Curious

I saw something today on someone else's blog ranting about spics and chinks and kikes and statements like "faggots are the niggers of the 21st century" and general epitaphs reserved for the ignorant and weak of mind. Now I respect the right of ANYONE to free speech, whether their speech hurts someone else or not. I think its one of the essential tenets of our republic. In fact, it IS. But I wonder if the people writing those things feel better when they think they're putting someone else down? Or is it just because they really have nothing to say or remotely legitimate reasons for saying those things. I think its akin to the old adage that says, in essence, that showing off is the ignorant man's way of having something to say (or being interesting).

I cannot imagine, even as a recovered bigot (yes, believe it or not, The Voice was ONCE a dyed-in-the-wool Republican with false ideas so right that in my first presidential primary I actually voted for Pat Buchanan instead of George H. W. Bush!), I look back and see that I was saying derogatory things just to have something to say because I hadn't thought anything through in my own mind. I was a puppet to those around me, greatly my family, and hadn't even been allowed to form my own opinions.

I was just wondering aloud.

Can calling me a pinko, faggot, asshole, card-carrying member of the ACLU, liberal motherfucker actually make someone else feel better? If so, then as the bleeding heart that I am, let it be and fill your boots! I yield to that old childhood mantra: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." (Unless, of course, they're inscribed in the United States Constitution and prohibit some rights guaranteed to all to some people!)

In the words of that wonderfully effective president, er, I mean First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent!"

Best wishes,
The Voice
Still licking my wounds from the 2000 and 2004 elections!
(P.S. Check out what Bill Clinton said about the Democrats and the presidential election. Sounds kinda like what I've been saying this last week! Maybe President Clinton reads The Voice) http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/914797.cms or http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041106-055531-3474r.htm to check out reports of President Clinton's true remarks.

The Voice has received several requests from readers and fellow disenfranchisees interested in knowing what I look like. For what it's worth, here I am, several months ago. In light of the Congressional campaign (see November 4, 2004 entry) I am including this photo with my US House cufflinks! 

ELECT NICK YAEKLE FOR CONGRESS

LEADERSHIP

with Compassion

with Conviction

with Constitutionality

with Competence

with Courage

with Candor



The Democratic Party has spun out of control. Agendas with credence and merit have been criminally painted as harmful and wrong and agendas of corporate interest, greed, and special interest have proliferated and infiltrated OUR government. Political redistricting, or gerrymandering, has run rampant across the nation, allowing solid unbreakable blocks of Republican voting, turning a once balanced House of Representatives to be a bastion of right-wing extremism. With threats and attacks to our nation from abroad, the most dangerous threats have been well hidden and largely undetected: the threats to democracy from within. The (un)Patriot Act rips apart the Constitution of the United States and all articles and amendments therein. The chance, notion, and idea to amend the very document which guarantees the same freedoms for all Americans is knocking on the doors of the once hallowed halls of Congress in the form of mandated discrimination against all Americans to marry whom they want. And the federal budget deficit, a thing President Clinton made a thing of the past, looms larger and larger with no end in sight. Globally, the proud reputation once reserved only for the United States has been rendered to shreds by this administration’s determination to mandate that the world agree with us lest the entire financial and military powers of the United States of America come crashing down upon you and your country.



Nick Yaekle represents the idea that a better America is an America where all Americans can proudly say, in our country or internationally, WE ARE FREE. An America where, before we oust dictators around the world, we mind our own factions of dictatorship. Nick Yaekle stands for lower taxes on the middle-class. NO taxes on the lower-class. Disciplined spending. Stronger, not larger, military force. Government provided health care for the masses. Business and corporate responsibility through federal mandates and watchdogs. Working and housing conditions that we wouldn’t allow to exist in other nations to be dissolved in our own country. And the guarantee enforced that ALL Americans share and enjoy the same rights! The ability to listen to all sides and form a better policy through consensus rather than one-sided, narrow-minded legislation. And to do this, this nation must set forth on a course of NEW leadership, tailored to the generation where all the burden is being placed, and elect COMPETENT leaders and servants of, for, and by the people. This leadership must start here, must start now. As broad as the shoulders are of this democracy called America, the girth is overtaking the seams. And it’s high time we stood, acted, and did something about it!



This is our democracy! This is our hour! This is our time!



The clock is ticking. . .





ELECT NICK YAEKLE for US CONGRESS

The Voice of the Disenfranchised



Ok, so I am not running for Congress. What I was trying to do was figure out how to create Adobe Acrobat files with Professional 6.0 to no avail. So I tried to convert this from WORD by copying and pasting and putting it here but still cannot seem to get the picture to post. Oh well. Even though The-Voice IS NOT running for Congress, the sentiment holds true just the same.

A DEMOCRACY IN QUESTION

The Voice reluctantly, yet respectfully, concedes that George W. Bush has been elected the president-elect of the United States for a first legitimate term. While my scathing opinions will not change of his previous unlawful administration, nor will my regret for what he has done to our democracy, I will, from here forward, refer to him as President Bush, as I still respect the office which he will legally hold finally beginning January 20, 2005. While I recognize it is impossible that a divine intervention from God will occur and he will become, at least, slightly coherent and intelligible, I hope that he can manage to at least shake up his administration and appoint more able minded persons to the cabinet and senior staff.

Additionally, I am working on a self-commissioned report which will outline what the Democratic party MUST do in order to have any hopes in two years of reclaiming the House. God help our Supreme Court as well.

Finally, I must admit that it was exciting being in downtown Columbus yesterday where the international media outlets had set up outposts and satellites to report live from our statehouse concerning the Ohio election results, which are still not fully counted since our state law allows for provisional ballots to be cast but not even opened until November 11, 2004 and counted some time after. While there is very little chance that those 250,000 ballots would make a change, I suppose stranger things have happened!

Congratulations to the Republican party as they have embraced shrewd campaign tactics and managed to change what they've called the "liberal media" and turned a party once enshrined in the goodness that was smaller government and power to the people into a corporate owned vehicle of special agendas and interests. Nonetheless, in the tradition of dirty politics and respect for out-fucking-over the opposition party, my hat is off to them!

Lastly, congratulations are in order for a fine legislator and surely successful-to-be Senator-elect Barack Obama from Illinois. As strange as some may see it, I think he is the hope and future of the survival of the Democratic party and wouldn't be surprised if he someday is elected the first black president of the United States. Please, feel free to mark my words on that.

As far as my opinion as to what this does for the chances of Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton to run for president in 2008. I don't wish to cast doubt as I think she would be as fine a president as her husband, but I think they would drag more things out of her closet, ah-hem, than she could fight off. But, an older generation will be smaller and many of those are of the mindset that a woman isn't capable of being president and that would be in her advantage. And the Republicans don't have a great deal of shining stars on the horizon either. Perhaps one of the most attractive candidates as far as political success goes is Senator Santorum from Pennsylvania and his tirades and attacks on gays have been so harsh that he will be viewed as more of the same and more divisive than most of his party.

