WhackyNation

The Republicans are calling for a special seeion to toughen sexual predator laws and both Governor Christine Gregoire and House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler are open to it.

Hmmmmmm.

Maybe Republican leadership made a mistake.

As badly needed as the anti-predator laws are needed, a special session, by law, must be called for a 30-day session and not the two days as suggested by the Republicans.  Once called into session, any bill can be dropped.  Nothing is off the table.

Do we trust that the Democrats won’t drop any new “emergency” spending bills to augment the budget?  Will Senator Moonbeam push for an impeach Bush resolution.

A special session could end up letting the Dems run free in the candy store.

I hope you don’t mind if I get a little personal in this commentary. I grew up in Cleveland’s Italian community, usually referred to as Little Italy. There, at least 99 percent of the people were warmhearted, loving, honest, robust souls eager to help a friend or neighbor at any time of the day or night. They were beautiful people.

The other 1 percent lived a rather shady life of loan-sharking, gambling, and murder. I saw the Mafia operate firsthand, and I learned to hate it, just as my mother and father, both of them immigrants from Italy, did. They and our relatives and friends spoke frequently of the murderous passions of the Italians they knew to be linked to the Mafia, but they did it in hushed tones, as if members of that clandestine mob had rigged the houses with listening devices — which, in many instances, they may have.

As a boy, I saw gangland murders in broad daylight, police payoffs, and gun-slinging intimidation. An uncle refused to pay protection money at one time and lost his grocery to a Mafia-planted bomb in the dead of night. It very nearly cost him his life, too. He resumed payments immediately and was permitted to rebuild his grocery.

My parents helped build up in me a rage against hoods and chiselers that has never subsided. However, they, like all the Italian-Americans in the neighborhood, were careful never to criticize the Mafia mobsters in public. One never knew whether a tipster for the mob was present.

Little wonder, then, that I decided to devote much of my life as a newsman to a personal crusade against all factions within the foul world of organized crime. When I finally made it to a position in which I could do something about it, I didn’t hesitate. As managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I led a brilliant staff of reporters in an investigation that exposed a Mafia-like crime system within Seattle’s city government, the prosecutor’s office, the sheriff’s office, and the police department. Fifty-five of them were indicted in a cleanup.

But, it seems, the honest Italian-Americans’ work is never done. Most of them wince when the Mafia attracts headlines or air time. For years, the news media seemed anxious to pin the “Italian” label on a gangster or racketeer — but to forget the same label when an Italian-American did something of a distinguished nature.

Maybe all that changed, at last, when a fellow named Antonin Scalia became the first Italian-American to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. And, much to my amazement and great satisfaction, the print and broadcast news media said, loud and clear, that the new justice was an “Italian-American.” Three cheers for justice, American style!

When Scalia was nominated by President Ronald Reagan back then in the mid-1980s, you may have noticed a smile — and a touch of relief — on the faces of all those friends of yours whose names ended in “a,” “i,” “e.” or “o.” Maybe you also heard one or two of them saying, “He’s one of our boys, by gum!”

By the same token, I’m certain that at least one justice on the bench of the highest court in the land is committed to the cause of eliminating organized crime in America.

I can’t resist the compulsion to revert once more to the I-Told-You-So File on an issue that brings to mind the unforgettable words of my wonderful old friend, the late and much lamented Dr. Dixy Lee Ray, who was an internationally renowned marine scientist, as well as the former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and, later, the first woman governor of Washington State.

In our more than 45 years of friendship and collaboration, she imparted so many wise comments to me that I wish now that I had carried a tape recorder around with me to capture all of them. One of the most profound and most memorable of her bits of wisdom was this one, which grew out of her lifetime of devotion to the oceans and the creatures that reside in them:

“Lou,” she began, “I know from my many years of observation and experience that one of the smartest living specimens in the ocean is the wily salmon, particularly the many wild species that live in the deep, constantly moving layers of salt water at every level, every temperature, and under so many adverse conditions.

