charles Miles, the head of Bullock's personnel department, and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good sumbitch in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, "Bob, my boy, how are you?"

Bullock said, "Judge, I'd like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer."

The judge peered up at me and said, "How yew, little lady?"

Bullock, "And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department." Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie's palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Ann beamed and replied, "I am Mrs. Miles."

One of the most moving memories I have of Ann is her sitting in a circle with a group of prisoners. Ann and Bullock had started a rehab program in prisons, the single most effective thing that can be done to cut recidivism (George W. Bush later destroyed the program). The governor of Texas looked at the cons and said, "My name is Ann, and I am an alcoholic."

From my dad

Montana Cowboy

Montana Cowboy A Montana cowboy was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy,

"If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany . Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.

He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give my back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says the cowboy.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep.

Now give me back my dog

Murdocks Blog Across America: John's school picture

Murdocks Blog Across America: John's school picture

Ten reasons we already miss Ann Richards

Was sad to hear this morning that Gov Richards had passed away.

Ann Richards, the famously silver-tongued and silver-haired former governor of Texas, died Wednesday from complications of esophageal cancer. She was 73. Here's just some of what we'll remember and miss about her:

1. Richards used her wit not only to disarm her political opponents but to encourage other women to get into politics: "Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics," she said.

2. As a homemaker raising four kids, Richards became politically involved by volunteering on campaigns, including helping elect Sarah Weddington, the 25-year-old lawyer who had successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court, to the Texas House. Richards called Weddington the first "out-and-out feminist activist" she'd ever met, according to the Washington Post.

3. Two years after undergoing rehab for alcoholism in 1982, Richards was elected state treasurer, making her the first woman elected to a statewide post in Texas in 50 years. Of her return from addiction, she said: "I believe in recovery, and I believe that as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it."

4. When Richards gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 1988 -- where she zinged the elder George Bush -- "Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth" -- she also reminded the audience that she was only the second woman to give the keynote address at the convention in 160 years. The first was Barbara Jordan.

5. Richards may have lost her reelection bid to George W. Bush in 1994, but she beat another rich Texas oilman in her first governor's race: Clayton "Claytie" Williams, who during the campaign compared rape to the weather: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." That race was dubbed a match between "Claytie and the Lady," in which "the Lady" prevailed by a narrow margin. Sixty-one percent of women voters supported her, and she became the second woman ever to be governor of Texas.

6. As a feminist, Richards championed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in Texas. She led workshops for women campaign managers and political candidates before being elected to office herself. When she became the first woman in half a century to serve as governor, she celebrated by holding up a T-shirt that showed the State Capitol and read: "A woman's place is in the dome."

7. As governor, Richards made it a priority to appoint more women, African-Americans and Hispanics to state boards than any previous Texas governor. Before she left office in 1995, she said: "I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.'" According to KWTX-TV she appointed "the first black University of Texas regent; the first crime victim to join the state Criminal Justice Board; the first disabled person to serve on the human services board; and the first teacher to lead the State Board of Education."

8. For her 60th birthday, Richards got a license to ride a motorcycle.

9. Late in life, Richards continued her advocacy for reproductive freedom. Appearing at a pro-choice rally in Austin in 2003, she denounced the influence of "a small group of religious right-wingers" on the Bush administration's policies and on Texas' abstinence-only sex education programs. One of her daughters, Cecile Richards, is now president of Planned Parenthood.

10. In her later years, Richards established the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, which will open in 2007. Her family requests that memorial gifts be made to the school, through the Austin Community Foundation.

There'll never be another Ann Richards, but here's hoping her school graduates generations of her successors.

-- Katharine Mieszkowski

Quote of the day

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Salon: Allen: My heart is pure (and sorry about that Confederate flag thing)

Gee, how could anyone take offense about the Confederate flag? This guy wants to be president, and hey, if GWB can do it, why not Allen?

Fresh off his "Ethnic Rally," Virginia Sen. George Allen told an audience of educators from historically black colleges Tuesday that he's sorry for his "macaca" moment and that he understands now -- he didn't before -- why his embrace of the Confederate flag might be a problem in the minds of African-Americans and others.

Allen used to keep Confederate flags in his home and in his office. He sported one on his lapel in college, and he included one in his first TV campaign ad. But as the Virginian-Pilot reports, Allen says now that he should have realized long ago that his embrace of the flag sent a message -- even if he didn't mean it to. "The point is, symbols matter, they should matter, and this is something that I wish I learned a lot earlier," Allen said. "Even if your heart is pure, the things you say and do and the symbols you use do matter because of the way others may take them."

Among the things that Allen has said and done? Aside from hanging a noose in this office and buddying up with the modern-day equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, he opposed both the 1991 Civil Rights Act and the idea of a holiday commemorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. It seems that Allen didn't mention any of that in his speech Tuesday. What he did say: Calling S.R. Sidarth "macaca" came in a "careless moment" when "I fell short of my own standards, of my own positive way of living and what I strive and aspire to be."

Coming soon for the senator: "George Allen's 11th Annual Hoe Down," where $5,000 will make you a "Ranch Boss" and get you and your guests into a private reception with Allen and talk-show host Laura Ingraham, who plugs the event in an interview with Allen over what sounds like the first few notes of "Dueling Banjos."

Guns on a plane | Salon.com

Another gem from Garrison Keillor.

Guns on a plane | Salon.com: "The way to stop terrorists on planes is to encourage passengers to bring loaded firearms aboard: guys in orange vests sitting in exit rows with deer rifles on their laps, ladies with Mr. Colt in their purses, kids with peashooters. Somebody wake up the NRA. Does the Second Amendment say 'The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except on commercial airliners'? Where is the right wing when you really need them?"