"I didn’t leave my England behind — I left somebody else’s idea of England."

Said Cyning Meadowcroft, quoted in "Briton builds medieval banqueting hall in rural Wyoming/Cyning Meadowcroft used the historical — and characteristically English — cruck carpentry method to build one of the tallest such structures in the world" (London Times).

Cruck construction dates back at least to the 13th century and refers to the use of naturally curved timber split in two to form an arch which supports the structure....

Meadowcroft, 59, a carpenter by trade, originally from Birmingham, has spent more than two decades erecting Angelcynn Heall west of the state capital Cheyenne for the “preservation of my culture.”

He likened his long-running project to historical resistance by the English to various invading forces: “If you’re locked up, if you’re dead, you haven’t beaten a system. But if you survive and you have something to leave behind, you’ve beaten it.”...

"Part of the beauty of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds is... how, like waves in the ocean, the atmosphere moves and responds to the environment around it. The air is effectively rising up and tumbling over on itself."

Said the BBC weather man, quoted at "Kelvin-Helmholtz: Rare wave clouds amaze sky-watchers in Wyoming" (BBC).

Click to see a photo of the clouds that look like cartoonish waves.

"When I found the treasure, it ended the hopes of the many people around the world who wanted to one day find it."

"I understand both the disappointment and disbelief many have and are experiencing and do not take personally the vitriolic comments made about me or the conspiracy theories that some seem to find comfort. But, to be clear, I am not and was never employed by Forrest, nor did he 'pick' me in any way to 'retrieve' the treasure. I was a stranger to him and found the treasure as he designed it to be found.... I do not see myself as being better than anyone else who searched for the treasure because I found it. I do not think more or less of anyone based on how close they were to its location, and I don’t think anyone else should either. This treasure hunt was not a referendum on anyone’s intelligence or abilities. Rather, it was a fun challenge based on figuring out what the words of a poem meant to the elderly man who wrote them, and nothing more than that. I do not care to spend my time disputing anyone’s convictions about where the treasure was. Everyone is entitled to their opinion in the United States of America. But when they sue me, they cross a line. This is an abuse of the court system...."

From "A Statement on the Disclosure of My Identity" by Jack Stuef (Medium), via "Adventurer who discovered hidden treasure left by eccentric antique dealer is unmasked" (WaPo). See also, "The Man Who Found Forrest Fenn's Treasure/The decade-long hunt captured the world's attention, but when it finally ended in June, everyone still wanted to know: Who had solved the mystery? This week, as legal proceedings threaten his anonymity, a 32-year-old medical student is ready to go on the record" (Outside Magazine).

"No one saw it happen, but a crack 50' wide and 6 football fields long has opened in Wyoming..."

No one saw it happen, but a crack 50' wide and 6 football fields long has opened in Wyoming https://t.co/IPfMmtQvju pic.twitter.com/i0SZSeQcfd

— 9NEWS Denver (@9NEWS) October 30, 2015

WaPo quotes some "experts" "allay[ing the] fears" of social media folk who are speculating about volcanoes and earthquakes.

"Wyoming is an oligarchy. If we were not a part of the United States..."

"... Wyoming would not last five minutes as an independent political entity. One can only marvel at the power of an artificially created matrix that is completely divorced from reality."

From a letter to the editor — citing, among other things, the Citizens United case — published in the Casper-Star Tribune.

Wisconsin couple was down to "eight pieces of bread, nine 15-ounce bottles of water, half a jar of that jelly and then eight packets of oatmeal."

So they wrote goodbye letters to friends and family — out there stranded in the snow, because they'd driven onto the Beartooth Highway, where "their GPS led" them, even though it's closed from October to April, because of the weather.

Shell Falls.

In the Bighorn National Forest:





(That's the fisheye lens on both photos, the second of which was taken by Meade.)

Wyoming prepares for a post-America future.

Just in case!