My hopes are that the (un)Patriot Act is not expanded and that democracy isn't scarred so much that it can never have the same face it once did and that America will someday, and I may never see that day now in my lifetime, be the respected and powerful refuge of freedom we once were.

Speaking for Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John C. Calhoun, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry (Give 'em hell Harry) Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and William Jefferson Clinton, The Voice says: ". . .one nation, under God, with liberty and justice FOR ALL!"

!?#$&#%@*&$^!

ALLOW ME TIME TO SHED A TEAR FOR DEMOCRACY!

. . .but The Voice will not be silenced!


-The Voice
"May the powers that be driving the universe bless Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards and their families!"

VIOLENT COUP d' ETAT

Bush's philosophy on spreading freedom and democracy involves forceful violence and unwanted occupations. This is his trademark, his calling card. He managed to circumvent democracy and unlawfully, not to mention unconstitutionally and unethically, occupy the Oval Office. He managed to invade, dethrone, occupy, and set up new digs in Iraq through his universally unsupported military coup d'etat. These successes in lawlessness have proved that he can manage. So my question is this: why hasn't he managed to make America safer? Just because we haven't been attacked at home again doesn't mean we're safer. Why hasn't he managed to recognize and at least apologize for his enumerous errors? Why hasn't he managed to stay remotely focused on Osama bin Laden? Why hasn't he managed to boost our economy, put people to work, cut taxes on middle income folks, or insure that all Americans have health care? How can he put a price on health and life? He's against a woman's right to choose and cites his reasons as "every life is precious." (We agree on this, although a fetus isn't a life until it can breathe on its own.) Then prove your soundbite Georgie by caring for those lives once they're out of the womb with proper health care and medicines and by NOT unnecessarily sending those lives in the way of danger and war in the name of revenge.

Bush is obviously a fan of coup d'etat in the name of democracy. With that an established fact, we need to follow his lead in the name of saving democracy. If coup d'etat through violence has become the American way at home and abroad, then in order to save and restore our own bastion of democracy and freedom and in order to preserve our republic, we need a VIOLENT coup d'etat right here in our own land, starting with the Supreme Court, moving on to an abolishment of the electoral system, and ending in the Oval Office. Three easy steps. I think an army of nearly 300 million Americans against a few could easily take the win!

This is not radical or conspiratorial. This is not about retribution or revenge for Al Gore or the Democractic party. This coup d'etat is NOT about oil or strategic military positioning or the advancement of Israel and their unlawful pursuits in the middle east. This VIOLENT coup d'etat is about America and the democracy for which she once stood!

I'm The Voice and I wrote and approved this message!

Vote Democratic Ticket on Tuesday! The ass you save may be your own!

The Entry Below

I am including this quote (in the previous entry) from The Columbus Dispatch, a Republican newspaper that said it intended to endorse Senator Kerry only a few months ago. If you get a chance, read their endorsement of George W. Bush. I've never seen a more unenthusiastic endorsement in my life.

Nonetheless, I included this quote because it does underscore the importance of another aspect of this election. Do you really want Bushie choosing three or four US Supreme Court justices? And a whole new handful of circuit court judges?

VOTE THE JOHNS. . .KERRY AND EDWARDS!!!!

The Voice

The Columbus Dispatch - Election

The Columbus Dispatch - Election: "The next president will appoint many federal judges, and perhaps three or four U.S. Supreme Court justices. The impact on the judiciary will be lasting. The Dispatch believes Bush�s appointments would more likely respect the principles of judicial restraint and separation of powers. "

OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENT

As surprising as it may seem, The Voice strongly endorses Senator John F. Kerry and the nationwide Democratic ticket for election on November 2, 2004.

George W. Bush has been a miserable failure as the court-appointed leader of the United States of America. His utter incompetence, lack of any judgment or independent thought, disregard for safety of Americans home or abroad or for American troops he so willingly ordered to a created war, and his policies of economic destruction have, in four short years, managed to bear down on our republic more than any single administration in history.

The many failures in his private life as a "businessman" have not taught him the lessons one generally learns from one's mistakes. His loyalty to his comrades among the landed gentry, or his "base" as he openly refers to them as, is misdirected and not in the interest of the masses. His lies, deceptions, misanthropy, and malapropisms, while comical at first, are now dangerous, egregious, slanderous, and embarrassing. The credibility of the United States is beyond strained. The reputation of the American government is not only tarnished, but perhaps irrevocably rusted both at home and in the eyes of the world.

The purpose of the office of the president of the United States, as seen by the sculptors of this nation and the democracy for which we stand, was to be the chief ambassador of freedom and a symbol of our republic. The office was to be synonymous with choice and freedom, personal choice and personal freedom. It was to stand as nobly and recognizable as the American flag, the bald eagle (or the turkey if you were Benjamin Franklin), the Liberty Bell, and the constitution. The epitome of what it means to live in a free land. Being the symbol of freedom does not include using mighty military power to further your own wealth in foreign countries, lying to the people for which you work and represent, and alienating the world at large by turning up the nose of the United States in the world of public opinion.

Had Iraq had ANY involvement in the attacks on American soil in September of 2001, I am fully confident that America would have found no nation in the United Nations unwilling to back an American attack and coup over the sovereign nation of Iraq. Fidel Castro would have supported an attack. Iran would have supported an attack. I feel strongly that even Afghanistan and North Korea would have been in favor of making the nation of Iraq pay for the attacks. However, like the United Nations said when they initially denied granting the authority of a US invasion, the evidence was NOT found that Iraq had any connection with al Qaida, the horrendous attacks, or even had weapons of mass destruction. Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, the gente if you will, blatantly lied to the United Nations, lied to our allies, lied to the Congress, and most appallingly, lied to the American people.

George W. Bush should not be on any ballot. He should be serving life sentences for the over 1000 American soldiers who have been killed thus far and be found guilty of gross negligence for the danger he has put our nation in. But of course, if Bush were in Texas, we know how frequent they use the death penalty and, well, to borrow a phrase from my grandmother, "it's his bed and he'll have to lay in it."

A long tall hickory. A short piece of rope. A long Texas sunset!

John Forbes Kerry MUST be elected as president of the United States. If for no other reason than the embarrassment we would all be saved by not having Bush plunder and blunder his way through diplomatic affair after diplomatic affair!

Do you really want the world thinking that all Americans speak and think (or not think) and act like Cowboy George W. Bush??

I didn't think so.

VOTE FOR KERRY/EDWARDS 2004!!!!

Regards,
The Voice
Nick Yaekle
Columbus, Ohio USA

This is for Lewie Two Shoes

Most, in fact, all of those potentially reading his will have no idea what this string of words mean, however, I just had to include this so that the next time Lewie Two-Shoes decides to try to find a few items he will potentially be directed to my site, in vain.

Rev. A.J. Malloy Reverend Malloy Church of Christ in Christian Union 14 Karat Lounge Camp Nipgen or Nigpen Pastor Benner and this puppet playing wife Cheryl Circleville Bible College Bud Angus Groveport Stygler 3cu Spurgeon Don Timberman Montblanc voice Biblical studies Grandview swimming Lew Lewis Lewie Haybib's Greenhouse Aquatics Praise the Lord this is Marty "I got your greasy granny"

JEWS FOR JESUS

Praise the Lord and pass the plate!

