Bachelor Farmer!

I know a good restaurant when I taste one!
by Charlie Leck

I’ve been waiting for a long time to have dinner at the Bachelor Farmer in Minneapolis – I mean a long, long time. It shows what kind of pull I’ve got! It’s been so difficult to get a reservation at a reasonable dinner time. I don’t dig dining at five in the afternoon or at ten at night.

Well, for Christmas, our daughter, from New York City, made reservations a month or so ago for us and provided us with a generous gift card to the restaurant. Conveniently, she and her boyfriend were in town and could join us.

The Bachelor Farmer was everything I had hoped it would be. Spectacular would be a bit strong word to use. Unique would not be. One doesn’t find a lot of true Scandinavian restaurants in the U.S.. This is one of them! That fact makes the menu very unusual.

I immediately told our waiter that we were first timers and would probably need some assistance. He immediately suggested we order one appetizer plate for the entire table and two “toast” orders. Then we could each order our own entré selection. We followed his suggestions to the letter and began with a shared bib lettuce salad that was delightfully fresh and dressed to perfection with goat’s milk cheese, cider vinegar and walnuts. I found it delicious – in a tantalizing way. The flavors were mysterious and they teased the palate and made me want more. That made it a perfect set-up for the toasts, which are second level appetizers served with crisp slices of delicate and tasty toast. We had a duck paté that we could dress ourselves with pickled rhubarb and a grain mustard. The second toast order was beef tarter served with oyster mushrooms, cashew milk, horseradish and capers. Both were absolutely yummy!

I ordered a couple bottles of a delicate and wonderful Riesling from Alsace to go with dinner. My entré was a Grilled duck breast and confit with maple glazed cipollini onions, pickled rainbow chard stems and braised sunchoke. The flavors were amazing and I loved every delicate bite. My wife had the fish choice, which was a generous portion of hake that was topped with a very delicate cream sauce and wonderful little tidbits on the side.

Let me put it this way. I couldn’t eat this way often – perhaps a couple of times a year – yet I know I will start aching to try some of these precious and tantalizing flavors again very soon. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a delicately flavorful dinner.

From me, the Bachelor Farmer easily gets as many stars as it desires; and I cannot recommend the restaurant any more highly than I do. It is tops in the Twin Cities as far as I’m concerned. Just don’t come thinking it’s a steak house or something ordinary. It is not. It is dimly lit and terribly unique. And, you should try well in advance for reservations.

Is at 50 North Second Avenue (in what’s known as the warehouse district of Minneapolis). There’s a large parking lot behind the restaurant that charges five bucks to park.

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The Wonders of Techiness!

You know, I’m an old guy, well into my senior years, and I’m baffled by all the techy possibilities around me even though I truly think they’re wonderful!
by Charlie Leck

I’ve had a Sonos music system in my house for well over a year. It’s worked for only about two or three days. I just didn’t know how to make it cooperate with my cell phone or my iPad. The instructions that came with the unit weren’t really complete and clear enough for me. Our youngest kid came home from Manhattan to spend several days with us this Christmas. She went up to my tree-top office and played with the system for about five minutes and then came down to show patiently me how to get whatever music I wanted to play on my Sonos system. It wowed me! If I want to play a little Barbara Streisand, I can just take my cell phone out of my pocket and hit a couple of buttons and – zap – there’s Barb, singing her heart out. I can adjust the volume and move through the songs, or select a different artist and album with total ease. I can pause it, silence it and back it up with ease. I can have a speaker on in the bedroom and the speakers off everywhere else. Wow!

She’s also taught me about Pandora Radio… Wow! That’s neat!

Later, she’s going to set up my camera for me so that I can use it with my iPad and view the shots I’m going to take or look at them immediately after I’ve taken them. Save ‘em, delete ‘em and even adjust the exposure and clarity as I’m working with the camera.