“Remember this,” she continued. “Salmon are unpredictable. You read and hear every so often that salmon have disappeared, salmon fishermen are going broke, and that human pollution is killing the species off for good. Well, that’s a lot of ridiculous nonsense and the reaction of professional alarmists, like the environmental extremists.

“The salmon are smarter than the average animal, if you don’t mind my using an old expression. They travel thousands of miles in search of climates and feed that suit them, and they may stay away from their usual haunts — like inland rivers and lakes — as the sea environment suits them. And, then, they may suddenly appear, even after an absence of 15 or 20 years, in river beds, where they spawn and die.

‘In other words, they are a species whose whereabouts and future movements cannot be predicted. Who knows what prompts them to be so secretive in their movements and to calculate where and when they will suddenly decide to find a stream or river to spawn?”

Each time I read in a newspaper or hear on a TV or radio news program that “the worst is happening and that we have despoiled the environment and destroyed the salmon run,” Dr. Ray’s words of wisdom are recalled. In the Pacific Northwest, where salmon is king and the lifeblood of fishermen and the fishing industry, the same old alarmist nonsense is repeated by the enviro extremists.

The alarm was sounded once more just within the past year. “Human pollution is killing our most important ocean crop! Something must be done to stop the pollution!” And, then, the inevitable happened, as Dr. Ray forecast. After a slow start, the salmon began arriving in the Columbia River in record numbers! The unpredictable chinooks and their related salmon species had done it again — as they will continue to do until the oceans go dry!

But — and this is what irritates me most of all — the extremists never acknowledge that they were wrong and that salmon, the real kings of the sea, as Dr. Ray liked to say, will come and go as they please. Obviously, they haven’t studied sea life with the same passion Dr. Ray and other marine scientists have.

Long live King Salmon, the unpredictable!

Mainstreamer Representative Skip Priest (R-Federal Way) is holding a news conference in his home town at 1 PM today to call for a special session of the legislature to deal with lax and outdated sex offender laws.

“Our state has some effective sex offender laws on the books – but others are outdated and incapable of properly protecting the public. Our goal is to identify weak laws, discuss them with the public, and collectively propose solutions,” said Priest. “There are thirteen known registered sex offenders living within five miles of where the news conference will be held – which is a public park. In King County, there are more than 400 sex offenders with no known address. This problem is everywhere and the time to act is now – not later.”

The news conference will be held at Celebration Park and a pulic forum will be held at 6PM at the Federal Way City Hall.

Republicans  are calling for the scheduled Assembly Days on September 27th and 28th to be turned into a Special Session.  Legislators routinely meet several times a year outside of normal session to handle interim business.

“It’s clear that certain sex offenders are falling though the cracks of our system and the public wants answers and solutions – not excuses. People are demanding action now – and they deserve nothing less. That’s why we are creating a legislative package that we think the public will support,” said House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt. “Public safety is an immediate and vital responsibility of state government. We hope Democrats will not only be receptive to our ideas, but also put forth some reforms of their own. We look forward to that process.”

Besides addressing tougher laws against sex offenders, legislators need to take another look at the State Patrol.  Three successive Democrat governors including Christine Gregoire have slowly changed the agency from a true police and detective agency to a cadre of traffic cops.  Lawmakers must strengthen the Patrol by adding more detectives who can not only chase down sex offenders who fail to register but also fight drug trafficking and other crimes.

Yet another serial killer who should have been a candidate for execution will escape with his life as prosecutors put more emphasis on finding more dead victims than in carrying out real justice. This time the escapee is a longtime predator, rapist, and killer named Terapon Adhahn, and his victim is an innocent little girl, Zina Linnik.

Another among many cases that come to mind is that of the Green River killer, Gary Ridgway, who raped and killed 48 young women and who said in his confession that the number of victims was at least 60 or more. Like Adhahn, he helped lead law-enforcement officials to the bodies of some of his victims — and, in return, he was let off the hook and given life in prison, instead of execution, as a “gift” for his help.