In the sweet precious name of Jesus we pray
Nicky the Fag

VOTE!

LET'S GIVE AMERICA ANOTHER ONE TERM BUSH!!!

And if you live in Ohio, make sure you vote NO on ISSUE 1! Whether you're gay or straight this issue can affect you. Even Republican Governor Bob Taft doesn't support it. The first line say marriage between one man and one woman, but the second sentence of the referendum says, "This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships or UNMARRIED individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage." This will apply to any domestic partners, common law rights, survivorship wishes, or hospital visitation in the event of hospitalization. I am including a link that will allow you to write your congressperson and urge ALL of America to stop the unconstitutional amending of state and national constitutions! The link should be above this post.

Regards
The Voice
Nicholas Yaekle
nyaekle@wowway.com

A Thousand Points of Light

This past week, the Department of Defense released that American casualties in Iraq War II has hit 1000 soldiers.
It occurred to me this morning that Junior's (GW Bush) daddy spoke during his presidential campaigns of his "1000 points of light."
I guess what we didn't know was that it would take 15 years for his points of light to come to fruition and that they would illuminate in the eyes of a thousand dead American soldiers.


Now I can empathize with wanting to avenge the pride and reputation of one's father. What I would like Bush to explain is who's going to avenge the DEATHS of the fathers of the thousands of American children whose fathers lit George Herbert Walker Bush's thousand points of light.

STUMBLEUPON Toolbar

Ok guys, if I haven't mentioned yet, you have GOT to download and install the Stumbleupon toolbar. StumbleUpon (SU) is a cool add-in for your browser, although I do have some trouble getting it to properly work within IE 6.0, which I currently use with Mozilla Firefox. It does not include spyware or adware as I have verified this through free downloads of SpyBlaster and Ad-Aware. You train it to know your preferences by choosing LIKE or NOT FOR ME and it brings up some neat websites. I have found countless cool sites and really helpful ones, and I must admit, some relatively strange ones. Anyway, this is NOT one of those, "If you put us on your website you'll get listed" or anything, its just something that I have spent many hours on and enjoy and thought that someone here reading this, (is there anyone?) might enjoy it also! So enjoy. The Republicans start their travesty of American politics tomorrow night. I am sure I'll be upping the dosage of Paxil and trying breathing techniques to keep my blood pressure down. The way they have deputized New York City is a great injustice to freedom. The MTV Video Music Awards (VMA)s have had to move their show to Miami. I know, not a big deal, but the Republicans figure they can take Washington DC, then why not the biggest city in the United States!

Until next time, check out StumbleUpon.com!

Nick Yaekle
Columbus, OH USA
The Voice


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EPISTLIC POEM OF THE MONTH

The Voice of the Disenfranchised

POSTMAN PLEASE DELIVER THIS EPISTLE TO
Ms Lovva Meyeliffe
666 Brokenman Sorrow Lane
Lovelessland, HBK, USA


Mercilessly
She fell out of his life
Somewhat like the fuel in a 747
Lasting only long enough
To perform a duty
Leaving behind only scattered memories
Amidst the brackish smoke
And rag tag rubble
Celibate tears haunt my tabletops
Obstinate pride preventing a reunification.

August 25, 2004

Copyright 2004 by Nicholas P. Yaekle The Voice of the Disenfranchised. All rights reserved. Feel free to quote this or any postings on my weblog so long as my name appears along with a link to www.the-voice.blogspot.com .

Submit Express

I was taking a look at Kevin Rose's website host of G4 TechTV's The ScreenSavers (an excellent show, by the way) and found this handy dandy little website called Submit Express, which has a whole host of neat little tools for creating and maintaining a website or a blog or whatever. While doing some of the little tools, it got me to thinking about the manner in which I post my entries into my weblog and the words that I choose. Half of me wants to write a senseless essay with words that might be hit. So I decided to post a link to them from my 'blog. Now I have noticed in the past when I copy and paste HTML text that some things seem to come up a litte funky. So if you see a bunch of garbled junk around the link, please chalk that up to ignorance. Columbus. Ohio. OH. United States. Westside. Hilltop. Yaekle. Yeakle. Nicky. Max Yaekle. Media Play. Montblanc. Mont Blanc. Gay. Lesbian. Bisexual. Drag Queen. Monoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Of course, thanks to Mrs. Karen Hanas, my fourth grade teacher at Hamilton Central Elementary in Hamilton Local School District in what is now, regretfully, Obetz, Ohio OH. Please take note, the end of this little diatribe is purely commercial and I regret that I have sold my soul and VOICE to the hounds of society and greed and am becoming a corporate sponsor. But not unlike Phyllis Wheatly and Booker T. Washington, as a writer, I will sell my soul in order to have my voice, THE VOICE, heard! Thank you for your support, Dolly Parton, Peter Allen, George Jones, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Tammy Wynette, Dean Martin, and all the others that influenced me. By the way, some of my family is from Buffalo, West Virginia WV Putnam County USA! Man, what a whore I am!



Search Engine Optimization and Free Submission

Changes

Like life, the only true thing we know we can count on are changes. I have decided with the potential for increased traffic to change the template and layout of the page. While fooling around with the HTML and the layout template, I think I kinda screwed up a couple of things. Therefore, if anyone IS out there reading this (and please feel free to comment or email me anytime) ONCE AGAIN excuse the superfluous rantings and tests.

If we can't have Al Sharpton and Ann Richards in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, then VOTE a STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC ticket and let's eradicate the squatter in the Oval Office, the commander-in-thief (thank you Michael Moore for those monikers that I so surrepticiously lifted!) and put the Honorable Senator John Forbes Kerry and Honorable John Edwards in the White House!

Yours Democratically,
Nick Yaekle
The Voice of the Disenfranchised

ONE LAST TIME. . .TONIGHT!!!

Ok folks and closet Democrats wishing to become as enlightened as those of us who are OUT AND PROUD! This is the last time tonight. Please note that if you're interested in how many people read or have read my blog, should that sort of status be important to you, that I have added a new site counter provided by bravenet at the bottom. While tinkering around with template, I seemingly lost my bottom counter from SiteMeter and couldn't get it back. So the most accurate, although placed on the blog a couple of months after I started it, would be the SiteMeter counter. Feel free to refresh as many times as you wish!! ! I mean, site hits aren't important to me!