It’s a remarkable world. I get a little baffled by it from time to time and I’ll curse occasionally at how slowly I pick up on things. The world is changing so fast. Of course, we won’t get to see many of the remarkable changes that are coming (drone delivery of our mail and daily paper and on-line purchases) and maybe that’s regretful and maybe not. I’ve seen plenty and I’m impressed.

Certainly the next generation will be able to figure out how to eliminate poverty and suffering world-wide. Now that would be something very, very special that I’d really like to see.

I’m not afraid to leave the world to the care of my children and their children. I’m optimistic. I think they’re going to do something very special with it.

Now, however, I think I’ll sit back and dial up a little Leonard Cohen music and read one of these old-fashioned books (set in real type on paper pages) that my kids gave me for Christmas. Later on I’ll watch a little football on my flat-screen, high definition TV and then tonight I’ll go downtown to have dinner at the restaurant I’ve wanted to try for months (the reservations were made on an iPhone and it received a confirmation as well).

I know none of it sounds very amazing to you, but it amazes the dickens out of me. It seems like only yesterday that I had to pick up the telephone in my home town and tell Milly, the operator, that I wanted to reach Chester 85 in order to call my best friend. We thought the technology was incredible. Television hadn’t come to our home yet, but my old man was trying to explain it to me and promised we’d get one pretty soon. I remember my amazement when he told me one could actually watch a baseball game being played in New York City on it.

“You seen one, Pop?”

“Yep! Yer Uncle Gus has got one! We watched the Giant/Dodger game yesterday.”

“Geez, Louise! No kidding?”

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Did Jesus Really Live?

Did Jesus really live? Apparently, yes!
by Charlie Leck

An edited, smaller version of this blog was published today as a status update on my Facebook page.

Among the Dead Sea Scrolls are some documents dating back to only 60 to 70 years after the time Jesus lived (perhaps even only 35 years). In them there is clear mention of the death of Jesus by crucifixion. It appears certain that the very religious men who wrote these documents were “aware of a new religious leader (or at least a teacher and preacher) in Israel known as Jesus of Nazareth and of a group of writings about him known as the New Testament.” [Grant R. Jeffrey] It is possible that some of these Essenes, who squirreled away the ancient scrolls, were somewhat influenced by the life and message of Jesus.

I have accepted as fact that Jesus was an actual figure of history. Josephus, the great historian of that era and region, has also made mention of the man Jesus (referencing his execution by Pontius Pilate). The church’s writings after the death of Jesus embellished his life and accomplishments in order to establish its own authority. One of my quests has been to understand the real man who is hidden behind those superfluities. I have a feeling he was much more remarkable and amazing than the man the early church portrayed.

Most scholars accept the references of the historian, Josephus. There were only two. The one mentioned above and this quite remarkable one: “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.” Josephus also makes mention of the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist.

People who want to delve more deeply into this question ought to get to know about the work of the Jesus Seminar, a group of significant theologians and scholars from various fields have been working for a few decades to determine what statements recorded in the gospel can be historically attributed to Jesus and which are embellishments authored by the early church as an effort to establish its own authority. There work is absolutely fascinating and significant. Their studies led them to believe that the little known work, the Gospel of Thomas, to be more significant and historically important than the gospels included in the work popularly known as the New Testament. In 2007, I wrote here about this gospel and provided a reprint of its verses. It is a long, but fascinating document. As an example, among the quotations was this one…

The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "No matter where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."

(James, the Just, was the biological brother of Jesus.)

Albert Schweitzer, highly acclaimed and widely known pastor and scholar of his time, wrote The Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1906. Though this new group of scholars has gone significantly beyond what Schweitzer was able to do on his own, this book had a gigantic impact on scholarship of the time and remains important even today.

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A Christmas Thought

   "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care..."

