The Foot Bone's Connected to the... Oops.

Dear Anna,

We appreciate that you let us stay bare much of the time, that we can feel the sun and the dry air. If, however, you plan to move rocks -- nay, boulders -- please. put. on. real. shoes. Flip-flops are not acceptable shoes here in rattlesnake/scorpion/giant centipede country, period, let alone for moving massively heavy objects. We don't appreciate being crushed, stubbed, or otherwise mauled when the boulders go astray, as they will do after a long day of your relentless efforts (would you just give it up already and live with the dirt, or put in a lawn or something?), and if you're going to refuse us fair cover or an evening of rest on your plush footstool, understand that our throbbing pain will wake you up in the middle of the night.

Please, we don't want to see anymore boulders hurtling toward us. You have shoes. Use them tomorrow and you can sleep tomorrow night. Don't use them, and you can kiss your gardening days goodbye for a month or two.

Sincerely,
Your Bare Brokendown Feet

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Dear Anna,

We continue to enjoy these well-aired, no-sweat, fungus-free summer days, and we commend you for ceasing the boulder-moving operations until you can find your left boot. We would, however, like to bring to your attention the hazards involved in sawing large limbs off the several elms that you deem to be partially blocking your garden from essential mid-day sunlight. Granted, we feet are mere props in such an operation -- until you start climbing said trees to get at that one pesky limb hanging over your precious heirloom tomatoes, or tromping over the downed limbs to start hacking away at another one.

Lumberjacks, even pretend ones, wear boots. Not flip-flops. As previously mentioned, flip-flops are not regulation gardening attire, even less so considering that you're hardly "gardening" on these days of unbridled landscape alteration. When will it end?

Consider this your final warning.

Sincerely,
Your Still-Bare Too-Many-Close-Calls Aching Feet

P.S. - Your aching, half-locked-up elbows work for us now.

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Dear Feet:

I am in receipt of your letter dated 13 June 2005. I appreciate your concerns and will take them under advisement. Please be assured that I remain dedicated to your well-being and am honored by your tireless service.

Best regards,

Anna

P.S. -- I signed you up for a special new service, which you can access by clicking the link below -- enjoy!

Glad Someone Is Out There Fighting

I've been feeling like an underachiever (nice word for "failure") lately, and although this (below) doesn't help me feel any more successful, it does make my heart glad. This guy John Bonifaz was a high-school classmate of mine, and I'm so glad to read that he's still making (the good kind of) trouble after all these years.

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After Downing Street: A Resolution of Inquiry

By Steve Cobble / The Nation
June 7th, 2005 12:39 pm

It's not exactly a news flash that the Bush Administration lied to the public before the invasion of Iraq. What should be on front pages, though, is new proof of the Bush Administration's lies brought to light by the previously unknown Downing Street Minutes, recently obtained and printed in the Times of London. (The Downing Street Memo is a transcript of minutes of a secret meeting chaired by Tomy Blair in Britain in July of 2002 to discuss preparations and propaganda before going to war. It was marked "Secret and strictly personal--UK eyes only.")

The Downing Street Minutes are deserving, in the words of constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, of an official "Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach George W. Bush, President of the United States."

Bonifaz, who two years ago took the Bush Administration to court on behalf of a coalition of US soldiers, parents of soldiers and twelve Members of Congress (including John Conyers Jr., Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson Jr., Jim McDermott, José Serrano, Sheila Jackson Lee) to challenge the constitutionality of the Iraq war, adds:

"The question must now be asked, with the release of the Downing Street Memo, whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. Is it a High Crime to engage in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into a war? Is it a High Crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means of trying to justify a war against another nation based on 'preemptive' purposes? Is it a High Crime to commit a felony via the submission of an official report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launching military action?"

As in previous investigations of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," such a "Resolution of Inquiry is the appropriate first step in launching this investigation."

