The size and diversity of this country is truly astounding when encountered by automobile travel. The rolling hills of CA give way to the deserts of CA, NV, and NM followed by the mountains around Albuquerque settling into the flatlands of North Texas where the wind blows and dust follows with little rain if any. Cattle feedlots of North Texas are beyond what the mind can contemplate. Oklahoma becomes greener and somewhat wetter as travel towards the east continues.

People travel in this country by car, motorcycle, bus, truck, bicycle and on foot. If you have never believed that America’s “stuff” moves by truck, spend a few days on the nation’s interstate highways. You name it and a truck carries it even if thousands of those trucks are loaded onto mile long freight trains to get them where their goods are delivered.

America has so much coal that trains longer than a mile carry it all over the country. And trains move day and night. Traveling along a highway gives rise to an eerie sight of a companion traveler at night, scarcely lit but moving car after railroad car either with or opposite your auto travel.

It’s hard to think of unemployment in this country with the tons of goods traversing this country from shore to shore. Perhaps it reflects the huge amount of goods imported here from overseas, especially China. At least truck drivers need not feel the threat of unemployment despite the spirit crushing separation from family required of so many long haul truckers……….to be continued

With pictures and my journal, you’ll be hearing about this trip in the weeks to come.

Apparently personal freedoms in Iran are secondary to the dictates of these representatives of the Prophet although from my limited reading about Muhammad I find it hard to square this behavior with his beliefs as the Founder of Islam. Somewhere in history, Islamic thought as propagated by Muhammad, was coerced into something fitting the mind and hearts of clerics. It makes one ask what the Prophet would say were he to return to Earth and observe the practice of the religion he gave to the world. Of course Jesus would be in the same fix as well I suppose would be Moses. It is disconcerting to think that three great faiths began with the best of intentions only to be forever disfigured in different ways by those left to be the stewards and guardians.

Full Disclosure: I am not a theologian and make not claims to represent any thoughts other than my own!

I recently accessed this website in my never-ending push to understand Islam and the Israel-Palestinian Authority question.

This particular website gives another viewpoint about the recent convictions of the Irvine 11 for denying the free speech rights of the Ambassador of Israel during a speech on the University of California-Irvine campus in the fall of 2010.

I offered a lengthy comment on the above website that is now awaiting moderation prior to publishing.

Without dialogue we are destined to continue to wallow in our stereotypes, misinformation and biases.

Watch this short TED presentation. You’ll never view the Web the same again.

Please leave a comment as I’m interested in your thoughts.

Thank you.

Rick Perry’s vaunted jump into the race after weeks of cat and mouse saw him only faltering badly in the debates. Mitt Romney is getting Wall Street money but he’s not a favorite of the Republican base. Some might interject here to just follow the money, but I’m not convinced. Everyone else just putters along basking in a few minutes of partisan sunshine but ending up sound and fury, well partial fury, signifying nothing.

Now comes Christie who is young, articulate and, no-nonsense in his media relations being touted as perhaps the GOP savior. He, more than anyone else running thus far,  would give Obama a competitive run for his money without question. He comes across on TV well and does not seem to have any earth-shattering political or personal baggage that could undermine his bid. He just has to be careful of negative responses borne of inexperience. But seeing as Obama has stepped in it Christie still has fouls to give. Apologies to the NBA!

Over the next few weeks look for him to assess his chances based upon how far down the current front runners, really only Romney and Perry despite Cain’s win in straw poll, fall in the polls that are being conducted at a furious rate at the present time.

Obama has a near fatal perception problem unlikely to be solved by a year from November. Given the right set of circumstances and barring any significant missteps, Chris Christie could well be GOP candidate and then GOP president.

There is no question but that political debate has turned from what ought to be an intellectual contest based upon differing ideas to one of impolite name calling, sharp-tongued rebuttals and not a small amount of ad hominem attacks. The sound bite has come to rule the arena of give and take.

Secretary Gates has it all neatly summed up in his 50 words above. Politics is no longer, if it ever was, an exercise of explication as much as it is now one of obfuscation. When people think they know where a candidate stands, they are operating at a disadvantage. Only what that office-seeker wants them to know is revealed. Most rhetoric is expended painting the opponent into a corner which becomes fatal unless the recipient can extricate him/herself. Political/personal verbal zingers become easy ways to hide the truth or reshape it in a way that may be unrecognizable to voters. Forget the outright lies and falsehoods offered without shame!

Debates ought to call on each candidate to speak for a limited time on his/her own program to meet certain problems letting the audience near and far determine what they find useful.

Is it too much to ask so that every voter so choosing can construct their own cost-benefit analysis of each candidate?

Politicians are offering to serve their fellow citizens. Ought not those same citizens set the parameters for what each public servant-to-be is required to reveal as to why a vote for him/her is warranted?

Anything less and the voter is being played for a sucker who has little chance to hack their way through a jungle of misinformation.

While the women will be able to vote, current practices appear to require them still to have permission and be accompanied by a male family member on these voting forays. They cannot drive so a driver will be required. They require male family member accompaniment to move outside their homes as well. Not much in the way of increased freedom but the optimist in me says it’s at least a start.