I often do a little meditating at this time of year, trying to keep my head on straight about Christmas. Today, gathering courage, I posted the following on Facebook…
by Charlie Leck

All you need to know…

“One of the scribes came near… and asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ And Jesus answered, ‘The first is Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” [Mark 12:28-31]

This is all you need to know about Christmas. It’s all you need to know about Christianity. Jesus counseled love of God and love of our neighbor (our fellow human beings). Don’t complicate it more than that.

At the same time
I must remind myself that this is my own rule, my own guess about what Jesus was trying to have us understand. Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite writers, brings me back to earth when he reminds me: “No one really knows God’s ways.” This comes from “Cat’s Cradle,” where Vonnegut also writes: “She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing.”

In one of Vonnegut’s most marvelous pieces of writing, in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Elliot Rosewater says at the baptism of a neighbor’s twins: “There is only one rule that I know of, babies – God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

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When a Golf Course Closes!

Shock for its neighbors regularly follows the closing of a golf course! A significant question is posed by the circumstances: What can we do with all this land? Of course, there are those who want to make the answer to the question as profitable as they can; however, a community shouldn’t act too quickly on proposals to develop the land. Town leaders should naturally wonder if there aren’t some golden opportunities here for the residents and citizens of their community.
by Charlie Leck

I trembled when I heard the guy say it. He had just told me that the Minnesota Prison Board was looking at the 250 acre piece of property next to my home and land. A private golf club that stood there was struggling and it looked like it was going to close according to an article in the local paper.

“You’ve got to be kidding?”

I felt my face and body grow red hot as I asked him. I couldn’t imagine it. Our wonderful home? Next to a prison?

Suddenly my friend realized that he might be carrying a joke too far. He chuckled nervously.

“No, I’m just kidding I just read the story in the paper. Is it true? Has the club folded? You are a member, no?”

Well, that story turned out just fine, thanks to some miracles and a knight on a shiny, white horse. The club is in safe hands and it has made numerous improvements that make it attractive to new members and it is rolling along well.

But, now another golf course in the area (oh, about six miles away) has given up. It had been a privately owned course open to the public. The owner had simply lost too much money. He needed to bail! He did. Now, suddenly, all those folks who lived around a lovely, generously green piece of land, with pretty groves of trees here and there, are hearing it will be turned into lots for nearly sixty houses. And each house will have its own individual septic system. Well, I flash back to that instant when I heard, without knowing it was a joke, that I might have a prison across the road from my house and property.

Oh, my! I feel so sorry for all those folks who live around the land on which Lakeview Golf Course had been built. It has been a golf course for 50 years. And now – suddenly – it might be a large, suburban housing project.

Is this just one more story about an unimaginative suburb making a quick decision that will be regretted years from now? Isn’t there more imagination around than that?

Aren’t there opportunities here that are golden? Don’t suburban communities just ache for better parks, playgrounds and open spaces for their residents? Must we crowd ourselves even more? Must we increase the traffic on our roads again!

Here is an opportunity that this community will likely never have again. They pledged themselves some time ago to protecting and preserving open spaces. Was it just easy, big talk back then?

Do those in charge of suburban communities ever dream big? Are they able to visualize beautiful? Are they able to imagine lovely? Are they able to look beyond first impulses to grand opportunities?

This is land just mere steps away from one of the most beautiful lakes in the world! And you’d think of putting nearly 60 individual septic systems on the land out there? The North Arm of Lake Minnetonka nearly abuts the land and Stubbs Bay and Maxwell Bay are so nearby. Could this not be one of the most beautiful parks in the entire metropolitan area?

For goodness sakes! Who is the Mayor out there? I’m told she’s an uncommon woman – a woman who thinks and dreams big and beautifully, and a lover of the lake and the land around it! Now we shall find out if she is also a creative leader – or just another ordinary follower and political hack.

For God’s sake (and I mean it), don’t just do another housing development on one of the prettiest pieces of land in your community. Wake up! Think big! Dream! This is the time for the “Beckoning of Lovely!”*

*The term is one I borrow from the spectacular
Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who coined it!

