[image snagged from http://www.gutstein.net/kaunas/kaunas-ninthfort.htm]

I am preparing to visit Lithuania for the first time in late September to visit my grandfather's birthplace and have been researching sites of historical interest.

I'm not sure yet whether Kaunas is on my travel itinerary but I am drawn to this image again and again. The 50,000 lives lost at the 9th Fort in Kaunas have been memorialized by this stark sculpture.

A work colleague, also of Lithuanian extraction, visited this place earlier this summer and the experience changed him. I've encouraged him to speak about it and to show the world the photographs he took. I hope he will.

"But the most moving exhibit in the area is the Ninth Fort complex on the edge of town. It is a cluster of three sites: a small building filled with artifacts, jail cells where Jews were confined before being executed and a huge, jagged concrete monument. These structures stand where tens of thousands of Jews (as well as Lithuanians and Poles) were murdered during World War II _ not in a gas chamber, but by handguns _ in just three years (1941-1944), virtually wiping out Lithuania's Jewish population.

"Beneath the soaring concrete monument, five long slabs of polished granite resembling giant tombstones are set low in the grass. Each is inscribed in a different language, but all say the same thing: 'This is the place where Nazis and their assistants killed more than 30,000 Jews from Lithuania and other European countries.' Beneath the stretch of tidy lawn behind the markers are their remains."

Olson, Karen Torme. "Lithuania: History has roots in a small country with a big soul." Chicago Tribune (November 8, 2004).

Jenny Sanford moves out!

Sources close to the investigation revealed that Cindy McCain used her considerable personal fortune to unleash an attack on Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal in a bold attempt to undo the social networking activities of Caribou Barbie.

In the gaming arcade of the Metrocenter Mall in Phoenix, Harold "Sk8ter" Frost admitted to accepting $300 and a case of wildberry Skittles from "a blonde lady who told me that it 'was time to take Nanook of the North off the grid.' I wasn't sure who she meant. Maybe some Inuit dude with plain old telephone service?"

On the heels of Bill Clinton's successful closing of the deal that released two American  journalists from a 12-year prison sentence, it has been revealed that Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad have struck an unusual merchandising deal with MEMBERS ONLY sportswear.

Through an interpreter, Kim said, "Dictators need sporty clothes, too." Ahmadinejad nodded vigorously, and added, "When I wear MEMBERS ONLY, I blend in better when I grab a chicken shawarma at Aladdin's falafel stand in Astoria."

The new despot clothing line will feature drab windbreakers and cargo pants in sizes 26 short through 36 regular.

Given all the blog talk last week and over the weekend about eating right and exercising...

Did you eat breakfast?

Did you exercise?

Did you throw the bums a dime?

I said I *try* to exercise as long each day as I spend online (non-work-related). I walked fifteen minutes today, so my time online is up.... unless I bike with the dogs later. Happy Monday! 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/gates_sends_flo.html
"Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has sent a bouquet of flowers and a note to the woman whose 911 call led to his arrest earlier this month."

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/gates-reflects-on-beers-at-the-white-house/?scp=2&sq=quotation%20henry%20gates&st=cse
"We hit it off right from the very beginning," Professor Gates said. Laughing, he added, "When he's not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy."

After an unanticipated response from citizens interested in trading in their clunker politicians under the "cash for clunkers" program, the government reportedly exhausted the funds available, making it unclear whether additional deadwood can be removed from office.

Apparently, there is a large backlog of applications, according to Calista Creamer, spokesperson for the program. The White House would not immediately confirm that the program had been halted.

About a three hundred jaded politicians were traded in under the program, which offered payments of $3,500 to $4,500 for people who traded in old legislators for new ones that would focus on providing affordable, accessible health care for all; excellent public education; sustainable energy sources; progressive domestic and foreign policies; and so much more.

On the successful heels of Gumbun and Ripper taking DC by storm, help oust career politicians by running for office yourself, or supporting the candidacy of ordinary folks.

http://goooh.com/

A wealthy benefactor who has requested complete anonymity donated one-way tickets home for sour and negative legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, who have worn out their welcome in the District of Columbia.

They have been flown back to Greenville, South Carolina ($225), Dundalk, Maryland ($195), Stone Mountain, Georgia ($299),  Kansas City, Kansas ($310), Chickasaw, Oklahoma ($245), Sheboygan, Michigan ($410), and several locations that remained undisclosed in efforts to protect innocent families.

Because he was too combative to make it through Dulles security, one unnamed legislator was given a one-way bus ticket to Asheville, North Carolina where it is expected that he will work as a beekeeper at the Biltmore estate.  A few requested carfare to Arlington, Virginia, but such requests were denied.

The Obama administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of ornery and thick legislators for months now, sought private funding to pay for more than 100 tired cranks to leave the city, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive pension and health care system. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take in the spent and useless politician.

"I didn't expect the new administration to be so smart and positive," said an unnamed third-term senator, who was enjoying Cuban cigars, cocktails and prayer circles at Cedars last week and flew home to an unknown location in Michigan on Tuesday. "I was expecting something different, something ineffective."

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's statewide library borrowing privileges were wrongly suspended by a fussbudget in the State Library in the days following the governor's admission of an extramarital affair, state library officials confirmed Monday.

According to documents just released, Sanford's privileges were suspended on Wednesday, July 1. The identity of the said fussbudget is not known, and the reasons behind the action remain obvious but unknown.

