Afternoon Promenade in Easton

The weather was nice and, as usual, I was lazy. Sunshine provided an excuse to abandon dusty record books at the courthouse and walk the streets of Easton. A breath of fresh air, instead of all those fiberglass particles raining down from the judges' new $43 million Taj Mahal, might do me some good. Yes, I'm a part-time streetwalker, but no one ever tries to pick me up. I'm probably too handsome.

As I perambulated along 13th & Washington, I came across 2 young ladies (about 7 or 8 yrs. old), doing something I wasn't - making money. They had a nice lemonade stand, a decent price ($0.50 a pop), and two winning smiles. Remember, this is Easton, where people are shot every 15 minutes and only idiots go for walks. Perhaps this was a hallucination. You see, I take drugs, like most streetwalkers. But the drugs I take are doctor's orders, although I'm sure it has nothing to do with all the fiberglass dust, cement dust and strange smells coming from what one judge calls a "commitment to justice." Yep, my illness is a small price to pay so our judges can step from their private bathrooms to mete out justice to the little people. After all, they're not slinging hamburgers. And I don't mind the indignity of cavity searches every time I enter the new building if I know it will make just one judge feel just a little more secure.

I made my way back to fiberglass jungle only to realize it was time to go. Darn! I packed up and cruised down Washington Street, only to see that the lemonade stand was still up and the girls had a new customer.

It was a cop!

Now remember, this is Easton, where cops are reputed to belong to some secret Nazi order. From what I read, these guys unleash hounds on P-burg people and yank wrestling stars headfirst from cars. They're stars of a recent state grand jury report, a federal investigation, and worst of all - they've accumulated enough ET turkeys to give all of Easton a great Thanksgiving dinner.

But these girls weren't afraid of this guy at all. Rather than run in terror, they were plying him with lemonade, and he seemed very happy to share a few minutes with these young entrepreneurs. Everyone was smiling. It was a like a Norman Rockwell painting. Totally disgusting!

Could it be that this police officer, like most Easton cops, was happy at an opportunity to build positive community relations with 2 young ladies who will fondly remember that sunny afternoon as they grow older? This was not part of some Weed 'n Seed program run by bureaucrats, but simply the initiative of a good cop. This guy did not seem to share the paranoid fear of citizens encouraged by our local judges.

But I keep forgetting - this is Easton, where there are no good cops, but plenty of good judges ensconced in marble and steel tombs, nicely insulated from the people they supposedly serve. I obviously suffered a prescription drug induced mirage.

Our Collective Addiction

Like crazed drug addicts, we have hurled ourselves into Iraq, in all our Imperial Glory, to insure our oil stash. We have about 20 years of fossil fuel left, so we rape Iraq, where we have murdered 13,000 civilians, mostly children, and are sucking those oil fields dry. From WMD to "God told me to do it," we rationalize our addiction. Like any good drunk or druggie, we spurn anyone who stands between us and our drug of choice. I'm an alkie so I ought to know.

"Freedom is on the march!" is the latest mantra offered by our Addict-in-Chief to explain everything, whether it is opium fields in Afghanistan, torture and concealment of detainees in Abu Ghraib, or wholesale slaughter in Falluja. He does this to the tune of a few high school bands in the Lehigh Valley who don't mind getting mired in politics because they get to play for the "War President."

This refrain must have a hollow ring to those enduring starvation, slavery and genocide in Sudan. It must sound insane to Father Jean-Juste, a Haitian priest recently beaten and jailed while feeding 600 children, all at the hands of a unelected government sanctioned by the US. But freedom only marches to countries with oil, where we, the occupiers, show Iraqis how little we regard them by refusing to keep track of those we murder. While we guzzle bottle after bottle of oil, North Korea and Iran develop nuclear weapons and nifty little missiles to deliver them right here. Talk about Code Red!

There is one and only one reason we are in Iraq - oil, not freedom. We need our fix so we can drive our SUVs, raise our speed limits, and murder each other in high speed collisions or in road rage incidents with assault weapons.

I'm told even God has become involved in the election and gave GW a flight suit or something. I don't know God personally, but from what I hear, I don't think He'd be doing cartwheels about our Addict-in-Chief authorizing intensified interrogation techniques (i.e., torture), lying to the American people, or directing a senseless invasion that kills innocent Iraqi children, paid for by sacrificing programs for innocent American children. But we are all crazy druggies and need help, maybe a 12 step program, or methadone. Now excuse me while I hop in my Hummer and get my third flu shot. Don't get in my way or I'll pre-empt you.