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It Should Not Happen in MN

Ever come upon a newspaper headline that drives you away from a story? “Oh, no! I don’t want to read this! It can’t be! Not here in Minnesota! Not in my state!
by Charlie Leck”

Race Drives School Labels, Discipline
Minnesota leads the U.S. in its rate of black students labeled with
emotional and behavioral problems, prompting calls for change.

How about a high school that hasn’t graduated
a single student in the last couple of years?
The StarTribune story, by Jeffrey Metrodt, tells us about the Harrison Education Center in north Minneapolis. I find myself cursing as I read it.

“The school is where Minneapolis sends special education students with the worst behavior problems, kids who typically failed everywhere else they went.”

Ninety percent (90%) of the students are black! The school was designed as a temporary placement for kids. It’s not, however.

Why does Minnesota have such a scorching, embarrassing problem with the extraordinary gap in achievement between black and white students? It’s a question that appears to have no answer – no certain answer anyway – only a lot of guesses and maybe this or that’s.

This is not the kind of story to which I would normally refer my readers. I’m usually boasting about Minnesota and exclaiming its wonders. Yet, here a troubling story that everyone and anyone interested in education – interested in racial problems in education – interested in deep-seeded problems in education – must read.

I’m not even going to quote any of the appalling statistics in this article. They’re too embarrassing for me to put on paper. As I read them, I could only cringe and shake my head.

The charge is leveled!
I had a hard time denying it. I didn’t like what she said, but I, for god’s sake (really), have got to consider it. It came from Liz Keenan, an educator who oversees special education programs up here.

“We can’t fool ourselves, kids are tearing up the classrooms, too. But it is perceived differently when you have a black student tearing it up than a white student.,,, look at a loud, aggressive white child and label them spirited, and the very same behavior with a black child is labeled emotional behavioral disorder.”

I hated this frickin’ article. I tried several times to stop reading it. I didn’t like hearing about special “green rooms” and “breakout rooms.” Not in my town! Not here!

Finally, near the end of the article, I click away. I go to the sport section. I take deep breaths and close my eyes.

Someone has got to get hold of this problem right now. Not in ten years! No more studies. No more failures to spend the right amount of money to solve the problem, This is America. We are not some undeveloped nation on a far away continent. This is the land of the free and the brave. This is the place where everyone has a right to a high quality, free education. This is a land where the color of your skin doesn’t matter and isn’t considered… strike that last comment and forget I said it.

Come on Minneapolis.
Dig deep! We’re building a billion dollar stadium for a football team. What’s got into us? Let’s figure this out and then boast the best record in the nation and not the very worst!

I mean it!

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GOP in 2016

Who will the Grand Old Party give us as a presidential candidate in the next election? Have they got anyone who could win besides Governor Chris Christy of New Jersey?
by Charlie Leck

What Republican, besides Governor Christy of New Jersey, really has much of a chance of being elected to the presidency of the United States? There may be someone out there who is totally unexpected.

The young man from Florida, Senator Rubio, used to be thought of as a serious candidate. He’s shown himself to be frivolous and nearly silly over the last several months. He barks the Tea Party line even when it is completely and obviously silly and untrue stuff. He doesn’t appear to have a serious mind and I don’t think he is at all an independent thinker. He’s a long way from presidential timbre.

Paul Ryan, who was the VP candidate on the Republican ticket in 2012 should probably be considered a possibility. I think the Democrats would love it because he can’t seem to do much more than stutter when you get him outside of talking finances. He suddenly become much more compromising in his approach to legislation and he’s trying to act like a grown-up.

Rand Paul, I would certainly think, is too politically narrow in perspective and way too far on the right. Being far removed from the center of American politics has long proved to be a serious deficiency for a candidate. It was, of course, Michel Bachmann’s problem when she tried to run.

Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas, says he’s keeping an open door about joining the race for the Republican endorsement. Huckabee won the Iowa caucus in 2008 and then ran out of money. Republicans wonder where he’ll find enough money to run this time. Huckabee is conservative and religious (former Christian pastor). Beyond that, he’s pretty well unknown and I’d say his chances are like tinker’s. Most political experts don’t think he’ll run.

At the moment it looks like Governor Christy has a clear path to the nomination. He’s a moderate Republican with a good track record as Governor. We’ll just have to wait and see how things might change. He could rob the Dems of states they normally take for granted. On the other hand, he could lose some southern states that the Republicans always count on winning.

The amazing GOP has been so foolish in the last couple of elections, it is liable to be so again in 2016. The party leaders just can’t seem to get a sense of what the electorate really wants in a candidate.

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Pope Francis and Capitalism

I am thoroughly amazed that so many are surprised that the current Pope seems so different than all his papal predecessors of whom we have memories. My goodness, he is different! Begin with the fact that he is Franciscan and we have never had a Pope from that Order before. I am not a Catholic but I really like this Pope.
by Charlie Leck

“We do not live better when we flee, hide, refuse to share, stop giving and lock ourselves up in our own comforts. Such a life is nothing less than slow suicide.”
                   [Pope Francis, in a recently released Apostolic Exhortation]

Pope Francis openly acknowledges and supports capitalism, but he reminds all Christians that certain demands (responsibilities) have been placed on us “to restore to the poor what belongs to them.”

Capitalism cannot be at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. The successes of capitalism should be used to fulfill the commands of the gospel. The Pope says that “private ownership of goods is justified by the need to protect and increase them so that they can better serve the common good.” Do not yield to the temptation that the Pope is talking about communism here because he is not. He clearly supports “private ownership.” He is referring to the demands the gospel places on those who are fortunate and successful -- a demand to share with those who are not.

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”
                   [Pope Francis, in a recently released Apostolic Exhortation]

What an extraordinary Christmas message has come from Pope Francis!

If you want to read the Pope’s exhortation (in English), it is provided to us in all its glory on the Vatican website at this location: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html

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Homeless Children

Want something to think about as Christmas rolls nearer? How about this? There are more homeless children in America right now than at any time since the Great Depression.
by Charlie Leck

The current estimates are that 1.6 million children are homeless in America (that is, these are children who go to sleep every night somewhere other than their own home). They are often confused and they often grow up to be angry, feeling that they’ve been cheated somehow by the system. Let’s not quibble about how they got cheated. Let’s concentrate on the fact that they, by and large, become less than perfect and model citizens – unless, of course, there is some serious intervention along the way.

Here, in Minnesota, we’re doing better than many states. The estimate, by people deeply involved in the questions and the problems of homelessness here, is that only 15,000 children will be homeless tonight. We have emergency shelters enough for about ten percent of those children. This is according to estimates provided by homelesschildrenamerica.org. You can go to the organization’s web site and take a peek at how your state is doing. It is sad, of course, to think about the other 90 percent. The temperatures will be significantly below zero tonight throughout our state.

Let’s say the organization is off by a third or so and there are only a million homeless children in America right now! Does that make you feel better? Wow!

We, the United States of America, with a million homeless children! What the? I repeat that: What the? (I learned from a daughter of mine that the common, social media way to communicate the same question is with a simple abbreviation – WTF?

I mean, we boast that we are the greatest nation on earth, but we have problems of poverty that are absolutely shocking.

And the conservative political parties in our nation think we are spending too much money on what they like to sneeringly call entitlements. How, in good conscience, can conservatives stand by and not see that that the government needs to have a significant roll in making sure these children do not just get lost in the system and end up in an endless and enduring cycle of homelessness, poverty and crime.

Entitled to what?
These children have certain constitutional entitlements that cannot be denied. And citizens and legislative leaders should make sure these are delivered. To end the cycle, we must provide proper and comfortable shelter, nourishment, and clothing. And, we must then ensure a quality education that will help them become productive citizens in the future.