Recall that it has only been a couple of months since the Saudi government decreed that women’s apparel stores could employ women. For years males were the employees in even the most intimate of apparel purchases. I’m trying to think of an equivalent in non-Islamic societies regarding men purchasing from a woman but I’m stymied. The change in Saudi Arabian stores will take effect slowly.

Islam, much like Christianity, portrayed women in far freer roles around the times of each founder’s life. In Jesus time, women were all around and participating. Mostly women accompanied Jesus to and during his crucifixion. The Prophet, Muhammad, was surrounded by women who functioned with great freedom during his lifetime.

So where did Christianity and Islam veer away from the apparent intent of their foundational principles? Were the two religions captured by more aggressive males during a time in history where women’s rights were fading? Or did that aggressive male role push women to the margins of each religion?

Christian women are essentially shut out of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, notwithstanding token positions advisory in practice. Muslim women live in some Islamic societies in definitively subservient roles. Have you ever listened to a female imam?

It seems difficult to contemplate an almighty God (Christians, Muslims, Jews) who would sanction inequality as practiced in the Catholic and Islamic faiths. Perhaps that is why we have variants of each of these faiths in practice throughout the world. But inequality is inequality just the same.

These apparent inequalities render each faith in practice less than what it was when founded. So perhaps God is in favor of equality but simply trumped by the inequality-sanctioning males who have held the reins of power on Earth. But perhaps they have held on too long and need to revisit the words of Jesus and the words of Muhammad.

Will increased education bring about change in the practice of Islam as regards women? Many, many Christian women have achieved scholarly educations but the Catholic Church hierarchy remains a men-only club just the same.

Are you an Islamic or Catholic woman? How do you see this appraisal of the two faiths with respect to women? Would your faith find greater expression if its practice and hierarchy admitted women?

The University of California-Irvine had previously sanctioned the group over the same incident.

Clamor arose over the judicial proceedings instigated by the district attorney centering on a premise that these students were simply exercising their rights to free speech and the incident did not meet a standard for prosecution by the district attorney. The court saw that the promotion of their rights denied those of the speaker. During the speech individual students would rise without recognition to proclaim a previously prepared question intended to embarrass the speaker. In each instance their avowed purpose was to prevent the Israeli Ambassador from delivering his speech that was sponsored by a local Jewish group. This demonstration against the ambassador was planned prior to his appearance. The students are members of a university-approved Islamic group.

In their defense they evidenced a view that their free speech rights eclipsed those of the speaker just because they so strongly held to their own political views. Rather than exercising their rights to picket, stage a counter speech, they chose disruption. They apparently do not believe that free speech requires that each speaker is allowed to speak without interruption.  Free speech does not mean that one may prevent another from speaking by claiming that the disrupting person is simply invoking his/her right to free speech. Otherwise we would have no civil discourse whatsoever as no one would complete a presentation.

While they may be applauded for the ferocity of their beliefs, there comes with that ferocity an assent to a non-disruptive and respectful way to promulgate those beliefs.

The court ordered community service and 3 years probation with probation cut to one year if community service is completed by January 2012.

Debate continues regarding whether this prosecution was due to the students’ religion, Islam, and was beyond what should have been done particularly if they had not been Muslims.

No university professor would permit disruption of his teaching claimed one interviewee who teaches at the university level while another interviewee of similar rank stated that such disruptions must be handled within the arena of the disruption.

What does one do when someone, anyone, continues disruptive, disorderly behavior? If it occurred to you, what would you do? If it occurred in your home, what would you do?

Is this saying something about those voters in Florida and their grasp of the US Constitution?

Is it saying something about being disillusioned with Rick Perry based upon his performance on Thursday?

Are we beginning to see more open prejudice against anyone who is not like “us”? But the “us has changed from white, anglo,-saxon, protestant to a real polyglot of ethnicities, colors, lifestyles, you name it. “We” has changed, but it seems as those not everyone got the memo or some choose to disregard it at their own peril.

Both the Palestinians and Israel have claims upon territory but those claims are muddled with years of fits and starts. Over time those fits and starts have coalesced into a rather unmanageable mess. Competing claims, accusations of hostility, back and forth armed actions, uncountable deaths, dreams shattered, lives wrenched apart, rampant distrust, refusals to negotiate in good faith and any number of other sticky wickets leave us with the wonder of how all these past actions will be worked into an agreement having any chance of long-lasting success.

It is unfortunate that both sides have been and remain pawns of other actors. And it doesn’t help that both Israel and the Palestinians have relatively unstable and easily excitable political factions within their respective governments.

Only these two can resolve their long standing animosities to forge peace. A peace that will come only if both are willing and make what have heretofore been impossible concessions. Both have more work to do within their respective countries than they have to do with one another. But each must work both within and without at the same time.

Which government will provide the spark to move negotiations from the iciness of hatred and mistrust to the heat of compromise, coexistence and cooperation?