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Show THE ZEPHYR/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER IF I WERE PREZ...continued lators can take that information and make an informed decision, based on the testimony, not on the free trip to Bermuda or free use of the corporate box at New Yankee Stadium, or free use of the company condo in Miami. And Congressmen caught being bribed by either side of the argument would be removed from office. ’ WHAT ELSE... I would allow bicyclists to write off their mileage on their federal taxes but would also require them to register, like cars, for one dollar. I'd make Foggy Mountain Breakdown the national anthem. I would provide funding to retrofit all homes in America with a backup solar photovoltaic system for low wattage electrical needs. Free low wattage bulbs for everyone. I would require all Pentacostal Christians to actually READ the Four Gospels of the New Testament...there WILL be a quiz. I would guarantee tax credits for veggie gardens. I'd plant dandelions on the White House lawn. I'd drain Lake Powell but would allow no one to visit it for 45 years, the length of time the canyon has been flooded...it needs a break from humans. I'd ban tv reality shows...Life is grim enough as it is. I would show no mercy for deadbeat dads. Hummers may be shot on sight. I would honor all treaties between the United States government and the sovereign nations of Native Americans who inhabited this continent before us. It’s about bloody time. Imagine a country of citizens, fractured by conflicting views, but willing to stand in the other side’s shoes, just for a moment, in search of understanding. 2008 Still, Bush-41 deserves some credit for a hope he once expressed for America. While he is mocked and derided for it now, President Bush once admonished us to become “a kinder and gentler nation.” What a lovely sentiment. If only we could. If only we could become the country Bobby Kennedy urged us to be and measure our wealth in ways the Gross National Product fails to reflect. If only we could imagine a country that honors its diversity and. differences as well as its common bonds. Imagine a nation that puts fairness before obscene profits. Imagine a baseball stadium that isn’t named for a corporate sponsor that still sells cheap seats and quarter hot dogs and fifty cent beer. Imagine a health care system that puts its patients before its profit margin. Imagine a university that doesn’t bankrupt its students before they even graduate. Imagine a country of citizens, fractured by conflicting views, but willing to stand in the other side’s shoes, just for a moment, in search of understanding. Imagine a country that truly cares. Elie Wiesel, the great humanitarian who survived the horrors of Auschwitz, once de- scribed the greatest threat of all... What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means “no difference.” A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punish- ment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one’s sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals? Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction. We are not a country of evil people. We are a nation distracted by the superficial and the shallow because we've been spoon-fed this dish so long, we know nothing else. And even worse, we don’t seem to mind. even notice. Indifference is our undoing. By definition, we won't Somebody out there...please. Prove to me I’m wrong. Good night and good luck. _. AND SO MY FELLOW AMERICANS... History may only remember George H.W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, as the biological father of America’s first Pinhead Commander-in-Chief. It is a curse that he cannot deny, unless he can offer proof of a milkman intervention with Barbara. Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in-facing head-on | . WE RENT CANOES! the serious environmental, economic and national security threat e posed by global warming. 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