Bonifaz's memorandum making the case for launching a Resolution of Inquiry is posted at www.afterdowningstreet.org, a new website founded by David Swanson, Bob Fertik, Bonifaz and others (including this writer), together with a broad array of public interest groups that is posted on the web site.

Our memo is written to Representative Conyers, both because he is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and because he has been a brave truth-seeker on this issue and so many others. We support his letter demanding answers from the Bush Administration, signed originally by eighty-eight of his House colleagues; his call for 100,000 signatures to back up that letter; and his plan to go to London to seek more answers.

We have also made contact with several other members of Congress, and we believe that it will not be long before a group in Congress officially calls for an ROI.

Unfortunately, as most Nation readers know, the Downing Street Minutes have only been a story in the rest of the world, especially in Britain. In the United States it is taking much longer for the mainstream to pick up on it, and the issue is still being treated far less seriously than the seriousness of the charges warrant.

Fortunately, the blogosphere has found this new proof of George W. Bush's "misleadership" much more compelling than the mainstream press has; writers like Apian have posted incisive diaries on www.dailykos.com, which regularly covers the story, as has Georgia10 and her friends, who founded the wonderful site www.downingstreetmemo.com.

Despite a slow start, the Downing Street Minutes may have a long life expectancy, and the Misleader of the Pack may yet have to confront the truth.

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Rock on, John.

Grammar Lesson

Okay, so I'm writing these destination guides, and in researching the various cities, I visit anywhere from 10 to 100 Web sites in a day. Some are very polished, with compelling graphics and excellent prose, some are passionate but kind of clunky, and some are clearly slapped together in the "they say we need a Web site so put something up ASAP" tradition. That's okay; I'm just there to get some basic info and move on. But I do have a pet peeve, and I'm appalled to see it crop up nearly everywhere, even on some of the professionally done sites.

It's not "it's" or "its'" when you're referring to something and its attributes. As in, "carefully restored to it's 1800s grandeur" -- good God, who gets paid to write this stuff, and who signed off on it? Oh, that's right, the real writers and editors all got laid off as soon as the economy got dicey because it's not that important to worry about grammar and its fine points.

R.I.P., Chica

We had to put our dog Chica down yesterday -- she got hit by a car (I assume) and dragged herself home, two days after disappearing, with a shattered hind leg. Even if we could have afforded to get the leg x-rayed and all that, I doubt it would have been reparable. I feel just awful... she was a pain in the butt a lot of the time (she barked a lot) but she was so sweet, and now Lucy (our other dog) misses her something awful.

Chica was an escape artist, see, and would roam the town at will after squeezing under the gate or through an invisible gap in the fence, often with Lucy who would simply jump over the fence and run with her. I tried everything but couldn't keep her from finding some tiny gap to wriggle through, and she was just dumb about streets, and I so saw this coming. A few weeks ago I bought a tie-out to keep her tied up so she wouldn't keep escaping, but it seemed cruel... and she figured out how to slip the collar anyway (a perfectly fitted choke-chain, no less; she'd already ditched four or five collars by then)... We have a big yard, lots of room to run and play, but it never was enough for Chica, and God forbid we try to take a walk and leave her behind -- I'd be ten yards down the street and I'd hear the gate rattle and then here came Chica loping down the street with her tongue hanging out and her tail wagging in big loopy circles. Every time a car came by, I'd have to call her sharply, grab her collar (if she hadn't ditched it yet) and hold her till the car passed, or she'd just stroll out in front of it.

So, yeah, I saw it coming. I feel bad that I never spent enough time with her, doing some basic training and all that. She needed more than I had to give -- she was always a bit insecure (hence the barking, and also some recent snarling dominance battles with Lucy, who's a good 30 pounds heavier) -- and so I feel like I failed her. She wasn't even two yet -- still a puppy, but starting to mature into a good (if rough-around-the-edges) dog. Chica, I'm so sorry. I miss your pretty blue eyes and happy chatty bark, and I miss watching you and Lucy roughhousing in the yard and, yes, chasing rabbits through the fields across town. Happy trails to you.