Terrorists All?
More From G-8

While federal, state and local government agencies were touting to the public that the protesters would have their right of peaceful assembly and free speech, at the same time these same government agencies were harassing and intentionally denying permits to the G8 protesters to meet in public places, to use facilities normally used for public events such as schools and public parks, or to march before the world in open, public protest.
Eventually it became necessary for the ACLU to file a complaint with the federal court before any facilities or marches became possible. Permits for locations and marches were issued at the very last minute.
Outnumbered 20 to one, all protesters were continually filmed and photographed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, what seemed to be the police and sheriffs of 159 Georgia counties, "plainclothes citizens," Georgia corrections officers, the GBI, the FBI, the Secret Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, and not to be left out, the United States Army.
Even "innocent" citizens were photographed as they took sympathetic part in a candle light vigil at Neptune Park, or as they walked along the beach with small children watching a dozen or so protesters and others wading and having fun in the outgoing tide.
With permission of the St. John's Missionary Baptist Church, located in a less affluent neighborhood of Brunswick, the Atlanta Independent Media, a non-profit, non-corporate media, used the church building as a temporary headquarters. None of the Independent Media personnel were surprised when they looked out of the church door and saw that the U.S. Army had parked a Humvee across the narrow street.
The corporate media would have had better luck attending and reporting on TOES (The Other Economic Summit), a gathering of scholars on the environment, pollution, world hunger, international law, poverty and more. TOES follows the G8 wherever and whenever it meets. This international organization of scientists has been meeting for years without any problems. However, the Georgia G8 meeting was different.
It is a fair question that we all should ask: why, if the leaders of the G8 (or the IMF, WTO, NAFTA, World Bank) are honest and concerned about the wellness of the planet and the welfare of human kind on this planet, is it necessary to meet in secret and behind closed doors rather than in an open forum before the world?

Dennis Rice

Dennis Rice is a retired school teacher and an activist.

Semper Fi
Brief Encounter

A few minutes down Macon Highway, Athens ends and Watkinsville begins. Things become quieter, sparser, more homely. The college air dissipates.
Just before Watkinsville's quaint little mainstreet downtown, and tucked neatly beside a fast food joint called the Chicken Express, is a locally owned bookstore known as Trade-A-Book.
I stopped in the other day, equipped with a few mediocre novels from my bookshelf, in hopes of exchanging them for something more my taste (I wound up giving Terms of Endearment, I think it was, and getting The Portable Saul Bellow). While I was browsing the shelves, I overheard a customer chatting with a man I presumed (correctly) to be the owner - a pallid man sitting behind the register. They were the only people in the place except me.
The owner said something like, "The doctor said I need surgery on my heart, but that it's too weak - too risky a procedure. I'm just supposed to ride it out, just keep taking my medicine." His voice was faint; it struggled to emanate from his chest. But they chatted on, laughing, discussing books.
The customer left, and later I saw the owner shambling toward a box of books in the corner. On his hip hung a makeshift holster, fashioned out of duct tape, which held the store's cordless phone. It swung slightly as he shuffled along in a pair of moccasin slippers. The air conditioner hummed; sunlight broadcast itself intensely through the windows; the place smelled of thousands of pages of dusty ideas.
This was my first encounter with Sandy MacPherson. My second would be my last.
I returned a few days later, and as I reached to open the door I saw a little note taped to the glass that read, "Medicine making me sleepy. May have to nudge me." Inside, Sandy sat upright but withered on his stool behind the register. His eyes were closed, though they slowly opened as I approached. I didn't know why exactly I had come. I didn't have any money, didn't plan on buying anything. I nodded hello at him, and began perusing the books. I noticed that photographs had been taped along the shelves. Each picture featured a candid shot of a customer, among these same shelves, looking startled, delighted or embarrassed.
I asked if he had taken these photos. He said he had. He sometimes kept a camera behind the counter, loaded, in case it was needed.
I also noticed a newspaper clipping tacked to the wall - a story from a few years back about a local woman who had lived to see 100 years. It was Sandy's mother. She is now 102. He said he wished his condition was better so he could take better care of her. I asked more about his family and learned that his wife had suffered a stroke a year ago, and he was "still nursing her along."
We talked more, though he was in no condition for such exertion. I asked about his health, and he said he had suffered a "massive heart attack back in '78. But they stabilized me." He also had adult onset diabetes, he said, as well as chronic lymphocytic leukemia. In Vietnam, where he had served as a Marine, he was exposed to Agent Orange. He was unsure if that was a cause of his problems.

citypages-sandymacpherson.jpg

Though his body was quitting on him - at times I had to lean my head toward him to hear him accurately - he made good jokes, responded to my questions with lean and pointed details and helped the customers with their literary needs.
When, two days later, I came to visit him again, I noticed that the "Open" light was off at the front of the store. As I approached the door I saw a bouquet of flowers taped to the glass. Next to it, an obituary had been clipped from the newspaper and was taped at eye level. It was Sandy's obituary.
Though there are certainly cruder ways to learn of a death, I felt betrayed by fate's peculiar mode of revelation. I stood there as the sun beat on my back and peered into the quiet store. Everything looked the same as when I last saw it.