Liberally yours,
Nick Yaekle
The Voice of the Disenfranchised
Columbus, OH (Ohio) United States of America

Explanation on all the New Links

In my quest to have my voice (The-Voice) heard, I have submitted my weblog to various internet search engines. I am happy to report that GOOGLE has finally picked me up! While I know that with hardcore phreakers, crackers, hackers, and internet gurus, Google is not the most popular search engine, I use it as my default search engine because it is universally the biggest one there is. And while I recognize and apologize for not having posted any pieces of signifigance as of late, please bear with me as I am working on trying to get more people reading. The apathy of the American people concerning our moral and political injustices, like the theft of the 2000 election by the United States Supreme Court and the perennial theft of national elections by an outdated and unjust electoral college system (which, by the by, when we are helping other nations establish Democracies we DO NOT set up an electoral college system of voting and electors for them!) not only amazes me, but frightens me. And I have a feeling this indifference makes an otherwise stately and firm Benjamin Franklin, the original "rebel" and liberal revolutionist, roll over in his proverbial grave.
So, again, please stick with The-Voice, and as soon as I get some things figured out (like posting my picture on here) and some of the search engines on board, I PROMISE there will be more meaty posts, including a weekly Campaign 2004 Comments feature. Additionally, if you see a bunch of HTML around any of the posts, its probably because I have tried to add something new and have been unsuccessful!

With kind and cordial regards and appreciation,
Nicholas P. Yaekle, The Voice of the Disenfranchised

BLOGDUMP.COM

GREAT WEB BROWSER! Leaves Internet Explorer in the dust! So much faster and more secure!

border="0" alt="Get Firefox" />

Ten Things We Can Do To Defeat the Bush-Cheney Terrorist Regime and Restore American Democracy

I was using my new favorite web browser, Mozilla Firefox with several extensions, and there is this cool little feature you can use called www.stumbleupon.com , which adds a toolbar to the top of your browser and lets you visit various sites geared toward past ones which you have rated. With this I stumbled on a site that showed various links. One link is the following, which was a link to a list compiled and/or created by the San Francisco Bay Guardian concerning the importance of defeating Bush and Dick in November. I felt compelled to include this link on my blog for any of those actually reading this.

The Voice is working on the essay concerning the 2004 Democratic National Convention and should have it online within the next couple of days.

VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

KERRY+EDWARDS= Americans Back On Track

The Voice of the Disenfranchised

Prior to my support of Governor Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination, and prior to said candidate losing his marbles and singing the National Anthem to drown the voice of a potential heckler, I long touted the credentials and savvy of Senator John Edwards, the presumptive Democratic nominee for vice-president on a John Kerry Democratic presidential ticket. While I wasn't as impressed during the primary with him (and lost TOTAL respect for Rep. Dick Gephardt and gained IMMENSE respect for the Reverend AL Sharpton) I still think he is a fine candidate and capably qualified to fill the shoes of the president should the need arise.

Yesterday, Senator Kerry announced that John Edwards would be his running mate. Within minutes, the internet was full of Republicans saying how unqualified Senator Edwards is to serve. They even went so far as to mention things that Senator Kerry said to or about Senator Edwards in the primary. Apparently, and this I have not substantiated, Senator Kerry said that Senator Edwards was too young and inexperienced to be the president. Ok, let's assume for a moment that he did say this. Now, we should all be in assumption mode. Now that we are, let's look at only a couple of facts.

If the qualification for vice-president is a set of qualifications greater and with more diversity than those of the president sitting, then I have to say that the Bush-Cheney administration is sitting on top of the world. For Cheney, with all of his ethical and legal troubles with his business dealings, does INDEED have more experience than Bushie Jr. ever did have. Cheney was a congressman and a cabinet secretary under Junior's father and had a semi-successful reign in business. Bush ran numerous companies into the ground, but not before taking his own money, plus what he thought was owed, and running to yet another in a long string of businesses he killed. But the most important government qualification that Junior used is the most laughable. Having served as governor of Texas. Not that I discount the state of Texas at all. I respect and realize its importance as an oil producing state. But Texas has a "weak-governor" system of government, where the lieutenant governor has more power as president of the state senate (not totally certain if its the senate or the house) and the congress of that state has more power than either. Junior didn't even have to balance a budget like most governors.

If I were Kerry and I were responding to Republicans and Juniors claims that Senator Edwards was not qualified and were to be defending things I may have said during the primary, I would look Junior square in the eyes and say,:

"Mr. President, it seems that things said in primaries have customarily been cast as banter and unusable in past presidential elections. For if they had not, then I seem to recall a certain Republican presidential primary candidate back in 1980 who said to another candidate for the same slot that his proposal for the economy of this nation was 'voodoo economics' that would financially ruin this country. And then that same man went on to serve eight years as Mr. Voodoo's vice-president and four years in his own miserable administration as president."


Remember folks, what we're looking for as Democrats here isn't the best candidate for the job as the US Constitution pretty much limits what ANY one person or administration for that matter can do. What we're looking for and voting for is the party platform we most believe in. We're voting for Kerry-Edwards because we believe in the principles and values and freedoms of the Democratic party, the same ones the Republicans are killing everyday with their un-Patriot Act and hundreds of other acts of treason through legislation. So:

VOTE DEMOCRAT!

THE ASS YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN!!!!!!!!!!!

URGENT

Blogger: Dashboard


GEORGE W. BUSH: THE PRESIDENT QUAYLE WE NEVER HAD!!!!!


Remember than on election day. Also, remember the economy, the vice-president's bilking the people of billions, an UNJUST war in Iraq for oil, and most importantly, Nicholas Berg and Paul Johnson.

For those interested

As promised on the site which is listed below, I have created a Yahoo! geocities website showcasing some recent pictures of my son, Max Yaekle.

Additionally, please check back for an uncharacteristic essay from a left-wing liberal Democrat about the importance of Ronald Reagan on my development as a political junkie.

Further, my condolences go out to a wonderful woman, Nancy Davis Reagan (nee Sarah Jane Davis), and the entire Reagan family as well as those in our nation and around the world who shared in the resurgence of patriotism and national pride and envisioned a "shining city on a hill" like the fortieth president of the United States. Too bad his party and his Republican predecessors let down those like myself who I have come to call "Clinton Republicans" and those of us who woke up as our intelligence and reason and compassion for humanity grew with our age.

The LINK to the site with Max's pictures is:

http://www.geocities.com/babylonnick/MaxYaekle2004.html

OR

A change of pace

Every now and again I decided that I would post some of my "other" writings on by blog. I haven't really been real committed to this blog at all so I figured that I would include and UNEDITED short story I recently wrote. The story was inspired by my "elderly" addiction to the obituaries in The Columbus Dispatch, the local newspaper here in Columbus, Ohio. I copied and pasted the obit from online and emailed it to myself and then several months later, wrote this story. I had no direction when I started this and, after you've read it, may see that I had no direction at all. As usual, feel free to email me at nyaekle@wowway.com if per chance you even are here reading this at all, and if you wish to respond or comment on any of my writings or musings. Here is the short story simply entitiled, Mrs. Stapleton. It has no real significance to any person, living or dead.






Mrs. Stapleton died yesterday. At least that’s when they found her body. The coroner in Columbus said that the temperature in her body indicated she had died sometime within 72 hours of when he examined the body. Neighbors knew the morning she died; she wasn’t going back and forth to the spigot to fill her watering can, pouring water and love over all of her treasured botanical children.