Frankly, I think all the states should have made plans like this a long time ago. Given the possibility of nuclear war, a large asteroid, or — Wyoming, I'm looking at you — the eruption of the Yellowstone caldera, the states ought to be ready to operate independently. I recommend, as part of the plan, ultimate reunion of the states — those that survive with intact state government — under the U.S. Constitution.

Wyomans? Wyomeroonies? Wymerrhymerbingbangs?

Cheneys?

You decide!

"Wyomans."

“The dictionary-approved term is ‘Wyomingite,’ which is also the name of a type of lava, see Webster’s New International Dictionary 2961 (2d ed. 1957). I believe the people of Wyoming deserve better.”

A Scalia footnote.

Obama wins the Wyoming caucuses.

It's the smallest state, but there was a big turnout, and it looks like Obama won by a lot.

Romney wins!

In Wyoming. 12 delegates. Coming in second: Duncan Hunter.

Do you feel a little sorry for Wyoming? It tried to get attention by going early, but it still didn't get attention. It's just really small — in population. Beautiful place, though. I've been there. See?



Hard to find voters.

"Hnh, Biden stomps some dirt on Robert Bork's grave."

"He wants SCOTUS judges who've lived life, not who 'want an intellectual feast.'"

Writes Dave Wiegel, live-blogging the debate last night at 9:56.

Biden was alluding to what turned out to be the worst answer Robert Bork gave at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee (which Joe Biden chaired at the time, 20 years ago):

ALAN K. SIMPSON, Republican of Wyoming: And now I have one final question. Why do you want to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court?

BORK: Senator, I guess the answer to that is that I have spent my life in the intellectual pursuits in the law. And since I've been a judge, I particularly like the courtroom. I like the courtroom as an advocate and I like the courtroom as a judge. And I enjoy the give-and-take and the intellectual effort involved. It is just a life and that's of course the Court that has the most interesting cases and issues and I think it would be an intellectual feast just to be there and to read the briefs and discuss things with counsel and discuss things with my colleagues. That's the first answer.

The second answer is, I would like to leave a reputation as a judge who understood constitutional governance and contributed his bit to maintaining it in the ways I have described before this committee. Our constitutional structure is the most important thing this nation has and I would like to help maintain it and to be remembered for that.

It was 20 years ago, that Biden led the fight that defeated Robert Bork. I note that, last night, Biden railed against law professors:

I have taken on those justices who, in fact, show no balance — they are ideologues. We have enough ideologues. We have enough professors on the bench. I want someone who ran for dog catcher. I want someone — literally, not a joke. When Hillary's husband asked me for his advice when he was appointing people, I wanted to go to people and so did he — we couldn't. Four people turned it down. We wanted to get someone who, in fact, knew what it was to live life.

So... we got stuck with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Who are the 4 people who turned it down? According to Jeffrey Toobin's "The Nine," Mario Cuomo, George Mitchell, Richard Riley, Bruce Babbitt all said no, and Clinton finally — on the suggestion of Attorney General Janet Reno — turned to Ginsburg.

Someone ought to ask Joe Biden if he meant to say that Ginsburg and Breyer don't know knew what it is to live life. And why is he so sure that politicians like Mario Cuomo, George Mitchell, Richard Riley, Bruce Babbitt do? Because he's one?

Now, it may be a perfectly good idea to put a great lawyer with political experience on the Supreme Court, but Biden goes beyond that and disrespects two fine Supreme Court justices — Ginsburg and Breyer.

I'm off to quickly have my fill of the northwestern Wyoming scenery.

I'll return -- unless I'm terribly unlucky -- with pictures. Meanwhile, you can use this post to talk about whatever comes up today.

Unwinding.

