IS TOMORROW THE DAY?

Let's hope so...there are so many conflicting reports it's hard to keep it all straight. But I gather that at least Rove and Libby are being indicted, Libby on possibly two counts. And apparently Rove wouldn't deal for a lesser charge--he's counting on his pardon, I guess. But whatever happens, I generally follow the action at AmericaBlog...

Letter To The Editor

Here's a letter from my local paper, followed by my response to it:

Don't dishonor nation's heroes

It is a human tragedy that we as Americans must take into account in the war on terror - that being the deaths of 2,000 Americans in Iraq. The kooky left is exploiting that number as a milestone in 313 cities.
How do I know? Go to www.afsc.org/2000/default.php and see for yourself.

Why would this upset me, you ask? Well, just the night before last, I watched the WW II movie "The Battle of the Bulge" and a documentary about that battle. Yes, I have seen it before, but I am still in awe of the heroism of the Greatest Generation.

Those men and women who went to war to preserve our freedoms from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are real heroes.

In just that one 15-day battle, 75,000 allies were either captured, wounded or killed, and I can't find in WW II history one party celebrating their grief. That war led us to the Cold War, a 50-year battle that Ronald Reagan brought to a head with his military buildup. We won both wars and we don't speak Russian, German or Japanese. We don't live in a totalitarian society under an emperor or a chancellor.

This generation of young Americans stands toe to toe with the WW II vets and deserves our respect and support, and not to be spat on when they return the heroes they are.

A mother dishonors her child's decision to defend his country with activism and blots that heroism to obscurity. Don't do the same.

Frank Ross,

Lumberton

And my response, which will hopefully by printed tomorrow...

In his letter of Oct. 26, Frank Ross decries vigils being held by what he calls the "kooky" left to mourn the 2,000 U.S. combat casualties in Iraq and then spends the rest of his letter describing a WWII movie.

I would like to remind Mr. Ross that the Iraq war is not WWII (in which we were attacked by Japan) and it is not a movie.

Iraq never attacked us and never had the ability to do so. In a 2004 debate with John Kerry, even President Bush himself acknowledged that we were attacked by al Qaeda and not Saddam. If the Bush administration had not railroaded us into this illegal, immoral war, we would have eventually found out from the weapons inspectors that Iraq had no WMD of any kind without having to lose 2,000 of our own soldiers (to say nothing of the several thousand wounded) or killing tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Does Mr. Ross truly think that the Quakers (the sponsors of the vigils he mentioned) represent "kookiness"or that a vigil is at all similar to a "party" that is "celebrating" the grief of a fallen soldier's family? Does he truly think that the efforts of Cindy Sheehan and others to end the war so that American and Iraqi lives can be spared amount to "spitting on"our troops? If so, is it not clear that he and his fellow travellers have no concept of what Jesus meant when he said "blessed are the peacemakers?"

Hopefully the indictments looming over the Bush administration will help bring the distorted, misguided emotionalism and intellectual dishonesty of Mr. Ross and others to an end. We were lied into this unjust war and we need to end it now.

Kelpie Rules!!!

And one more thing...I heard "Hey Friends, It's Kelpie" by...Kelpie today and wrote this gushing review:

Kelpie's latest album "Hey Friends, It's Kelpie" is extremely refreshing due to its ambitious wilingness to confound pop songwriting conventions couple with it's obvious accessibility. One would think that songs with so many changes of mood and meter within the same tune would frustrate the listener, but these songs are so well constructed and catchy that the expansiveness feels perfectly natural.

The album comes across like Badfinger playing the songs from Steely Dan's "Aja" or if Yes decided to make a Jellyfish album (or should that be the other way around?). Which is to say that there are complicated song structures but they're tied together with an exquisite pop sensibility--gorgeous harmonies come floating in and out of the mix at just the right time, garage rock handclaps propel songs forward, etc.

Kelpie exudes a wonderfully familiar strangeness not only in their music, but also in their packaging. For example, the lyrics are included but written phonetically, as are some of the song titles, like "Kunspyers" and "Wandurr Eng," the latter of which happens to be one of the album's strongest tunes.

The band is from Lawrence, Kansas and you may have never heard of them before and may never hear from them again, but "Hey Friends, It's Kelpie" is not just a record, it's an event. And not some empty, they've-got-a-great-look-but-no-talent type of event--this music is enveloping, timeless, and forward-looking. You simply must listen to this album.