Both men and others like them in the past have, in recent years, have been spared the death penalty by prosecutors who have been more interested in finding other slain victims than in following through with real justice. I think these prosecutorial deals for the sake of clearing up other murder cases is an abominable practice and should be discontinued.

Not only are law-enforcement officials letting these beastly killers off the hook. They have given other killers the message that all they have to do to avoid execution is to promise the cops that they are willing to lead them to the places in which the killers have buried or disposed of some of their victims.

I don’t think the tradeoff is worth it — not by a long shot. And I’m positive that the families of the victims deplore it, as well. In fact, I have said in other commentaries in the past that I would like to see a new practice adopted in the cases of proven killers. Instead of consigning them to death by injection or by hanging, why not let the families perform the act and dispose of the killers in whatever fashion they should choose? That would really give them the justice they seek.

I realize that those who are opposed to the death penalty for cold-blooded murderers have had some influence on law-enforcement officials and even the courts. Their argument has been that execution is “inhumane” punishment. I think they are wrong and should revise their thinking.

The term, inhumane punishment, is misleading and misunderstood. I believe it is far more humane to put a murderer through one or two minutes of pain that ends his life than to commit him to life behind bars for the remaining 40, 50, 60, or more years of his life.

Furthermore, murderers don’t deserve the enormous cost of keeping them fed, given medical attention, and keeping them entertained for those 40, 50, 60, or more years. And taxpayers shouldn’t be saddled with that expense either.

As a commercial pilot, flight instructor, and a former news manager who oversaw three helicopter pilots at KIRO-TV in the 80’s, I have to say I saw yesterday’s tragic accident in Phoenix coming.  And so should have the television industry and the FAA!

It is plain ridiculous that for the sex-appeal of a reporter who is also a helicopter pilot that the FAA and the television industry allow pilots flying in proximity of other aircraft over urban areas to simultaneously report live on television.

That’s exactly what happened yesterday.  Pilot-Reporter Craig Smith was reporting live a car chase and following action on the ground when his helicopter collided with another news helicopter.  Four people lost their lives.  Smith should have been flying the helicopter and a third person on board — a reporter — should have been reporting the action.

It is just plain unsafe at times for pilots to be giving play-by-play of action on the ground.

This needs to stop.  And it needs to stop now.  And the FAA has got to take action.  the TV industry will not self-police.

Accidents happen enough without the added confusion of a pilot performing as a TV reporter.

In Seattle a few years ago, KIRO’s Clark Stahl survived a mid air when his helicopter collided with another over Lake Union.  Both helicopters landed safely, a near miracle.  Clark said the blade of the other heliopter cut though the top of his canopy and just inches under the transmission.  This accident happened in crowded airspace … and Clark was not reporting at the time.

During the 80’s in Seattle only KOMO flew its helicopter operation with a pilot who only flew the helicopter and did not report.  That’s the model that needs to be followed.

What if I told you there is a candidate for a 2008 Washington Statewide office so qualified and liked that the retiring current office holder — and a member of the opposite political party — is endorsing him?

What?  Impossible in these days of partisan politics?

Well hold the presses.  And meet Republican Allan Martin who needs to be elected State Treasurer in 2008.

Current Democrat State Treasurer Mike Murphy is all-out endorsing him.  Murphy thinks so much of Martin that he has Martin working for him as Deputy Treasurer.

Why?  Because the Treasurer’s office shouldn’t be about partisan politics and Martin is an expert finance guy.  He’s a former banker who turned to Chelan County politics 20 years ago.  He served as County Treasurer and Murphy eventually talked him into working for him.  Known by all the County Treasurers in the state, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Martin win nearly unanimous endorsements from both Democrat and Republican Treasurers alike.

Martin’s near-term challenge is to build name recognition and to educate the media and public about his credentials and his mild-mannered Mainstream Republican politics.