Here's the lobby of my hotel. Does it look familiar? Have you been here? There's a nice fire over there in the fireplace. Isn't that what you want, a roaring fire on the last day of July? I drove the Great Basin Highway today. I'd never been in Idaho before, and now I've crossed over into Wyoming. The West is absorbing me, it seems, as I started lingering on the XM radio channel called America, where I felt utterly charmed by Willie Nelson singing "Don't Fence Me In" followed by Johnny Cash singing (talking) "Ragged Old Flag," a song I'm sure I and everyone I knew mocked when it came out. Further on down the road, I was on the channel Frank's Place, and I laughed at Frank Sinatra singing "Gentle on My Mind" -- because who can picture Sinatra in a sleeping bag or in a train yard or with his "beard a roughning coal pile" or with a "dirty hat pulled low across my face" and his hands cupped around a tin can full of soup? In the thin drizzle, the brilliant talk-singing of Fred Astaire made a lot more sense -- "Isn't This a Lovely Day to Be Caught in the Rain?" -- and it moved me to tears. UPDATE: There's a 3-year-old boy here with his parents, and the guitarist goes and sits with him and engages him with "The People on the Bus." The boy is laughing with delight.

How political is that "gay cowboy movie"?

"Brokeback Mountain," the high-class film everyone thinks must be called the "gay cowboy movie," is doing extremely well in the few theaters where it has opened -- in NYC, LA, and San Francisco. The question is whether Middle America is in the mood for this sort of thing. Here's how Frank Rich analyzes it (TimesSelect link):

The culture is seeking out this movie not just because it is a powerful, four-hankie account of a doomed love affair and is beautifully acted by everyone, starting with the riveting Heath Ledger. The X factor is that the film delivers a story previously untold by A-list Hollywood. It's a story America may be more than ready to hear a year after its president cynically flogged a legally superfluous (and unpassable) constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage for the sole purpose of whipping up the basest hostilities of his electoral base.

Got that? We're sick of this damned President, so we want to see cowboys make love. I don't like the constitutional amendment and related political pandering, but I can't imagine how being tired of all that would make me more likely to go see a big outdoorsy melodrama with the selling point that the lovers are both men. In fact, the notion that to go to this movie is a political statement makes me less likely to go see it. The movie purports to be high art, not some tedious demonstration of good politics.

A serious movie about a gay love relationship may very well make a more effective political argument than a movie that presents itself as political argument. But writers must write, and they will spell out the political argument that the movie only implies, thus making it harder for the film's unarticulated, inherent argument to influence people. But the political baggage is not accumulating as fast as it might have. Rich notes:

As far as I can tell, the only blowhard in the country to turn up on television to declare culture war on "Brokeback Mountain" also has an affiliation with the American Family Association. By contrast, as Salon reported last week, other family-values ayatollahs have made a conscious decision to ignore the movie, lest they drum up ticket sales by turning it into a SpongeBob SquarePants cause célèbre. Robert Knight of Concerned Women for America imagined that the film might just go away if he and his peers stayed mum. Audiences "don't want to see two guys going at it," he told Salon. "It's that simple."

Oh, no! Those social conservatives are supposed to be backward louts! Have they learned the elite technique of restraint? Damn! They were supposed to be ayatollahs. How am I going to crank out these columns now?

Only now am I realizing that I'm writing about a TimesSelect article. Too bad it will be hard for you to read the whole thing. Well, elsewhere in the freely accessible parts of today's NYT there are other insights into the "gay cowboy movie." (Really, the guys are shepherds, but there's no shepherd movie genre, no iconic character The Shepherd to play off of by changing some key element.)

First, there's Manola Darhgas:

Less than two weeks after its release, "Brokeback Mountain" is already on the verge of being embalmed in importance. A lightning rod for attention even before it opened, the film has earned plaudits from critics' groups along with predictable sneers, and provoked argument over its gay bona fides. That "Brokeback" is a landmark is a matter of empiricism; its merits as a work of art are a matter of taste. What has gone missing is that this is also that rare American film that seamlessly breaches the divide between the political and the personal, the past and the present. Here, against the backdrop of the great American West, that mythic territory of rugged individualism and the Marlboro Man, is a quietly devastating look at masculinity and its discontents.