Government Hides Open Records But Publishes Yours on the Internet

The Morning Call, in a two-part series, recently chronicled a litany of obstacles encountered by those making informational requests under the state's Right to Know law. This law, supposedly strengthened by recent amendments, is routinely ignored by police departments and other government agencies with secrets. In Northampton County, for example, County Councilman Ron Angle has had to sue twice in as many years for access to county records that were later disclosed. In one case, the County's Solicitor warned Angle that "you'd better bring a gun." In another instance, this same Solicitor released records to reporters while refusing to provide access to County Council. He later claimed he had been kidding. Voters had the last laugh.
Local government imposes hurdles and hoops for those seeking public information that just might reveal how our money is spent. It is ironic, however, that it displays a downright cavalier attitude about the records of ordinary citizens. In fact, it publishes all kinds of personal information on the Internet, and does not hesitate to sell this data to anyone with a checkbook. These are public records, but no law requires they published on the Internet.

Northampton County assessment records are published on the Internet for the entire world to see. Osama bin Laden, from his cozy little retreat, can browse through ncpub.org and get not just your address, but a footprint and nice photo of your home. He can learn how many bathrooms you have, find out if you have central air, and can even discover your wife's name. If you'd like, you can pay the county a few dollars and get your own CD with all of this information. And it doesn't stop there. Real estate records are also published on the Internet through a third party at landex.com. For a modest fee, you can browse through all kinds of scanned real estate records, including mortgages that always contain signatures, and in some instances, contain social security numbers. This is a goldmine for identity thieves, who can use both to start lines of credit.

The Internet contains a plethora of sites like "instant detective" that promise all kinds of private data on anyone. Ever wonder where these sites get their information? They get it from local governments. As often as not, the information is free. Last year, over 600,000 social security numbers were stolen, and that does not happen without government help, even if it is unknowing.

Our Commonwealth Court recently expressed concerns about identity theft and counseled that innocent private citizens' interests must be protected against unwarranted invasions of privacy. Former Chief Justice Warren also warned, "The fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a greater danger to the privacy of the individual." But local governments, in a race to be online, make little concession for any legitimate expectation of privacy.

Northampton County is currently building a $43 million courthouse "expansion" that actually reduces the working space in every row office. This new edifice will have a separate entrance for judges and all kinds of security measures designed to protect them. While the county spends millions in public funds to protect its judges, its publication of personal information on the Internet will expose its private citizens to identity thieves, data miners, and stalkers.
Northampton County is not alone. 28% of all counties are now online, in one form or another. One such county is Fort Bend in Texas, where you could recently see Tom Delay's social security number and get his home address. On a Florida county web site, the social security number of CIA Director Goss was also available.

The records being published online have always been available for public inspection at the courthouse. But the simple impediment of requiring someone to be physically present at the courthouse is often enough to deter identity theft and prevent other secondary uses, such as marketing from data bases compiled by data miners. It is time that local government adopt some safeguards to protect the privacy of its ordinary citizens in addition to judges and other dignitaries. It wouldn't even cost $43 million. It would be refreshing to see government take as much care with your records as it does with its own.

A Small Solution to the Oil Crisis

A Small Solution to the Oil Crisis


She doesn't know I saw her. She snickered as I walked past the counter on my way out of the office, and her coworkers followed with muffled laughs. They didn't know I could see their smirks from a mirror at the end of the hall.

Why were they laughing at me? Rather than leaving the office in the usual dress shirt and tie, I was in my full-fledged "Team Ireland" bike regalia, acquired from E-Bay after numerous auctions. It doesn't exactly fit the mold for appropriate office attire, but it feels pretty good on a bike commute. Bright and colorful outfits make us more visible, reducing accidents. And the clothing wicks away sweat, making the commute a little more comfortable.

I admit it's silly and perhaps sad to see a 54 year old tub like me prance around like a Lance Armstrong wannabe. But I think these women stop laughing when they go to the gas pump. Local school districts aren't laughing when they fuel their buses. Local governments like Nazareth aren't laughing as they go over budget with fuel allocations for police cars and fire engines. And just think, the home heating oil season is just around the corner.

Everyone seems to know why oil and gas prices are rising. Big Oil says its refineries were thrown off line by Hurricane Katrina. Others suggest Big Oil, which has record high profits, is "looting" at the pumps. Some think our well-tanned and well-rested President, who just exempted tanks like the Hummer and Ford Excursion from fuel efficiency standards, is responsible.

These all sound plausible, but are only part of the answer. The simple truth, and one that no wants to face, is we are running out of gas. Oil fields are "maturing," which is Big Oil's way of telling us they are drying up. For every barrel of new oil we discover, we consume two. According to Chevron, we have about enough oil left to last about 30 years. And over the next 30 years, as supply dwindles and demand rises, do you honestly think prices will go down?