The office has importance for it manages nearly $100 billion in funds … not only the state’s operating and capital budgets, but also employee pension funds as well as a lot of bond-approved monies for county and city governments.  Qualified candidates are sorely needed.

But these questions remain:will the Democrat Party proffer some well-known hack with few qualifications?  And will the state’s media be educated enough to cover the race correctly?

Bottom line, the Republican lineup for statewide offices looks the best in my memory: Rossi for Gov, McKenna for AG, Reed for Secretary of State, Sutherland for Public Lands and Martin for Treasurer.  Do we have an Insurance Commissioner yet?

If ever the American people received a wakeup call about how rotten the political system was faring in the nation’s capital, it came recently with the report that members of Congress and their aides had made at least 23,000 trips to cities everywhere in the world in the past five and a half years — all of those trips paid for by businesses, industries, professions, and lobby groups! Twenty-three thousand!

Will the people awaken to the implications of all those freebies, paid for by groups seeking special favors from the congressmen? What it means is that honest government is virtually impossible to achieve in what is so often referred to as “the greatest nation on earth.” In other words, we’ve been put on notice that members of Congress can be “bought” at a price — and that price is free vacations to Paris, Tokyo, Athens, Calcutta, Moscow, Stockholm, Madrid, Rome, London, Vienna, Hong Kong, and any city you can name — all with plane fares, hotels, entertainment, meals, and all the rest paid for by the lobbyist intent upon buying legislative and other favors from key members of Congress.

If that doesn’t make you want to throw up and throw your congressman or congresswoman out of his or her job in Washington, D.C., then you must not give a damn about honest government in this land. The question becomes: When in the world are American citizens going to become aroused and resolve to do something about all the expensive freebies being offered to our representatives in national government — and being accepted heartily?

In this present Congress, members have literally laughed at the protests over the acceptance of freebies from lobbyists. For the news media, they have made grand statements about the need to end the freebies and return honest government to the halls of Congress. But as soon as they have made their phony pitches to the press, they have turned around and decided that nothing can really be done to correct the dishonest situation.

That’s why I have been saying for some time that the people must demand the right of national initiative, whereby the people can adopt initiatives that will force members of Congress to turn down offers from lobbyists and others. And, if getting the right of initiative takes too long a time, the people should demand that their congressional representatives offer them the right to approve an amendment to the Constitution that would end the freebies for all time.

I think both measures should be considered — a national initiative process similar to that now enjoyed by many states on one hand, and a constitutional amendment that would both create a national-initiative system, as well as write the amendment forbidding freebies for all time, on the other.

Maybe that sounds like an enormous job for the people to undertake, but it’s the only way we are going to clean out the freebie gang from the halls of Congress and, for the first time, make it possible to get legislation and government that is not tarnished by the presence of all those freebie bucks in the hands of unscrupulous congressmen!

Is it worth the effort? It has to be. If the freebie culture continues to rule the roost in Washington, D.C., the present money-mad nature of government will only get worse. And, eventually, it will lead to a popular revolt and the end of truly representative government in this once “greatest nation on God’s green earth.”

Whenever the subject of America’s morals comes up — and it comes up often these days — I recall a promotional stunt pulled off by Playboy magazine, which pretends that it isn’t pornographic, as if anybody believes that. At any rate, the magazine’s major domo, Hugh Hefner, king of the pornographers, once staged a promotion in which several gorgeous co-eds were engaged to display their undraped bodies in the magazine.

Now, one would have expected back then about 20 years ago that church organizations and other groups watching the nation’s moral behavior would have exploded immediately and called Hefner a purveyor of filth, which he always has been. Instead, if you will recall, it was the feminists and their organizations, of all people, who shouted “Foul!”

This may surprise you, but I said at the time, and I still feel this way, “A pox on both their houses.” I was referring, of course, to the Hefner perverts on one side and the feminists on the other. I don’t like Playboy’s sleazy approach to morals and nudity, but I think even less of the starchy, sexploitation line of the feminists.