Tanner Brown

Tanner Brown is a local freelance writer.

Animal Control
Athens-Clarke County Animal Control responded to 76 calls.

10 complaints of animal cruelty
6 complaints of barking dogs
10 citations for ordinance violations
54 animals impounded
44 dogs
4 cats
2 opossums
1 raccoon
1 black rat snake
1 king snake
1 Canada goose
19 dogs placed
7 adopted
8 reclaimed
4 turned over to other agencies

ACC Animal Control press release for the week of June 8 to June 16.

Incredible Stupidity
Be Democrats, Dammit!

Now we know what John Kerry has been up to this spring. Other politicians, having wrapped up their party's nomination early in March, might have devoted those extra months to honing their stump speech, shaking down contributors and strategizing for the long slog to November.
Not Kerry. Kerry, it seems, spent the last three months begging Republican John McCain to run as his vice president. He didn't ask officially (whatever that means) but he asked seven times. "I don't want to formally ask because I don't want to be formally rejected, but having said that, would you do it?" An aide who ran messages between the two senators quoted Kerry's approach to The New York Times. Each time, each of seven times, McCain's answer was the same: an unequivocal no.
Hey, John, wanna be my veep?
No thanks.
I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that. So. Shall we print up some buttons?
No.
Come on, man. I need you.
Nope.
You're kidding! You know the Republicans will never nominate you for the presidency! They hate your ass!
Whatever. I said no.
Dude! Don't be like that. Yes is such an easy word to say. Say it.
Get a life, John. Don't contact me unless it's about legislation. Got it?
Look, I'll be honest. The CBS poll says you'll give me a 14-point boost if you join the team. I gotta have you. I can't take no for an answer.
No means no, John. No. No. No.
Hey, thanks, I appreciate it. I'll call a press conference for noon. Kerry-McCain 2004!
I'm getting a restraining order against you, you jowly Bassett-hound-eyed freak!!!
Seven times. Has John Kerry lost his mind?
The last time Americans elected a cross-party ticket was 1796, and with good reason. President Adams, a Federalist, feuded over matters personal and political with Vice-President Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party. The resulting spectacle was so appalling that Congress amended the Constitution to minimize the chances of such a fiasco re-occurring.
Not since 1932 has it been so important for Democrats to win the presidency. George Bush - a dangerous, deranged demagogue - has got to go. Anybody But Bush: I coined the phrase, and I still mean it. But it would be the height of folly to brush off the implications of the Kerry-McCain dalliance. The Democratic nominee-apparent's judgment, and that of his advisors, has been grievously compromised.
Liberals believe that McCain is a soft-spoken moderate Republican. The shabby treatment he received in 2000 at the hands of Bush and Karl Rove, whose operatives falsely claimed that he had fathered an illegitimate daughter with an African-American hooker, earns him sympathy from the left. So does the maverick style he employed to push for campaign finance reform.
But McCain isn't what people think he is. "At the end of the day," said the chatty aide, "he's a Republican." His campaign finance reform banned soft money contributions, a much bigger source of funds for Democrats than Republicans. Later in 2000 he played Bush's bitch, campaigning for the man whose staffers had smeared him. By all accounts his understated tone quickly rises to accommodate a sharp temper. Most of all, McCain's Arizona constituents vote for him because his conservative politics match theirs.
"I am pro-life," McCain wrote on his 2000 campaign website. "I oppose abortion except in the case of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. I support the constitutional amendment to prohibit the physical desecration of the American flag. [I will] curb the gratuitous violence in the media that is desensitizing our culture to violence. Bearing arms is a constitutionally protected right."
How could liberal voters support Kerry-McCain knowing that a pro-life, flag-burning-obsessed, pro-censorship gun nut was a heartbeat away from the big leather chair? Why should anyone trust a candidate or a party so uncertain about their principles that they're willing to sell them out for a short-term jump in the polls? Kerry should thank McCain for turning him down; in doing so, a Republican may just have rescued the Democratic Party from suicidal oblivion.
Both parties, and Democrats in particular, are in trouble. The last few decades have witnessed a rise in ideological blurring. Aping the Republicans has made the Democratic Party less appealing to increasingly apathetic liberals. This has occurred during a period of unprecedented polarization, when swing voters have all but vanished. The key to Democratic success this fall is motivating the long-neglected left-wing base. That means stronger, not weaker, party identification. Democratic Congressmen who vote along with the Republicans should be thrown out of the party.
Democrats must act like Democrats. And you don't do that by nominating, or running with, Republicans.

Ted Rall

Ted Rall is the author of Wake Up, You're Liberal: How We Can Take America Back From the Right.