America . . . at Gate 14

Anyone who knows me knows that I would never be mistaken for a conservative. I'm not so far left that I'd tip the boat over, but I am definitely a liberal. But I believe in the saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer. So I read the Wall Street Journal. I read Peggy Noonan fairly regularly, and I rarely agree with her. But this time around, I think she has a point.

Peggy is sitting in AnyAirport, America at Gate 14. She's tuning out Wolf Blitzer as he talks of the Pennsylvania primaries. And she's looking around realizing who Barak Obama's real enemy is. It's not Clinton or McCain. It's the average American who understands, truely feels, what patriotism is. The people of middle America who see the understanding in McCain's patriotism and in Clinton's time in Arkansas. The America that realizes Bush wasn't the president they could sit down and have a beer with. Peggy sees what Barak is missing, she sees the America that is beginning to get a whiff of Barak's elitism.

Hillary in 2012?

I admit I voted for Hillary in the primaries. I think that she is the best candidate overall to make the changes we need in Washington. But I'm coming to terms with the very real possibility that Obama will take the Democratic nomination. So I ask myself, with the race going this way, why is Hillary staying? Is she staying so that a dialog will remain open in the Democratic party? Is she hoping that some miracle will happen and all the super delegates will swing her way? (Which, by the way, I'm praying for!) Or is she laying the groundwork for her next run in 2012?

Missing Her . . .

The house is quiet. Just me and Ben, the dog. You'd think Ben would make enough noise that the house would have it's normal sounds, but it's just not right. She's in a hotel room for the weekend. Her once a month routine that I'll never get used to. I miss the scruff of her foot on the floor. The sound of her breathing. The fall of foot on the stairs. I miss her being here. And I postpone climbing the stairs to climb into our bed, where I'll miss her warmth. It's as if part of me didn't make it home from work. Ben even senses it. He looks at me from time to time as if to say, well, where is she? Let's go get her. Sunday won't be soon enough . . .

The Price of a War

We hear daily the cost of fighting a war in Iraq. Estimates are in the billions, sometimes even in the trillions. Who knows what the war will eventually cost us in dollars and in lives. What many don't realize is that the cost in lives isn't always those of the men and women who are in harms way. Some of the lives belong to the underprivileged in our urban neighbors. A program called YouthBuild, started in 1994, provides construction training and education to help high school dropouts obtain their GED and learn a trade while giving back to their communities. The people enrolled in the program renovate and rebuild houses in their own neighborhoods. For the fourth year, the program is marked to receive only $50 million in funding. 23% less than in 2004. And is causing many of the programs to close their doors. Read the YouthBuild story in the St. Louis Dispatch.

Learning from the youth . . . .

All of us have faced some kind of negative reaction to who we are or what we believe at some time in our lives. It takes a lot to stand up to that and be who we are in the face of ridicule. Teenagers and their friends across the country in small towns and big cities are standing up for themselves. Read this story about a Gay Straight Alliance in small St. Charles, MO.