Then, there's this piece by Guy Trebay in the Styles section:

But to gay men trying to forge lives in a world where the shape of masculinity is narrow, and where the "liberated" antics of the homosexual minstrels so often depicted on television can seem far off, the emotional privation and brutal violence of "Brokeback Mountain" seems like documentary.

"That could have been my life," Derrick Glover said one bitter cold afternoon last week, referring to the film, which he had seen at a special screening a week before in Jackson, Wyo. A 33-year-old rancher, Mr. Glover comes from a family that has worked the land around Lusk for generations. His father still runs 300 head of cattle....

"They always define it as coming out of the closet, but I don't consider myself to be out of the closet," Mr. Glover explained. There is a reason for that, he said. "Where I live, you can't really go out and be yourself. You couldn't go out together, two guys, as a couple and ever be accepted. It wasn't accepted in the past, it's still not, and I don't think it ever will be."

This is really the most interesting of the three articles I'm linking in this post. Trebay goes to Wyoming, where the story in the movie takes place and where Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998, and interviews some gay men about what life is like for them:

The experience was "extremely, extremely lonely," [rancher Ben] Clark said, leaving him feeling so isolated that he more than once contemplated suicide. "I could not accept being gay because of the stereotypes that were drilled into me," he explained. "Gay men are emotionally weak. They are not real men. They are like women."

Like Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist in the film, Mr. Clark dated women for a time, bowing to the pressure to be "normal" although, unlike them, he never married and led a double life. There's a joke out here about how one goes about finding a gay man on the frontier. The punch line is deadpan: "Look for the wife and kids."

Fortunately, Mr. Clark said, "I never did get married, because I never wanted to hurt a woman like that."

I've made fun of the Oscar ads for the movie, because of the way they emphasize the relationship between the men and their wives. This ad campaign is laughable for intentionally hiding the nature of the central love story. Nevertheless, the story of the wives interests me greatly. And the political argument inherent in this part of the story is, I think, especially strong. Those who would try to prevent or inhibit men from forming lifetime bonds with each other ought to give more thought to what happens to the women they marry. Those who think a man should struggle against his sexual orientation and find a way to form the classic marriage relationship with a woman ought to think about what they are advocating for the woman: a lifetime relationship with a man who has only feigned sexual attraction to her.

IN THE COMMENTS: Lots of interesting discussion. I especially like the part where Palladian says: "Geez, all you straight people can think about is sex, sex, sex. Here we are having a conversation about love and art and all you can think to add is some base, puerile and off-putting remarks about genitalia 'fitting' together, as if it were some sort of dirty Lego set."

Alito and the Family and Medical Leave Act -- Part 5.

Harvard lawprof Laurence Tribe on the FMLA case:

YOU CAN'T help doing a double-take when you read Judge Samuel Alito's opinion holding Congress powerless to compel states to provide family medical leave to their employees. It was a position the Supreme Court rejected in a nearly identical case when it held three years later that the 14th Amendment confers such power by authorizing Congress to enforce each state's duty to accord ''equal protection of the laws."

The evidence and legal arguments hadn't changed when Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the 6-3 majority, saw what Congress had seen: that women and men are unequally protected in a world still shaped by the ''pervasive sex-role stereotype that caring for family members is women's work." The court accordingly held Congress empowered to ''dismantle persisting gender-based barriers to . . . women in the workplace." Why, then, did the deliberately deferential Alito, after reading the same text, history, precedents, and factual data, see no gender discrimination for Congress to dismantle?

Talk about doing a double take! Is this really by Larry Tribe?

The "nearly identical" Chittister case didn't involve caring for a family member. It involved self-care. Tell me, Professor Tribe, when men are sick, don't they stay home? I'm really having a hard time seeing what gender discrimination Congress is dismantling there.