But the suspension came just one week after the governor emerged from a mysterious absence, revealed his relationship with an Argentine woman, and was seen in the Atlanta airport clutching a self-help book that carried the earmarks of being state property.

The judgmental library employee sent a letter to Sanford notifying him of the suspension, but Sanford likely did not receive the letter until Monday, July 6, the end of the long holiday weekend, a state library spokesperson said.

The following day -- July 7 -- senior state library officials learned that Sanford's borrowing status had been suspended and immediately moved to restore it. Sanford's office said Friday that none of the governor's official duties -- including his tour of various libraries throughout the state -- or bedside reading habits, were affected by this error in judgment.
 
[please note: image snagged from http://www-origin.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/07/11/
sanfords-affair-might-have-jeopardized-top-secret-clearance.html]

Rodrigue Studio

Vieux Carre, LA -- A sorry group of professional ne'er-do-wells who describe themselves as the "Blue Dog Barflies" filed an injunction in United States District Court this afternoon, barring the so-called Blue Dog Democrats from using that term to describe themselves.

According to Tricksie Finecun, unofficial spokesperson for the ragtag group of "rode hard and put up wet" guys and gals, "These pols disgust me. I liked it better when they were yeller."

As Dan Rather confided to me in the cheap seat shuttle
from Charleston to DC, "Howard Dean is getting more press
than a cheap suit at the corner dry cleaner's." I just kept studying my
inflight shopping magazine, wondering if a resin gargoyle would fit
into my decor.

What's going on? Howard Dean is hot, hot, hot. This week alone, Dean was
interviewed by Rachel Maddow, and then was mentioned by CVille Dem
on TPMCafe. What's next for the big guy?

I found this old news clip on some obscure wire service. Let's hope Howard
Dean has set his Google Alerts. I wouldn't want him to miss this mention.

Kewanee, Ill. -- One out-of-stater was in hog heaven on Monday.

Former Presidential candidate Howard Dean became the first physician
to win the annual hog calling contest at the Illinois State Fair.

Dr. Dean whooped, hollered and oinked his way to the top prize at
one of the fair's most popular events.

This post was sparked by descriptions of Doug Coe (caretaker of Fellowship Foundation's C Street Center  and its creepy inhabitants, organizer of the National Prayer Breakfast, smarmy host at Cedars) that vary from "stealth Billy Graham," to Hillary's prayer buddy, to spiritual mentor of Mark Sanford's and other flawed politicians, and now "pastor."  Audio files from Coe's "sermons" have gone viral.

I doubted that Coe was an ordained anything, and decided to sleuth. I pieced together the following from snippets of various books, journal articles, news stories, and interviews.

Douglas E. Coe was born in Oregon in 1929 and was graduated from Williamette College.  As an earnest college student, Coe impressed former Governor and former Senator Mark Hatfield (1922- ). This close relationship between Coe and Hatfield resulted in Coe meeting Norwegian emigrant Abraham "Abram" Vereide (1886-1969), who had organized a network of prayer breakfasts in Seattle that culminated in the founding of The Family in 1935. 

By 1959, Coe worked for The Family, and in 1969 was named its leader.  Coe makes it known that he is an admirer of dictators, great and small, living and dead.  Hillary Clinton says in her autobiography that she met Coe in 1993 but Hillary and Bill were active in circles as early as 1984 with activities (Renaissance Weekend) that are intertwined with The Family. In 2008, Andrea Mitchell reported  that Coe is not an ordained minister. Given the ease with which one can be ordained  in today's world, why wouldn't Coe choose to be ordained?

These details raise more questions than provide answers:

• What is the role of prayer in 21st century government? 

• Are Fellowship Foundation Followers (prayer breakfast attendees, Renaissance Weekend  regalers, C Street hangers-on, Cedars guests, DLC members) our modern day equivalent of freemasons, simply dangerous theocrats, or pawns in a pyramidal coercive group of the magnitude of Scientology?

In case you are interested in sleuthing further, Coe's empire has functioned under various names:

• National Committee for Christian Leadership
• International Christian Leadership
• National Leadership Council
• Fellowship House
• National Fellowship Council
• International Foundation
• The Family (not to be confused with David Berg's The Children of God)

Financial backers of Coe's empire have included Wilberforce Foundation, Tom Phillips (Raytheon CEO), Ken Olsen (founder, DEC), Michael Timmis, Paul Temple, Jerome A. Lewis (former CEO, Petro-Lewis Corp.), Lilly Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts.

Future posts will explore the association of foundation assets with guns and oil, and nefarious activities of Values Action Team in foreign affairs.

Sources Consulted

• Sharlet, Jeffrey. "Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover Among America's Secret Theocrats."  Harper's Magazine (March 2003): 53-64.
• SourceWatch. Values Action Team.
• Lindsay, D. Michael. "Is the National Prayer Breakfast Surrounded by a 'Christian Mafia'? Religious Publicity and secrecy Within the Corridors of Power." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2006; 74(2): 390-419.

Other Sources

• Gilgoff, Dan. The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War.  St. Martin's Griffin, 2008.
• Sharlet, Jeff. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.  Harper Perennial, 2009.
• Hedges, Chris. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.  Free Press, 2006.

• Goldberg, Michelle. Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.  W.W. Norton & Co., 2007.