There was a time, in the not too distant past, when I could have hopped on a trolley to get to Easton from Nazareth. One left every half hour, and from Easton I could go anywhere. But those days are gone, and local leaders now talk about widening highways and increasing speed limits as a solution to congestion, oblivious to our dwindling supply and their promotion of the very lifestyle that makes more congestion and pollution inevitable. What they are actually doing is driving us at 65 mph right into a depression, which will surely happen as oil prices suck us dry.

I have heard talk of alternative fuels, but that's all it is -- talk. Big Auto, handmaiden to Big Oil, has resisted every attempt to use alternative fuels, increase fuel efficiency, or even make cars lighter with durable materials like carbon fiber. Now I don't know much about solar cells or hydrogen, but do know how to move my legs. So my solution, and it is admittedly a small solution, is to ride my bike to work and on errands. Broken Spoke in Wilson transformed my bike into a BUV (bike utility vehicle) complete with fenders (to stop rain), mirrors, a good lighting system, Kevlar tires that eliminate flats, and panniers (yes, that's a French word) that make it possible for me to carry large loads, including a dress shirt and tie. I've saved about 260 gallons since spring, enough to fill a Nazareth police car 13 times. Not much, but it's a start.

People give me all kinds of reasons why I belong in a car. I'm told it's unsafe to ride a bike in traffic. But statistically, I am much more likely to be involved in a car accident every time I start my jeep. Cyclists and motorists have pretty much the same rights and responsibilities on the roads. In fact, most motorists are downright friendly, especially when I wear my Team Ireland outfit. People also say a bike commute takes too long, but I can travel the 9 miles to work by bike in just a few minutes longer than in a car. And while people use up a gallon of gas looking for a rare parking spot at the courthouse, I can park my bike just about anywhere without being a bother to anyone. I feel the cool breezes from Bushkill Creek and come to work feeling peaceful and relaxed. My blood pressure and weight have both dropped, and visits to the doctor's office have become infrequent.

I don't mean to suggest we must become a nation of cyclists, but we do need to conserve what is left. At a time when over 1880 American soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice over what increasingly appears to be our strategic interest in oil, we are making remarkably few sacrifices ourselves. Supporters of our Iraqi expedition think plugging a yellow ribbon on their SUVs means something. War protesters "sacrifice" by plastering their cars with all kinds of goofy bumper stickers. Both roar off in their cars to each and every demonstration, destroying the environment they are trying so desperately to save.

The older generation, which suffered through both the Great Depression and W.W.II, knows something about sacrifice. It went through fuel rationing and made countless other sacrifices. We could emulate their example, and reduce our materialistic tendencies just a bit. We could carpool or take a bus instead of looking down our noses at "those people" in the other America who silently wait for buses. We might actually learn who are neighbors are and revitalize corner groceries and small farms instead of shopping at warehouses on wheels like Walmart.
Hurricane Katrina, if it teaches us anything, instructs that life as we know it could change in a heartbeat, and our dependence on fossil fuels has made us all just a little too complacent. But I admit I do look goofy in my bike gear

War, Patriotism & Religious Fervor

"My concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God's side."
Abraham Lincoln

I live in Nazareth, Pa. You can call me Bernie of Nazareth. It's a quiet little town, mostly white, and was originally settled by Moravians, our nation's first communists. They had "love feasts" and promoted tolerance by requiring gender segregation, although that didn't last long. Over the years, Nazareth has morphed into a town very much like any other Northeastern town, where neighbors don't know or speak to each other, and we awake each morning to a fresh layer of cement dust. There could be more black people than I think, but it's hard to tell with all that cement dust.

On my way home from work on election night, I saw something you never see in sleepy Nazareth - a spontaneous demonstration. A group of people at Broad & Belvidere proudly displayed Bush signs that read, "Vote God's way, not man's way." On the opposite side of the street, a lone couple countered with one Kerry sign. An active Kerry supporter, I stopped my Jeep and joined in the fun. Numbers on both sides grew as the evening progressed until demonstrators occupied all 4 corners of the intersection.

The original Kerry supporters, it develops, were carpetbaggers who had come down from Manhattan for the day to tell us how to vote, but they soon left for Starbucks and were replaced by lots of local residents, mostly high school kids and young and slightly inebriated adults. (We were outside of a bar). The Bush group manning one of the corners with the God signs were part of some youth prayer group. They condescendingly told us we needed to read Scripture when we told them Jesus was a liberal. They also called Kerry a murderer although he hasn't killed 100,000 Iraqi woman and children. One of the anointed, a big burly guy, crossed the street, called me a "faggot," and then hopped in his car to speed off without leaving his phone number. And a male member of God's club told a female Kerry supporter to suck his dick. Haven't seen that expression in Scripture, although I've read a phrase or two about faggots. Yikes! I have to stop wearing those flashy socks.