I’m afraid that both camps are going to give sex and the feminine figure a bad name. Adam and Eve didn’t know a good thing when they had it, so they donned fig leaves and invented pornography, so to speak. Then the moralists forced the great Michelangelo to cover up vital parts in his masterpieces.

The glorious feminine body, ennobled by the world’s legitimate, earnest artists through the ages, has actually been rendered pornographic by the puritans, who insist on hiding it with leaves, loin cloths, and stuff like that. I suppose one might say that “intent” is the key word in this discussion.

Mention sex or the glory of the undraped human figure in life or in art, and somebody is bound to break out in a giggle or start shaking his or her head as if saying “No, No.” Why do we get giddy or look affronted when the subject of sex or naked figures comes up?

Playboy has always been giddy, and it handles sex and nudity like a giggling teen-ager, for all its pretensions of sophistication. But the feminists, on the other hand, would have us believe that sex and nudity are dirty or sexist and that we are offending all women in the world by talking about their bodies or what should be the most beautiful occasion in the world, sex between two people who love each other.

Now that I think about it, I have to say that I’m deeply grateful that feminists, Hefner’s Playboy, or the do-gooders in our midst don’t run America’s museums or art galleries — or, in fact, the nation’s publishing houses. Imagine what a great setback the visual arts would sustain if they did.

As for all those beautiful co-eds who made the mistake of posing for Hefner and his perverted staffers, I wish they had decided to pose for something more significant than Playboy. However, I have to admit that even a foul display in Playboy would be somewhat better than accepting the professional feminists’ view that men and women are the same.

As the French would say on the subject about men and women, “Vive le difference!”

I’m not saying this.  An environmental activist is:

To extend light rail service north from downtown, the next phase, Sound Transit will have to dig through and remove more than 600,000 cubic yards of rock and muck — equivalent to a pile of debris 350 miles long, three feet wide, and three feet high. Sound Transit plans to expend lots of energy digging and excavating that stuff: 17.4 trillion British Thermal Units, according to its environmental-impact statement, equivalent to the energy in 140 million gallons of gasoline. That much gas, or diesel, would fill 8,000-gallon tanker trucks lined up from Seattle to Canada. If all the energy consumed by tunnel-excavating and hauling is generated by gasoline or diesel, it will emit nearly 1.3 million tons of greenhouse gases, CO2, into the environment.

As an offset, Sound Transit claims it will save 14,000 tons of CO2 annually by running light rail trains on electricity, sparing the region emissions that otherwise would be generated by automotive traffic. Even if granted, it would take 90 years from completion of the line to break even on the energy transaction.

Light rail is a religion with the left.  It’s the symbol of a world class city — of a century ago.  But for a new age city, the leftist socialists are definitely mired in old-world thinking.  Rail is two centuries old.  It’s uneconomical and ineffective.  The problem with leftists is that they aren’t independent thinkers.  They’re sheep.

Twice now within the past half century of American history, the Democrats in and out of Congress have been disciples of the old saw, “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” They did it first in withdrawing support from our military forces in the Vietnam War, a war we could have and should have won — and now they are repeating their defeatist tactics in the Iraqi War.

Aiding the Demos’ defeatist cause, unfortunately, are the majority of the print and broadcast news media, who continue their disgusting barrage of words and propaganda against President George W. Bush. If the media had not joined the Democrats in brainwashing the people with their incessant, one-sided defeatist view of the Iraqi War, victory would have been quicker and easier.

Without a doubt, Iran, Syria, and other Middle Eastern governments drew aid and comfort from the anti-war protesters in the U.S. — and, as a result, they have poured troops, arms, and money into the insurgents’ cause, prolonging the war and making the democratization of Iraq a much tougher and more prolonged effort.