The neighborhood had once been a crown jewel in the farming community of Columbus, Ohio. It had gone through many incarnations, including the urban decline which was sparked by the spouting of suburban communities during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. The 1970s were definitely a hard time for the area. Aside from the fact that many of the traditional caretakers of the homes, the men, were dying from various ailments, the more plentiful the homes for sale became, the cheaper the selling prices were. More so than not, many of the original owners either sold to slumlords or kept the houses for tax deductions and rented them out. They weren’t nearly as concerned about the beauty and charm of the once grand homes as they had been when they lived there and raised their families. Many of the homes went back to the bank, which were less concerned with even trying to sell the houses, opting to find new mortgages at higher values in the newer suburban areas.

So with some elderly, mostly black, families still in residence, and more often black widows, many of the vacant homes in the area were boarded up and during the drug boom of the 1980s, became crack houses and headquarters for rising gangs. The economy of the area began depending on the drug money and as a result, the forgotten east side became an eyesore and crime-ridden haven sitting on the edges of the immediate inner-city downtown area.

The early 1990s proved to wheedle down the nicer homes that were left as the original owners, again most black women widows, began to die off. The younger generations that had not been killed and had stayed in the area, were either held prisoner in their own community by the gangs and wanna-be gangs or themselves were caught up in the cheap world of crack cocaine.

But appreciation for the grand old estates began to rise again in the mid-1990s as many gay men began buying the homes, sometimes in number, and fixing them to beyond their original fashion. Some animosity grew between some of the black families that remained and their new mostly white gay neighbors, claiming the renewal of the area was a form of gentrification and another way for the “white man” to push the black man out of the only areas they had left. And while the new gay residents had no problems living with or amidst the existing families, even with homes in disrepair and shelters to drug users, the tension became somewhat violent at times. Not that some of the black owners weren’t accepting and welcoming of the neighbors and their dedication to restoring one of Columbus’ once nicest areas. During many meetings black owners and gay owners stood side-by-side in City Council meetings, demanding funding for the restoration of the area which had become known as Olde Town East. After about five years or so, the hostility subsided as two of Americas most hated and discriminated against groups formed an unspoken allegiance and the pride became universally accepted and beyond the bounds of race and sexual orientation.

Among the most vocal, and prominent, of the supporters of the renovation of the beloved area, was Mrs. Stapleton. She was so respected that even the hardest of the gang members, such as they were in the Midwest town, went to far as to take their caps off when passing Mrs. Stapleton working in her yard and the adjacent lot she had bought from the city after the house which had stood there was burned to the ground. She would be bent over, support stockings showing, pulling weeds and trying to keep the neighborhood beautiful. They’d turn the bass down on their stereos so as not to disturb Mrs. Stapleton’s neighborhood garden and park or, more recently, Mrs. Stapleton’s frequent naps.

Mrs. Stapleton had outgrown her garden years before she bought the corner lot on Madison after the most stately home in the area burned. Arson investigators suspected the fire had been started, especially since the remote owner had just taken a policy out on the house six months prior which tripled his payout should the house burn, but they were lax in pursuing it, as other more violent crimes piled up each day. Mrs. Stapleton had been taking a break from watering her city-wide famous poppy garden and sipping on a glass of iced tea with a sprig of fresh mint from her herb garden, when she had noticed her creeping phlox had crept as far as it could, already daily taking jaunts outside of the wrought-iron fence. She looked up from the phlox and saw the rubble being removed by the city and sauntered over to the man standing amongst the workers who looked the most important.

“Don’t reckon you know what the owner plans on doing with this lot?”
The man turned to her, expecting to shoo some child from the sound of the voice, filled with excitement and youth.
“Sorry m’mam, what was that?”
“What’s gonna happen to this here lot?”
“Oh this? Well, the owner has signed land rights over to the city and we’ll list it for six months and if she don’t sell, we’re gonna auction it off.”
Putting her hands on her hips, Mrs. Stapleton remained silent for minutes. She uttered a “humph” and allowed a Chesire cat grin to envelope her face.
“You gonna be here a while?”
“As long as it takes to get this cleaned up. Neighborhood’s got enough dirt and eyesores as it is. That’s what happens when. . .” He trailed off, realizing he wasn’t in the company of the mostly white men he generally dealt with. Mrs. Stapleton knew what he was going to say and as much as she hated to entertain the thought, knew there was some truth to what the man was saying. But she still didn’t like it. I’m black, she often thought to herself whenever race was blamed for the decline of neighborhoods. And I ain’t so rich either, she thought, so poverty and pride were not synonymous in her mind. She knew, though, that the lack of pride stemmed from centuries of mistreatment and she also knew that a good deal of the young black folks had forgotten too soon what she and millions of their recent ancestors had endured to get the right to even buy a piece of land, let alone the right to vote on how it was taxed and who oversaw their city. It was this and total apathy, she thought, that ruined the black youth. And the idea that anyone, whites or Europeans, or anyone else, owed her something because her ancestors had been enslaved boiled her blood. She often held impromptu lecture lessons to youths in the area that she caught “acting a fool” and told them, “Stop blaming the white man for your problems and looking for ways for them to pay you off. Go out there and do something, each and every one of you, to prove everyone wrong. Don’t go hoodin’ around the area, wearing your colors and dealing the dope! Go out there and clean up your houses and help old ladies like me who cannot clean their yards, and study hard and stay in school, go to college, and then worry about trying to right the wrongs.” From what everyone says, those lectures, as hard as they were for us to endure as kids, saved many of us from poverty and crime and even death, and steered us in the right direction.

Twenty minutes after first approaching the man about the land and finding out that the city was asking $1000.00 for the lot with a ten-year abatement on the taxes, Mrs. Stapleton returned from her home, somewhat dirtier, and full of pride. She’d dug up from beside her Azeleas, a Mason jar and removed ten pristine one-hundred dollar bills, placed them in the side pocket of her housecoat, and reburied the jar, demonstrating she felt more confident in her own neighborhood for all to see to store her money than she did in a bank.

“Here you are sir. One thousand dollars.”
The man looked shocked.
“Ma’mam, I am not authorized to complete this transaction.”
“Hmmm. Well then, I tell you what. You looks like a honest man to me and I will trusts ya. I want you to take this to whoever the man in charge of this here property is and tell him that Mrs. Imogene Stapleton wants to buy it and make it a community garden and resting park.”

Two hours later the man returned with the city attorney, contracts in hand, and Mrs. Stapleton’s Community Pride Gardens and Park became a beacon of pride and unity among a neighborhood where people had lost all hope of identity.


She began digging the whole yard by hand. A few days had gone by before some of us kids in the neighborhood actually felt guilty walking by as a sweating Mrs. Stapleton worked dawn to dusk turning the land, one shovel at a time. Before the first week was over, over twenty neighborhood kids and adults were there, shoveling land and moving paver bricks, laying the paths to and around the picturesque little slice of utopia in a bullet riddled community. I think some of us did it because we couldn’t wait until noon when Mrs. Stapleton would leave and return with her homemade iced sun tea, arguably the best I’ve tasted in my life. She would also bring sweets she’d prepared the night before. Looking back, one wonders how this woman had the energy to be out there at all, let alone the fact that she still took care of her own yard and gardens across the street and baked goodies for a bunch of incorrigible kids. I can still remember the smile of pride she had when we all would tell her how great her tea was. Retrospectively, I suspect the smile was there because she’d managed to get kids who hated each other, members of so-called rival gangs, to work hand in hand as brothers. She certainly had every right to smile for this reason if she didn’t realize what she’d done.