The Supreme Court's case (Hibbs) was about caring for a family member, but even there, as I've written here too many times already, the Court was changing the way it applied its own test, a test that Alito was bound by when he decided his case. The Fourteenth Amendment law in question requires that Congress be providing a "congruent and proportional" remedy for the states' violation of Fourteenth Amendment rights. It was actually extremely hard to portray the states as violating Equal Protection in a way that went with the leave benefit, as Justice Kennedy -- no conservative firebrand -- explained in his dissent.

Anyway, I'll give Tribe credit for not saying that Alito found the Family and Medical Leave Act unconstitutional, though he's hiding the ball by not admitting that the commerce power supports it, and that Alito's case was only about whether an individual could sue the state for retrospective relief. Under Alito's opinion, states are still bound by the FMLA and their employees can sue to get their jobs back if the states don't follow these requirements.

Tribe's eagerness to slam Judge Alito shows.

UPDATE: There are two post-Hibbs court of appeals cases that say the self-care provision doesn't fit the Fourteenth Amendment -- that is, the result in Chittister is still correct.

MARY TOUVELL v. OHIO DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL RETARDATION AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES, 422 F.3d 392 (6th Cir. 2005):

[W]hile Hibbs found that Congress had adduced sufficient concrete evidence of discrimination by the states regarding the availability and consequences of family-care leave, there is no equivalent evidence that the self-care provision of the FMLA was intended to, or did, target similar discrimination. On the contrary, the self-care provision appears to have been social legislation designed to protect the seriously ill and their families regardless of gender. While this may be an admirable goal, it is not one that permits Congress to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment immunity of the states from private suit for damages.

KATHLEEN BROCKMAN v. WYOMING DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY SERVICES, 342 F.3d 1159 (10th Cir. 2003):

Because the Supreme Court's analysis in Hibbs turned on the gender-based aspects of the FMLA's § 2612(a)(1)(C), the self-care provision in subsection (D) is not implicated by that decision. The legislative history accompanying the passage of the FMLA reveals two motivations for the inclusion of the self-care provision. First, Congress was attempting to alleviate the economic burdens to both the employee and to his or her family of illness-related job-loss. See S. Rep. No. 103-3, at 11 (1993), reprinted in 1993 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3, 13-14; H.R. Rep. No. 101-28(I), at 23 (1990). Second, Congress was attempting to prevent those with serious health problems from being discriminated against by their employers. See S. Rep. No. 103-3, at 12; H.R. Rep. 101-28(I), at 23. The legislative history does not, however, identify as the basis for subsection (D) a link between these two motivations and any pattern of discriminatory stereotyping on the part of the states as employers.

Should we screen out mean?

The fuss over the Bolton nomination leads to a more general examination of the phenomenon of mean people in politics. Apparently, there have been plenty of people with various nasty character traits who attained high positions of power. How can you disqualify someone for something that could be said about all the various people named in this article (including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter as well as many, many senators)? Well, it worked against Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork:

"Bork is the classic modern instance of someone who made it easy for his opponents, in part because of his demeanor," he added. "I don't think he ever cracked a smile." For former Sen. Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, the personal criticism of Mr. Bork reached absurd heights. "They turned him into a gargoyle," he said.

And Bork had that beard, remember. Is it any surprise people keep zeroing in on Bolton's mustache?

Inauguration events.

I neglected to set the TiVo to record the inauguration events, but when I came home at lunchtime, I started recording the CNN coverage, which stretches the whole length of the day. I'm hoping to see a repeat of the swearing in and inaugural speech eventually. I heard some discussion of it on NPR as I was driving home: a commentator thought Bush had delivered a crushing blow to Saudi Arabia, and there was chatter about how much he said the word "freedom" and how many times he referred to God. I'd like to hear this for myself. For now, I'm reviewing what the TiVo caught.