Most of the congressional Democrats who are now lambasting Bush daily and vowing to bring the troops home immediately, thus insuring defeat once again, are fumbling to hide their hypocrisy. In the beginning, they favored our invasion of Iraq and even applauded our effort to capture the nation’s evil dictator, Saddam Hussein.

But, conveniently forgetting their past, they saw national elections coming up in 2008 and, putting political ambition ahead of patriotism, they reversed course and became anti-protesters. Their motto seems to be that winning elections is far more important than the nation’s security and its willingness to go to the aid of people thirsting for freedom and democracy.

Also — and this seems to me to be even more important — they have quickly forgotten that we are in a worldwide conflict against international terrorists, a conflict that has already cost American lives at home in the 9/11 attack and abroad in the Middle East and other regions.

Lost in the Democrats’ political deceit is the primary motive in President Bush’s courageous move to gather 40 allies to invade Iraq, get rid of Saddam, and establish freedom and a democratic government in that beleaguered nation. That motive: What greater gift could the world’s greatest power give to a downtrodden country than freedom and democracy?

Despite the daily rantings of columnists, editorialists, and reporters in America’s print and broadcast news media, I think historians will eventually recognize the grand effort of President Bush, the U.S. military, and our allies in making that gift possible.

Apologies to all who posted comments between Wednesday mid-afternoon and Thursday morning.  I clicked on the “Delete all Spam” button before checking for legitimate posts.   I inadvertently deleted your comments.

Stop this silly dispute on the issue of gays and lesbians, a dispute that threatens to split the nation and leave us divided on much more important issues. It’s time we started applying a huge portion of common sense to the problem and put it on the shelf forever!

Even President Bush needs a lecture on the issue. He keeps insisting we must have a constitutional amendment that declares marriage can be only between a man and a woman. Urging him on is the powerful evangelistic force that refuses to concede that there may be two sides to the issue. Sitting on the sideline and apparently refusing to take a stand is the long arm of Science, which could solve the problem quickly and banish the issue as a burr in the American saddle. Many — and probably most — scientists acknowledge that homosexuality is an accident of nature. Relatively few say it can be “cured.”

Hidebound religionists have been pummeling gays and lesbians because they say there are programs that could reverse homosexuality and make men and women what they regard as “normal” human beings. What is a normal human being? I have known and worked with both homosexual men and women and, with very few exceptions, found them to be extremely talented and good workers.

While serving with the Army in the Second World War, I worked alongside several men who didn’t try to hide their homosexuality but who proved to be top-grade soldiers. Never once did they make a pass at me or any other G.I.s. One could tell by their mannerisms that they were gay, but that was as far as it went.

Similarly, when the Women’s Army Corps was created in the Second World War, scores of the women soldiers joined our unit, and I’d say at least a dozen of them were lesbians. Nevertheless, we never had a problem with them; they did their jobs well, and they behaved properly at all times.

Common sense urges us to look at the issue without malice and with an honest look at the history of the human race. Consider the thousands of homosexuals who have contributed their valuable resources to society. What would the music repertoire be, for example, without the beautiful works of Tchaikovsky, an acknowledged homosexual?

And what great treasures in history would have been denied us if it weren’t for other noted homosexuals — such as Alexander the Great, Hans Christian Andersen, Julius Caesar, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, W. Somerset Maugham, Michelangelo, Sir Isaac Newton, and thousands upon thousands of others?

For years, I have suggested that gays and lesbians should be denied the ordinary ritual of marriage — but be permitted to live together under a legal arrangement called a “partnership.” They’re going to live together anyway, so why not accept the fact of biology and the “accident” of homosexuality? Washington and a few other states have recognized that philosophy and passed laws accordingly.

It should be removed as a national issue. Each state should then make its own arrangements and pass appropriate laws to accept the common-sense status of partnerships. Then, let’s be done with the nonsensical, ongoing “civil war” over same-sex relationships. Mother Nature decided it should be that way from the dawn of time. Why can’t the rest of us accept her wise dictum?