My conclusion was that this group of nuts is marginal, borderline insane, and could actually damage Bush's candidacy. What sane person is going to listen seriously to homophobic rants about gay marriage, or as Margartet Cho says, al Gayda? Turns out that 51% of us listened. Bush even won in love feast Nazareth by 9 votes. His appeal to "family values" and that kind of stuff are supposed to be what did the trick. The only groups who roundly rejected him were al Gayda, young white males, who could get their heads blown off by an IED in Iraq, and blacks of any age or sex, who could get their heads blown off by an IED in Iraq or anywhere in the deep south.

Some of these religious wingnuts have gone public, telling us "the liberal Democrats oppose God's will" and that "Jesus speaks through the Republicans. The Democrats will not be able to win elections until they renounce their sinful ways and stop encouraging abortions, gayness, and trying to take away our guns." Gayness? What the hell is gayness?

In Alabama, the "Christian" coalition and Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore successfully killed amendments to the state constitution that would ban segregation and poll taxes. So in addition to homophobia, bigotry is another of the family values being promoted in the name of God.

What the hell could God be thinking?

Guys like O'Reilly, the phone sex addict, and Newt Gingrich, who dumped his second wife for a much younger model, say liberals have no family values and mainstream American is fed up with our bullshit. I'm pretty liberal. I respect a woman's right to choose and don't mind if two gay gals or guys want to call themselves "married." Knock yourselves out, I say! I don't like it when we start a war to grab what's left of our fossil fuels, and I don't go to church. The last time I went was Palm Sunday so that I could give my 4 yr. old grandson some exposure to religion. I had forgotten Palm Sunday is the longest mass for the entire year and almost died of old age. On my way out, I noticed all kinds of brochures in the back. They were checklists telling people how God wants them to vote in the primaries.

People who go to church all the time claim to know God pretty well. I do go to a diner every Sunday in Nazareth where churchgoers eat after worshiping. I bask in their auras and hope some of their goodness rubs off on me. I was there with my grandson on the Sunday after the election, and we were treating ourselves to pancakes. The very next table was occupied by four of the Chosen Ones. (They didn't have an aura, but wore their finest clothing). I could overhear bits and pieces of their conversation as my grandson and I gave each other goofy looks. Didn't hear God mentioned too much, but I heard a hell of a lot about Falluja. A nicely dressed old lady opened her mouth, and as toast crumbs fell to the floor and all over her, she angrily insisted Bush had waited long enough and we need to go in and level that city now. Her three breakfast companions gave a few "Amens" and pieces of bacon and scrambled eggs fell from their mouths. "Turn it into a parking lot!" I don't hear anything about the innocents who would be killed, but these folks didn't seem too concerned about "collateral" damage. I wanted to say, "Wake up!" "Don't you know you're promoting the loss of innocent life?" Something pompous like that. But heh, it's Sunday, and I guess these folks are entitled to be left in peace.

Later that day, I checked the news on the "Internets." Holy shit! Those religious people at the diner had it right! First, I read an account from AP that US troops had gone into Falluja and "secured" the main hospital, but would not allow doctors inside because they will tell reporters about the civilian casualties. Better to let them die. Then I read another account from BBC reporting that US forces had completely razed another hospital, run by an Islamic charity, with "precision" weapons like WWII era howitzers. And before they started Operation Whatever, a bunch of evangelical Marines actually dressed up like Gladiators, anointed themselves with oil (there goes some more fossil fuel), and actually compared themselves to David facing Goliath. I'm not seeing that analogy. To make matters worse, I heard Pat Robertson on Fox telling everyone that it's so wonderful we've finally attacked Falluja, and he didn't express any concerns about the loss of innocent life or the Geneva conventions that prohibit attacks on hospitals. No one seems to care that soldiers refused to allow males to leave the city in advance. How is this different from what the Wehrmact did to Warsaw or what Romans did regularly to Jews?

I think they have the wrong God.

The born-again Pharisees who reelected Bush are not so different from another group that promotes murder and intolerance in the name of their God. No good God would ever sanction suicide bombing, blatant discrimination against race, or wholesale murder of innocents, whether it is the Twin Towers or 100,000 civilians in Iraq. I am not a religious person but seem to remember that.

Once, a man lived on this strange orb who told us to love one another, even our enemies. He was not a rich man, had no education, and had a soft spot for children and the weak. He resented those who perverted religion to promote intolerance or nonsensical adherence to religious principle. Some say he was crucified for his troubles, but some people listened to him. Where are they now?

Not too long ago, another man inhabited this country. He was not a rich man, had no education, and also had a soft spot for children and the weak. When the US unilaterally attacked Mexico in a blatant land grab, he spoke out against it. Of our enemies, he warned we must have malice toward none and charity for all. He was also murdered for his efforts. Some people listened to him, even Republicans. Where are they now? Those are the people with values.