Yesterday's e-mail to Senator Wyden,  Dem (Oregon): "Please accept my grateful thanks for your efforts in placing a hold on the confirmation of John Rizzo. Your vote was mentioned in 'The Black Sites, a rare look inside the CIA's secret interrogation program' by Jane Mayer. New Yorker, Aug 13, 2007, (page 49a-b)." Background: President Bush was once again trying to install a fox in the henhouse, and Wyden deserves accolades for his willingness to run contrary to the President's abysmal history of acquiring super-Constitutional powers. There are far too few Wydens, but our independent press still has some power to wake up the people. Once the press goes weak-kneed, a bloody revolution in America might restore personal liberties, but no matter what happens, or what does not happen, there's no guarantee that we will ever get back all our Constitutional rights. It's critical that we support, and protect, our fearless press.

Relax. Today's front page headlines, Hiding money from your spouse? and Korn rocks Rabbobank, don't mean our Eye Street gang is infected with valley-girl disease. Actually the Californian has been in a complex financial-survival mode for a couple of years, and it's not going to die any time soon from lack of trying to stay vital. The paper's new Bakersfield Life magazine taps into advertising dollars that were draining off to Corum's Bakersfield Magazine; upon the demise of the Blackboard Free Press, the Californian brought out its own "alternative newspaper," albeit lite, and the Californian adopted other Blackboard-inspired tools, such as citizen journalism and a local history column; the paper publishes Mas, and then there's the Californian's website. That's not the end of the list.

        & nbsp;       Okay, so what's your point? The point is the Californian is doing what it can to stay alive, and for that we should be truly thankful. Behind today's front-page gingerbread, the Ginger Morehouse newspaper engine leads the fight on critically important issues that government has conveniently ducked, stalled, ignored, and pooh-poohed: Los Angeles sewage dumping, oil company ground water contamination, air pollution, and specifically on a more local level, government payroll transparency. The Fifth Estate has traditional lead the way for independent, right-headed, clear-eyed, investigative reporting, and at this point in history the Californian is one of the few heavies still looking out for our interests. (Yes, yes, I know about Keith Rupert Murdoch.) Kiss or criticize the Bakersfield Californian, but support it.

As the Senate and House sit by and titter at the exceptional powers assumed by the Bush administration, voters must be reminded that freedoms given up easily are hard-won to ever recover from an increasingly powerful fascist government.

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent.

Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers.

[But] The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."  

   Our nation's defenses against conventional attack are impregnable,

and we are vigilant against threats from terrorists. But as is the case with a

person, size and physical prowess are not the key characteristics of a moral

nation. The important traits include a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice,

peace, freedom, humility, human rights, generosity, and the upholding of moral

values.

    America can be an international example of these virtues. Our

government should be known, without question, as opposed to war, dedicated to

the resolution of disputes by peaceful means, and, whenever possible, eager to

exert our tremendous capability and influence to accomplish those goals. We

should be seen as the unswerving champion of freedom and human rights, both

among our own citizens and within the global community.

   We should be the focal point around which other nations of all kinds could rally to

combat threats to security and to improve our common environment. We should

be in the forefront of providing humane assistance to people in need, willing to

lead other industrialized nations in sharing some of our great wealth with destitute

peoples.

    We would give up little in exemplifying these traits. Instead of loss, our

own well-being would be enhanced by restoring the international trust, admiration,

and friendship that our nation formerly enjoyed.

J. Carter. Our Endangered  Values. (2005)  Pg 199-200.

• Big Business Up To Its Usual Game of S***w the Public

Instances of outright mortgage fraud are coming to light. Reports of suspected fraud from federally regulated institutions more than doubled between 2003 and 2006. Federal officials estimate mortgage fraud totaled from $1 billion to $6 billion in 2005 alone.

• Tell Me What I Want To Hear, Never Mind Reality

Experts say many recent borrowers were put into ARMs that are likely to cost far more over the life of the loan than if they'd chosen a fixed-rate option. Often, consumers could have locked in fixed-rate loans at low interest rates, but lenders downplayed the advantages of these loans.

• Widow Gets Fleeced

Experts also cite numerous cases where borrowers say they didn't understand the loan structure — and the escalating payments; in many cases, they couldn't really afford them. Jennie Haliburton, a 77-year-old widow in Philadelphia, told NPR she refinanced into a subprime ARM that now costs her $300 more than the $800 she was originally told she'd pay. Her loan resets in May 2008. If the current interest rate holds, the monthly payments will grow to $1,218; depending on rates, they could eventually reach almost $1,700 — 95 percent of her Social Security income.

