Busy Busy

My plans for going into business are moving forward nicely, and come September I will launch the website and begin my new life on my own terms. Doing all that while performing my current job duties and working on my book have made for a busy life, to say the least.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn't stop here to comment on the passing scene. No one should fail to notice the irony of Edward Snowden's flight to Russia to obtain political asylum from the United States. I remember when we used to play that role for the likes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, which just goes to show my longstanding point that a fractured world of competing sovereigns offers the only refuge from tyranny, a disease to which no government is immune. And history is cyclical, for Abraham Lincoln once remarked about the slavery of his day as follows: “When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

On a related note, I was doing my best to stomach NPR while driving around town recently when the oh-so educated announcer described Bradley Manning -- another man of conscience in the state's crosshairs -- as being acquitted of the charge of treason "despite violating his soldier's oath to the government."  Excuse me? The soldier's oath is to the Constitution and to defend America from all enemies, foreign and domestic.  On that score Mr. Manning acquitted himself admirably and has endured inhuman treatment for doing so. No matter what the person occupying the presidency says, the government is not us; to suggest so betrays a fascist viewpoint completely at odds with the American founding and spirit.  "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government," the saying goes, and Manning proved his readiness in spades.