She also took in laundry and sewing, mostly from white businessmen who had been referred to her from their colleagues. She charged so little for her services that the businessmen always tipped her more than they paid for the service itself. I suppose a lot of wayward thugs often thought about how much money that lady must have. And she was so vocal about her distrust of banks that it was universally assumed she kept the money in her house. Yet as long as she lived there, she proudly boasted, she’d never been the victim of crime or vandalism, “unlessin you account for the squirrel that bit through the wire in the attic and caught fire.” She chuckled when she told this story, which was more often than most of the stories she told ad nauseum.

And the year I graduated from high school, sitting in the front row was a strong and robust Mrs. Stapleton, in her late eighties, smiling from ear-to-ear as her babies were starting to make something of themselves. It wouldn’t be until some of us committed to sign to university that we would learn that Mrs. Stapleton’s money didn’t always just sit in Mason jars in her cupboards or under her fertile soil. When myself and a number of other youths from my neighborhood went to sign for student loans or to apply for an United Negro College Fund scholarship, we were politely informed that our entire four years of college had been paid in full and were handed a letter, hand written, with our names on the outside, in a beautiful penmanship. I feel compelled to share my letter as it personifies the respected lady of 515 Madison Street.

Dear Jefferson,

My o my, how long its been now since I first yelled to you to keep off the sycamore tree out yonder in the front. I laugh at myself each time I think of the look on your face when you scurried down that old tree like a scolded cat and high-tailed it up the alley back to your house.
I want you to know that I thank you for all you’ve meant to me. And I know, you may not know that you’ve meant anything to me, but you have. You and all the kids around here, the good and the bad, because you’ve all taught me as much as I hope I’ve maybe taught you. Shoot, I wouldn’t know nothin’ ‘bout Biggie and Tupac if it wasn’t for y’all. And I know that the sweet sounds of Patti LaBelle and Antia Baker will do all you horny boys some kinda “good” when you gets someone to your dorm room. I just want you to remember to always cover your baby-maker and always treat the ladies, or in your case honeychild, boys nice. I especially want to thank you for opening my eyes so long ago to the struggles not only of today and yesterday’s black youth, but in your case, a gay black youth. Until the day I die, baby, I will always stand up for you as a brother, sister (now ain’t that just some of Mrs. Stapleton’s humor for ya, honeychild?) mother and neighbor. We cannot fight for respect and equality within the black community without standing for those same civil promises and liberties within all types of people, white, black, Asian, (except for that Chinky little bastard who rooks people for all of their money over at that cleaners) Christian, Jew and Muslim, straight and gay, adult and child! Honey, Mrs. Stapleton is getting old and life ain’t got a lot of years left with me. And long after this old body ain’t doin’ nothin’ but fertilizing the plants over yonder at the Gardens and Park (where I’ve told them I want to be laid to rest before going to meet my Jesus), old Mrs. Stapleton’s gonna need a promise that you kids, especially the ones from here in this neighborhood (or Hood as you young’uns calls it) will always be true to yourself, stand up for rights when wrongs is done, respect all fellow man no matter how different they are from you, and preach and teach love and not violence and hate. I tooks in laundry for a lot of years and I wanna give this money to help you kids make a better life for yourselves. Lord knows, I ain’t got much education. Had to call a few friends and look in a couple of dictionarys to write these letters. So go on, get your schoolin’ and make a place for yourself in this world to help others. I hopes that you someday find a man who is half the man you’ve become, cause honeychild, when you do, he’ll be the second greatest man in the world!

All my love,
Mrs. Stapleton

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The Voice is pissed. I cannot fathom the fact that the press, the Democrats, hell, all Americans have let Junior Bush get away with all the shit he has. They don't jump on him for his cocaine abuse, jail time, AWOL record, the fact he drove several oil companies into bankruptcy while pocketing hundreds of millions himself, his Texas oil ties and their new refineries in the Iraq region and those are all on top of the BIGGEST travesty in American, hell, in the history of DEMOCRACY, that is stealing the election in 2000 with Florida (where of course his brother is governor). I am pissed! The apathy of the American people is deafening.

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*While this piece may seem unpopular and un-American, I assure you it is not. As an American, I am often times ashamed of the deceit and treachery our government uses around the world and the way we act as though, just because we're the keepers of Democracy, we have a patent on the word, idea, and implementation. I do not believe it is our responsibility to enforce our ideas of Democracy and our form of it to nations that otherwise are not interested, save for our involvement. If a nation requests assistance in forming a Democracy, then as a member of the world I believe we have a duty to assist. But Iraq hasn't asked. The president of Venezuela not only did not ask for the help of George Junior and the American government yesterday, but he emphatically told us, ". . .keep your hands off of Venezuela!" I think that's pretty clear. Perhaps we should take a lesson as should the leaders of nations all over the world. This piece was written some time back and for the sake of not changing my opinions from then, I will not alter it.*




The nation still reels from the events occurring this past Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Indeed, like Franklin Roosevelt said following the Japanese invasion of then (illegally) obtained island nation-turned US possession Hawaii, this was a day that will live in infamy.

Already the death toll is within spitting distance of 5,000, nearly double the numbers from that chilling December day in 1941 and the Titanic tragedy combined. Firefighters, law enforcement agencies, emergency relief teams, canine units, and regular citizens, in addition to foreign teams of rescue workers and some military units on their ways, work around the clock, fighting against faith and hope, clinging onto the fantasy that some may still be alive, buried feet under the settling rubble of steel rebar, concrete, glass, and debris. Chances are they won't find another victim of the World Trade Center attacks alive--or the Pentagon's for that matter--but like the resolve American's tend to show during each crisis and disaster, either home or abroad, will not waiver. (Author's interjection- Max has pulled up a step stool here beside of me and has decided that this bright Sunday morning is best left for 2 year-olds to growl at the lion flanking the drawer handles on my desk!) This resolve comes from a history-long determination to not only do what we feel necessary, right or wrong, to defend and commit that resolve, but from liberties much too precious for us to consider up for any negotiation.

Without assigning myself a full fledged American history lesson, suffice it to say that America was conceived from rebellion and attack. Indeed, not only did the early settlers come to this land and lay down "squatters" rights of sorts, but shortly thereafter their setting up housekeeping, they were embroiled in a war with the British who, using the same logic the settlers, a.k.a. Americans, used, wanted what they felt was rightfully theirs as it was Englishmen who conquered it in the first place. After successfully pushing back the redcoats and staking self-justified claim (after all, they did beat the British in a war, not that, should have mattered seeing how the British had even less of a claim to this land than those settlers did) on the land once picked for life support by Indians (Native Americans, if indeed we know for sure they are the actual natives to this land) the early settlers began their full fledged assault on the remainder of the continental North American landmass (I assume it wasn't called a continent by the name North America at the time). The treaties and deeds that they acquired would hardly stand up in the sophisticated legal system we have these days, but somehow the deed, used very liberally, obtained from the Indians for under twenty bucks (in baubles and beads) for Manhattan became the first tragedy in our nation's history occurring on that phallic shaped island.