• Hey, We Can Get In For Nothing Down!

New loan products allowed more Americans to own their own homes than ever before. But regulators exercised little oversight over the booming mortgage market.

• Can't Trust Business, Can't Trust Government, Can't Even Tust Yourself

The Federal Reserve and four other federal regulators did not issue guidance for nontraditional mortgages until last year. They recommended that lending institutions consider the borrowers' ability to make payments over the life of the loan before underwriting, and that they improve disclosure to consumers.

• Oh, You Mean "Me Bad"?

Federal Reserve executive Roger T. Cole says it was too little, too late. "Given what we know now, yes, we could have done more, sooner," Cole told Congress in March. 

• Oh, No!

But the loans are already out there; all that's left is to wait for the fallout. According to First American CoreLogic, this year and next, about $260 billion in prime ARMs and $376 billion in subprime ARMs will begin to reset.

• http://www.npr.org/template...

A Tehachapi gallery is displaying several exceptionally fine examples of animal artistry, works displayed side-by-side with local, human painters and ceramic artists. Charming is a memory box, framed under glass, housing a fragment of soft blanket and the head of a fabric doll that's missing one eye. It's caption reads, "Okay That Susie Loved Me. " Gallery director Marjorie Colby explained, "Susie is a Labrador." Next to the "Okay" box is a pyrotechnic, pointillist-inspired oil by an unnamed local Chihuahua. According to Colby, "The owner told me that the dog was very thoughtful and deliberate as it scampered over the canvas with wet little feet." Another member brought in a  9 x 12, framed sample of her cat's claw work on her husband's naughahide chair. As the date for the show's official opening approaches, Colby encourages the owners of larger animals and marine life -- underrepresented groups-- to come forward with examples of their pets' expressive art work.

Opening on August 22, 2007 in old town. "Pet Art" will run for two weeks at Gallery 'n' Gifts, 100 West Tehachapi Blvd. For information call Tehachapi Valley Arts Association, 661-822-6062.

The Bush Administration has redefined the reach of the Presidency, and average citizens sit by in acquiescence, dumbly watching TV, their mail opened, their email examined, and their cell calls monitored. Maybe most citizens are not capable of more: "One plunks, one distributes, one eats. Everyone partakes, everybody confesses… yet none feels himself accountable. He did not create the abuse; he cannot alter it. What is he? An obscure private person who must get his bread. That is the vice -- that no one feels himself called to act for man, but only as a fraction of man." --January 25, 1841. RW Emerson, Man the Reformer.

Comments of viewers of  the Nicholas-Fine segment of the  Bill Moyer's Journal re impeachment of the President and Vice President are at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/j...

The program, re-run this evening owing to  public interest, enumerated the several incidences of  Anti-Constitutional acts by  the President and the Vice President of the United States.

Nicholas characterized the present Congress as an unusual collection of politically-ambitious non-vertebrates.

Is there not at least one member of the House of Representatives  who is willing to place  the US Constitution before politics as usual?  To say,  My country is more important to me than being reelected.

"The reading men are kept by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the examination, do no work, but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the college doomsday."

-Emerson on the training of Oxford scholars, 1856. http://www.rwe.org/index.ph...

In the summer of 1775, when all the preparations for the war of the Revolution were in the most unsettled and depressed condition, especially the supplies for the Continental Army, the Provisional Congress made a demand on the people for 16,000 warm coats to be ready for the soldiers by cold-weather. There were no great contractors then as now to supply the cloth and make the garments, but by hundreds of hearthstones throughout the country wool wheels and hand looms were started eagerly at work, and the order was filled by the handiwork of patriotic American women. In the record book of some New England towns may still be found the lists of the coat makers. In the inside of each coat was sewed the name of the town and the maker. Every soldier volunteering for eight months' service was given one of these homespun, homemade, all wool coats as a bounty. So highly were these Bounty Coats prized, that the heirs of soldiers who were killed at Bunker Hill before receiving their coats were given a sum of money instead. The lists of names of soldiers who then enlisted is known to this day as the Coat Roll, and the names of the women who made the coats might form another roll of honor. The English sneeringly called Washington's army the Homespuns. It was a truthful nick name, but there was a deeper power in the title than the English scoffers knew.

 -- Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle (1851 --1911). Berkshire Traveller Press, Stockbridge Massachusetts. 1974. ISBN 0 --912944 --23 -- 4. A reprint of the 1898 edition published by Rosset and Dunlap, New York, with a new preface. pp 247 -- 248.