So, first up for me is the luncheon in Statuary Hall. Trent Lott describes a lot of the fancy trappings in the room, like a painting of a sunrise in Wyoming, two crystal hurricane lanterns (gifts from Congress to Bush), and a 100-year-old eagle-shaped lectern (which Lott calls a "podium"). Bush stands to give a little speech in which he thanks "distinguished members of the Congress and" -- Reaganesque sideways head flick -- "some who aren't quite so distinguished." Snicker. He says he was touched that Chief Justice Rehnquist made it to deliver the oath and there is much warm applause. Bush is "lookin' forward to puttin' my heart and soul into this job for four more years." Laura Bush is wearing a blindingly white suit. Lynne Cheney is wearing a light blue suit with a gray fur neck ruff. Closeup of Bill Clinton during the benediction: he's looking very grand. Now people are leaving the room. We see Bush give his mom a nice kiss on the cheek. Voiceover commentary from David Gergen, who says he's not picking up the the same "sense of hope" that there was at Bush's last inauguration. Apparently, everyone was feeling good about "coming together" back then, but they aren't now. They're itching for a fight. Even the Republicans are "restive." I'm hearing this theme in a lot of the commentary today: Bush is not trying to reach out to the other side, not showing a desire to bring people together. "The divisions are so deep here in the country, and the divisions with other nations are very deep."

Now Bush, Cheney, and their respective wives are walking down the Capitol steps. Hey, the Cheneys are getting ahead. The steps are miked so we hear the footsteps, including the click of the ladies' high heels. The men can't go downstairs at a manly pace, because the women have to step carefully in those heels. They stop halfway down for a military marching band playing a medley of all the songs you might predict they would play. There are some fabulous dress uniforms here, some in the Revolutionary War style, which look especially great. I wish the commentators would tell us what we're seeing, but they are yapping generically about pageantry.

The Bushes get into a spiffy Cadillac limo, and the commentators have plenty to say about the car. Now the car is rolling along toward the White House. Secret Service agents trot alongside it. Wolf Blitzer voices over that the "white stuff by the side the road" is snow. What would we do without the commentary? My God, there's some white stuff by the side of the road? Is that bioterrorism? Now, steam is coming out of a grate in the street, and Blitzer says, "Now, that looks like they're having a little smoke coming out of something." The commentators decide it must be steam, since the Secret Service men are not reacting to it. Well, at least he recognized snow right off the bat.

Now the car is passing the designated protesters' section. There's a banner that calls for impeachment and says "guilty of war crimes." A lot of people are holding up signs with a picture of Bush and the words "worst President ever." Someone is holding up a yellow frowny face. There's a lot of fist shaking. There are Bush supporters on the other side of the street, and each group is trying to out-shout the other. It's quite loud. Beyond the designated protesters' area, we see an occasional protester with his back turned on the motorcade. Two guys standing side by side hold cards that say "liar" high above their heads.

Waiting at the reviewing stand is Condoleezza Rice, wearing a sleek black fur hat. She's laughing and talking to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The President's parents and daughters are waiting at the reviewing stand. About a block from the stand, the President and First Lady get out of the car to walk the rest of the way. Bush's smile is so wide we can see his gold tooth. The commentators are quite taken by the symbolism of the President walking out in the open. It seems to say something about the success of the war on terrorism that the route can be so perfectly secured that this is possible. We see Dick and Lynne Cheney walking toward the reviewing stand. With them is Mary Cheney, whose sexuality the losing presidential candidate saw fit to intone about ominously during one of the debates, a misstep he will, I assume, regret for the rest of his life. The parade is in full force, including a big float of the unfurling Declaration of Independence.

Now, watching "The Jim Lehrer News Hour," I'm able to see the swearing in and the inaugural address. The show's editors seem to delight in displaying the gloomiest members of the audience. I'm touched by the freedom theme of the address, as Bush speaks to the people of the world and to those who oppress them:

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.

The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people, you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice and America will walk at your side.

This is a profound and beautiful vision, and I cannot imagine the Bush-haters who turned their backs on the motorcade can have any better vision for the world. But, of course, I know, they think he's lying and they think, even if he believes in those ideals, he will fail in the attempt to fulfill them. So Bush's opponents have, at best, a pragmatism, a realism, a cynicism.