Through the years, Americans have not only stolen land (and imprisoned royalty and leaders as in the case of Hawaii) but murdered and tended to affairs without request in a countless number of skirmishes the world around. We've assisted in the killing of perhaps millions in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands in Japan and Germany and Italy, and imposed our very own acts of treason and terrorism in places like Cuba, Iran, Iraq, the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and scores of other nations. We've condemned and fought a tyrannical, devilish dictator in Germany for allegedly (we had no proof of concentration camps at the time and little outside news reports to this very day) murdering thousands, perhaps alleged millions, of Jews (who, if you notice, seem to turn up in most bloody wars in the 20th century in some form or another--and I might add are a good portion of the reason we're in this situation now--the Jews and Islams can't get along) while all the time sanctioning our very own dens of inhumane murder and torture right here in our own backyards with the Japanese. We've sentenced hundreds of thousands of Cubans to death because we believe that Fidel Castro is not the legitimate leader of that nation, although he just leads a coalition not too unlike the one that "formed" this nation. We've funded and supported Nicaraguan contras without telling our people and then lied when it came time to look like the heroes and rid the Iranians. We spent fifty years condemning our own people for being communist sympathizers (whatever the hell that term means) and looking toward the former Soviet Union as the big red menace, only to realize that hand had played itself out with the American people and mend the fences (but only after we'd funded, trained, and supported Osama bin Laden and his Afghani rebels in their bitter and gruesome battle with the former Soviet Union) we'd spent trillions upon trillions of dollars, not to mention those unimportant lives, building. I guess "our" government should have listened to some wise old adages like the one about leading horses to water but not making them drink or the other barnyard reference that comes to mind about the chickens coming home to roost.

I'm scared. Frightfully scared. But this isn't something new for this proud American. I've been scared since I was old enough to think for myself and come out of the shadows and closet about the close-mindedness. I'm scared that the government can tell us who to love. I'm scared that the government can indict without across the board fair justice (i.e. John Gotti not being allowed his counsel of choice in Bruce Cutler--they knew they's never defeated Mr. Cutler and probably wouldn't). I'm scared that our government can take our tax money and vote themselves raises substantially above what the rest of Americans can expect. I'm scared that this government can make choices to "defend freedom" in nations where we've no business. And I'm scared that someday, because of this arrogance, that it won't be our government that suffers. It will be us, the people who make up this country and are supposed to lead it, who will be left with our dicks in the wind. We say we can't let it happen. Yet last November the boundaries were finally established when we let one faction of the bi-cameral-like political system steal the very thing which makes us and all democracy strong.

I'm scared my son won't have an America to tell his children about. We're taught about the values and ideals and time honored traditions that this country is supposed to stand for from the time we're old enough to recite the pledge of allegiance. But are we one nation? Are we under a God? And its because of the last line of this credo that I refuse to take part; we are not indivisible and certainly not fulfilling liberty and justice for all.



Originally written September 16, 2001
Copyright 2001 Nicholas Yaekle

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT

With the recent Katie Couric interview on Dateline NBC last evening, I found it somewhat appropriate to dust off this old chestnut from about a year ago that I wrote concerning the disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. Haven't proof-read or submitted this to anyone so please excuse typos or errors when I transferred it from my PALM to WordPerfect.
Nick Yaekle
March 6, 2004

Discredited! One Man’s Deceit; One Newspaper’s Fall
By Nick Yaekle
May 11, 2003

"If you see it in the Sun, its so."
Words that have set the pace for millions of children from generations not so long passed and their faith and belief in the legend of Santa Claus. The Sun, once New York's premiere newspaper, is now defunct, having been pushed from the wires by New York's, and the nation's if not the world's, most respected and accurate newspaper, The New York Times. It printed an editorial sometime during the early twentieth century in response to a little girl named Virginia's query as to whether Santa Claus did indeed exist. If you're familiar with this letter and the story and legend that has since followed, you're aware that her exasperated father advised her to write a letter to the New York Sun, and if indeed The Sun were to proclaim Santa real, then Santa did exist. Newspapers, after all, wouldn't print lies or myths or anything other than factual unless explicitly stated as Op-Ed or the staple letter to the editor. Newspapers, I'm sure he explained to his inquisitive daughter, check their facts and re-check them for authenticity, accuracy and then double re-check them for detail and source.

People depend on the newspapers of the world to report our surroundings for current state and for historical purpose. While most newspapers tend to write reports with some political bias and scatterings of jaded opinion pieces, the reason and cause of newspapers remains the same--news reporting. And some papers, in keeping with local traditions, tend to have fewer things to report than those in larger metropolitan areas and might report to the interested parties that Doc Brown was once again driven home from Charlie's bar and that farmer Glenn had managed to harvest his final crop before the torrential downpours hit the area last evening, leaving the waters of the Hoolahoo River out of their banks. Filling the news is a tradition nearly as long as Benjamin Franklin's first newspaper itself.

I am not a journalist; not by trade nor by education. I have my education in English communications but as far as understanding the inner-workings and trappings of the day-to-day operations of a small newspaper, let alone arguably the world's best known, perhaps most respectable, newspaper, I may be at a layman’s loss. I can use deductive reasoning and logic and common sense to know what I know about the organizations serving news around the world. Bias, I am savvy enough to weed out.

Today, on the front page of The New York Times home page on the internet, one 14 page article linked to an editor's note and a cited 14 page link to yet another article, the editors and publishers of the esteemed news vehicle which prints "All the News That's Fit to Print" acknowledged and admitted that on May 1, 2003, Times staff reporter Jayson Blair had fabricated, lied, and plagiarized at LEAST in 36 of the 73 articles he'd written for the paper since October 2002. Blair, 27, had climbed the ranks in the regarded organization as first an intern and eventually, due to short staffing during the recent disgraceful skirmish in Iraq, been elevated to homeland staff reporter, covering areas in Texas, Ohio, West Virginia, and around his hometown in Virginia and the Washington D.C. area.

Blair was allegedly using his laptop computer to access around-the-clock news wires and photo archives accessible by password and user name to Times reporters. Additionally, according to reports released by The Times in their own paper, he was using his cellphone to call into the office under the guise he was on assignment when indeed he was sitting in the comfort of his New York apartment. The fact that he had neglected to turn in substantial receipts for travel expenses was apparently chalked up to expected dedication of one tapped with the holy grail of being able to call themselves a New York Times reporter.

Further, the article makes hearty mention of the fact that Blair is African-American. The relevance of this fact seems somewhat contrived; is its purpose to point out a view of "see what happens when he hire a black?" or to be viewed as a badge for the hiring practices of The New York Times or better yet, is this an inroad to play the proverbial Johnny Cochran-like "race card" should The Times be able to forge some RICO or otherwise inane lawsuit against the enterprising journalist.