What did Bush say about God? I note that he said "freedom" twenty-seven times, "liberty" fifteen times, and "God" three times. Aside from the mention of God in the quote just above and in the final "May God bless you," the reference to God is in this passage, which takes a theological position that should be remembered:

We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages, when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty, when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner Freedom Now they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.

Bush excluded God from his prediction that freedom will triumph. God's will cannot be known. He takes his confidence not from a belief in God's favor, but from a belief in the human love of freedom, the "hunger" and "longing of the soul." It is a belief in humanity. God is mentioned one more time in that passage. He is the "Author of Liberty," to use the phrase from the song "America," which refers to the ideas of the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal, ... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"). So Bush does not wholly present God as unknowable. Following the theory of the Declaration, he sees God as creating liberty, but his vision for the future, presented idealistically in the speech, is that the human love of freedom is what will prevail, as he promises to come to the aid of people all around the world. I'm sure Bush skeptics will see that promise as disastrously ambitious, but it is a beautiful promise, and those who hate Bush so much were once the people who themselves spoke of beautiful ideals.

Rereading this post, I acknowledge that one could see a contradiction in that last quoted paragraph from the speech. First, there is a claim that God's will is unknowable, and, later, there is a statement that history has a "direction" that is "set" by God. But I would say that the best interpretation of the statement is that God created liberty and this liberty is longed for by human beings, whose actions in pursuit of their desire cause history to have a direction.

Hawaiian Cheney-love!

My cool Hawaii contact, "Yoshio," has this report on Cheney's visit (I've boldfaced details that especially struck me):

I arrived at 6 p.m., signed in, was assigned to a team, received a volunteer tag, t-shirt (required wearing) and rally pin. We cleared security which was actually less than some airline security checks I've been through recently. At 6:30 p.m. we were briefed by a gentleman named Tom who is with the Cheney advance team in charge of the event.

Each team was assigned to a specific job and our group was designated as "Lei Greeters" which meant that we had the happy task of draping lei around the necks of the rally-goers. There were 10,000 purple orchid lei, 5,000 bento boxes (Hawaiian-style lunch boxes which consisted of a slice of fried SPAM and a breaded chicken cutlet on a bed of rice) and signs galore. The venue was decorated in a red, white & blue theme but with touches unique to Hawaii such as large neon coconut trees. There were two huge screens to ensure all who came could see all the action.

While we waited for the doors to open at 7:15 p.m. we could hear competing noise from outside the convention center. Approximately 100 protestors, most of whom were dressed in various costumes, were using bullhorns to blast obscenities about Bush and Cheney towards the people in line. The rally-goers would respond with loud chants of "Four more years." Not surprisingly these outbursts got louder whenever a camera crew happened along.

The doors finally opened and we were on. Greet with "Aloha, thank you for coming," drape the lei, kiss the cheek and say "There is bento in the back if you're hungry and don't forget to vote on Tuesday", repeat. It was really fun. There were all sorts of people, which is expected here in Hawaii with our diverse culture, but it was still wonderful to see what was really a microcosm of our population. We had everything from bleached surfer dudes to Tongan gentlemen wearing the traditional lava lava. My estimate is that we had 7,500+ people - way better than the Democrats did on Friday with a mere 1200. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports that Cheney's team estimated about 9,000 and the the Honolulu Advertiser (who has endorsed Kerry and trashed Bush at every opportunity) estimated 5,000 - 7,000.

Some standouts for me:

1) The large group of Vietnamese-Americans wearing "Vietnamese Americans for Bush" t-shirts. I spent many weeks in Vietnam in recent years and a family I count among my closest friends fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. They were rescued from a sinking boat by a U.S. Navy ship, sent to a refugee camp in Guam before going to Camp Pendleton and eventually ending up in Spokane. All of the children attended college and have gone on to become great productive citizens. The relatives who didn't get out ended up in "Re-education Camps," one for over 13 years, and though life is somewhat improved for them now there is truly no comparison. Knowing what happens to people who are abandoned by the U.S. after a promise of freedom, and knowing that John Kerry played a role, however small in the abandonment, is probably the single biggest reason I don't trust him to not do the same thing in Iraq.

2) The stylish family of four wearing sleek black t-shirts with a small white "W" emblazoned on the left breast.

3) Two very pretty girls dressed up in jeans, white shirts, boots and straw cowboy hats with large black felt "W"s glued to the front.

4) The older Filipina lady who just had to tell us that she had lectured her fellow church-goers at mass just that morning about the importance of voting your conscience and not blindly voting Democrat.

5) Another very pretty girl whom I could only conclude was a Secret Service groupie. She came in and as I gave her a lei she held up her Bush Cheney sign and asked where she could get autographs from Secret Service guys. I pointed them out to her but told her I didn't know if she'd have any luck. I saw her after the event and she had managed to get several!

6) Two Washington female staffers. When they came in they said they couldn't wear the lei but wanted to take them with them. I handed it to one of them and when she touched it, she shrieked "It's real!" We instructed her on how to store it (this particular lei is very sturdy and will last at least a couple of days) and then snickered amongst ourselves at the thought that we would hand out fake lei - as if!

The doors were supposed to remain open until 10:15 p.m. but the VP was running early so they closed the security checkpoint around 10 p.m. and herded all of us who had cleared security into the front area and blocked it off from the other part of the hall. They then let the people who were still in line (approximately 800) into the rear of the hall behind a low barricade which was patrolled by Secret Service and HPD (Honolulu Police Department). A few hecklers managed to get in during this period but they were quite trivial.

The crowd was growing restless but it wasn't long before a young Hawaiian man stepped out and blew a conch shell, then came two amazing fire dancers (I ask, how many places have fire dancers at political rallies???) and the crowd was warmed up. We all sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and the Hawaii State Song, Hawaii Pono`i, acapella. We then recited the Pledge of Allegiance with great fervor. Then came the boxing match music and the man said "Let's get ready to rumble. The main event..." and Governor Linda Lingle was introduced.

Governor Lingle spoke just a minute or two before introducing Lynne Cheney and the Vice President. Mrs. Cheney spoke for a few minutes. I'm sure the speech she gives about meeting the VP when he was 14 and chronicling the various jobs he held from ditch digger to union card carrying lineman is the same she gives at all the stops but it came across as very sincere. She introduced the VP and the crowd went wild chanting "Cheney, Cheney, Cheney..."

The VP spoke for about 20 minutes but he started off by sending his best wishes to Sen. Dan Inouye's wife, Maggie. Mrs. Inouye was just diagnosed with cancer and will undergo surgery this week. The crowd responded with lots of aloha and best wishes for her. The woman next to me turned and said "He is such a great gentleman." I asked about the Leahy swearing incident and she just sniffed and said "Sometimes a gentleman just has to put an goat in it's place." Quite right.

He covered primarily terrorism, the global war on terror and invoked the attack at Pearl Harbor. He talked about the free elections in Afghanistan (huge applause) and the upcoming elections in Iraq. He thanked the military and all who have sacrificed loved ones which brought resounding cheers. He also talked about keeping taxes low (huge applause as we are a heavily taxed state), medical malpractice and the booming economy here. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the country and people are very optimistic about the future - might be why Bush is doing well here. After delivering his standard line which refers to Kerry's positions on the war, "As we like to say in Wyoming, you can put all the lipstick you want on a pig, but at the end of the day, it'll still be a pig!", he said "That's my favorite line. Would you like to hear it again?" The crowd went crazy as he repeated it.

Cheney looked great. Didn't appear to be tired at all and projected a strong and confident image. I would say that this event was extremely well produced and one wouldn't have known that it was only a few days in the planning. Everything went smoothly. I'm glad I went.