The suit should come from shareholders of The New York Times toward the management staff and the editors who allowed the integrity of the paper to be compromised while all along aware of the reported inconsistencies and inaccuracies in many of his articles, as well as lack of “evidence,” if you will, of any business travel on Mr. Blair's part. If I were a shareholder or upper management of The Times, I would certainly be interested in answers to some questions pertaining to the accountability of my editors and hands-on management.

I commend The Times for “front paging” their own faux pas. I suppose they’ve hired a political strategist or public relations guru to aid them on their course of action; by choosing the “honesty is the best policy” route they probably lost fewer readers, if any, and perhaps gained some for their brutal candor about their mistakes, misgivings, and careless fact-checking.

What’s most interesting, if not disturbing, is the depth in which the paper went about revealing Mr. Blair's work history and habits, as well as a few well placed allusions to his drinking scotch and smoking too many cigarettes. They also planted notions on a couple of occasions the idea that Blair was able to work hours deemed impossible by most and always full of energy and enthusiasm. Perhaps this is a not so well cloaked attempt to allude that Mr. Blair was on some sort of drug, perhaps one commonly known as an upper like amphetamines or cocaine. Or maybe it is the most convenient outlet to subtly discredit any talent or success Mr. Blair may possess.

Mr. Blair's depth of deceit and intricate details are tripped only by his own sloppiness, (another possible reference to possible drug use) was reported by the editors and staff of The New York Times. If this is true, how could Mr. Blair have gotten away with it for so long? The paper also reported that while it was commonly believed that Mr. Blair had finished his education and received his degree in journalism, contact with his college confirmed that Mr. Blair had yet to complete over a year’s worth of course work to be eligible for his bachelor’s degree. Again, I ask, if this is true, why hadn’t the human resources department found this when they should have been verifying facts pertinent to his hiring and continuing employment. It makes one wonder how often prospective employers really do check resume’ facts! (By the way, if there are any hospitals seeking a good doctor, I have my medical degree from Harvard. . .)

I guess my question is this, as succinct as I can put it. What gauge do we use to judge credibility and authenticity and to what sectors, public or private, are those standards held within accountability? To explain, how is it that we are expected to accept the “lies” the government tells us (not conspiracy ones, but ones later admitted buried within a Freedom of Information Act document) and feign patriotism while our government continues to wield its wrath the world over, in the name of homeland security and national security interests? Aside from the alleged plagiarism of Mr. Blair, was any harm really committed? Don’t Americans feel more secure when we’re told of the good from our newspapers instead of all the crime and strife and injustice? How would it feel in the morning to wake up to a newspaper where the most negative thing within the entire front page section was that there was a 20% chance of showers later on that evening?

We rely on the news media for goings-on in our surroundings. The public dependency on news wires has become so great, that the balance of power, financially and politically, as well as socially, hangs somewhere between these wires. Americans have strayed from reading and experiencing and have gone the way once outlined by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his speech to a Harvard graduating class entitled “The American Scholar.” We have dis-learned the ability to form thought and opinion without the bias and egging-on of our leaders, media, and our entertainment industry. We have become mere man-thinking, not thinking man. Sadness surely falls over the memory of Emerson as he surely hoped that within some reasonable time, his prediction of a society so clouded with the thoughts and ideas of others would tire itself and maybe, with some glimmer of hope, revert to times when independent thought and action was our only bastion of freedom and the last avenue to true inner peace.

Mr. Blair resigned from The New York Times. I simply find the fact that I even know about the man and the circumstances to which he allegedly resigned not only distasteful, but dirty and wrong. We are human, and as human, are expected to make mistakes and learn from those. We should not be sentenced, especially in public, for our private misgivings and bad choices. I believe that somehow, Mr. Blair’s civil rights have been violated and his privacy invaded when The New York Times chose today to expose not only his professional shortcomings, but also when they made mention of their take on issues in his life which are perhaps deemed by some as self-destructive.

I do not take the side of Mr. Blair. Had Mr. Blair chose to be a novelist, it is likely his name would have never been heard outside of the realm of his immediate circle of friends and limited fans. And he could have created a world in which to play and create and be God, had he chosen the fiction writing field as his choice of occupation. But when the water settles and the wheat is separated from the chaff, Mr. Blair was a minion of truth, and he led us astray with his incredulous ways, thus possibly scarring the elite profession of New York Times writers, good bad, present, past and future, for many, many years to come.

To: The New York Times
Attn: Mr. Jayson Blair
New York City, New York USA

Dear Mr. Blair,
I told my son I would write to ask you a question. You see, he’s at an age where he is beginning to question that which he cannot see. His faith in what I tell him as his father is beginning to be cracked by his friends and peer pressure. The other day he asked me if there was really an Easter Bunny. I explained to him about faith, and believing, and growing up, and all those good things. But I told him, in the tradition of patriotism and truth and the American way, that we would write a letter to The New York Times and ask them if there was an Easter Bunny. I told him if he saw it in The Times, it was so. I kindly request that you answer his question here within the pages of your esteemed and highly respected and accurate newspaper so that he and all the other children of America can maybe, if just for an extra year or so, still have faith in what it is we stand for, why we stand for it, and continue to be a child in a world that no longer lets four-year olds be children.

Humbly and with faith,
Nick Yaekle

Democratic National Committee

Democratic National Committee

The Voice of the Disenfranchised SiteMeter

The Voice of the Disenfranchised

COMING SOON. . .


The Voice of the Disenfranchised (original since 1994) weighs in on the disgrace the Democratic Party brought upon ourselves when the Democratic Leadership Council sanctioned the crucifixion of Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

Also, The Voice speaks about the Fascist-like and Communist approach of George Jr. In his demands to Congress to install a Constitutional Amendment which would, for the first time in history, condone, promote, and encourage (not to mention legalize) discrimination against a peoples in this nation. If we, as a collective nation, wish to preserve and protect the "sanctity" and "institution" of marriage (as defined by Bushie- LEGAL joining of a man and a woman), shouldn't the first step be OUTLAWING the majority practice of divorce? Many more families have been ripped apart by a divorce than by gay folks tying the knot.

Finally, before the supposed "COMING SOON" short mentions, I do wish to take this opportunity to salute San Francisco, California Mayor Gavin Newsom for having the testicular fortitude to "legalize" a ceremony that shouldn't be legislated as law to begin with. Also, congratulations to Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry on his clinching of the delegates and essentially (save for my candidate, The Reverend Al Sharpton and home(state)boy Dennis "The Menacing Elf" Kucinich) assuring his party's nomination for candidacy for the office of President of the United States. If I can't have Jed Bartlett, I'll happily settle for a Catholic, war-hero, liberal, Massachusetts senator with the initials JFK (oh, the conspiracies begin to roll. . .Kennedy WAS on the island and WASN'T killed and he's come back to reclaim his office--and from the God-help-him looks of John Kerry, it indeed could even be a Jack Kennedy risen from the grave! And you thought the Mel Gibson Christ-O-Rama flick was controversial!

STAY TUNED!!!

Happily email me (or otherwise) at nyaekle@wowway.com or yaekle@hotmail.com
March 2, 2004 Columbus, Ohio USA 11:51pm EDT

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