Such entitlements might sound expensive, but that is only if they are looked at as a cost – as an expense. When seen as an investment in the future, they will then be recognized in the true light of their wisdom; and we shall realize that the nation will benefit from the futures such children will have in our American society.

The New York Times is running a series of stories this week on The Invisible Children. It is a series profiling individual homeless children who are among the more than 22,000 homeless children in New York City. The writing and photographs are extraordinary.

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Gillibrand – U.S. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand – from New York!

If I were a citizen of the United States of America who wanted to find good examples of members of the Congress and someone in that job who is tough, forthright, honest and unimpressed with her seniors, I’d take a careful look at U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Let me tell you, this is the kind of Senator we need in Washington.
by Charlie Leck

It’s very easy, isn’t it, to just get sick and tired of the kind of representation we have in Washington, D.C. – whether you are a Democrat or a Republican? I mean there are some miserable, weak-kneed, yellow bellied, ignorant legislators serving in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

So, when you discover one who is none of those things, but displays reasonable intelligence, practicality and a spine, you are just, well, damned attracted to her.

So, I give you U.S. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand (junior Senator from New York). I’ve been paying close attention to her for the last couple of years. After reading a very informative story about her in Saturday’s edition of the New York Times, I am completely sold on her and I envy the State of New York for having such a spectacular person representing them in the U.S. Senate. Now this woman just might make a very classy and bright President of the United States.

Keep an eye on her! She’s really cool!

And, unless you know all about her already, be sure to read the story about her in the NY Times.

Then you might want to turn to the Huffington Post and read, on Huff Post Women, this equally as impressive story about her.

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War in the Name of Jesus or Muhammad!

From Bangui, in the Central African Republic, come gruesome stories of horrible atrocities against Christian citizens there. The Associated Press reports that it is “mostly Muslim fighters” who are going door to door, finding and slaughtering Christians. Many Muslims there have declared that Christians are their enemy.

by Charlie Leck

The French government has sent military troops into the nation in an attempt to quell the violence. Reports, however, indicate that the capital city “teetered on the brink of total anarchy.” French armored vehicles have begun to patrol the streets.

The troops and equipment from France have taken some fire, including from a rocket grenade.

The United Nations, which approved the French mission, is scheduled to address the crisis in further meetings next week. The Central African Republic is one of Africa’s poorest nations. A great deal of rape of Christian women has also been reported.

What could be worse than religious wars?
I tremble when I think of religious warfare. It always seems to degenerate into the cruel and most vicious form of war. And, I am not accusing Muslims alone of such methods of war. History has shown that Christians can be just as violent and cruel as well.

Such news makes those of us who don’t consider ourselves very religious to shake our heads in wonder and disgust at the cruelty of man against his brother. There is no religious justification for such warfare. For that matter, there is no civil or social justification for it either.

Thousands upon thousands of more people turn away from religion each time the world reports such incidents as those now reported in Africa. OMG!

I leave you with this poem by F. Spagnoli, called God’s War…

“What God has torn asunder
No man shall join together”.
A lapse? A slip of the tongue
It was most certainly not.
The phrase was purposely swung
to set up God against god,

good against the ‘evil ones.’
The mantra of a union
turned into a cry for guns,
for crimson separation.

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President Nelson Mandela

I can't say more than all the things that are being said about him in today's newspapers -- all around the world! I can only salute him and testify to my own admiration for him.
by Charlie Leck

He was a mere human. A man such as I. He had plenty of imperfections; however, he was brave and tough and recognized injustice and fought to overcome it. Those who love fairness, equality and hope for every man and woman will always salute him. It appears the entire world is doing that today!

Now he is among the stars, "triumphing over death, and chance and thee, O time!"

As Muhammad Ali said of him yesterday…

"His was a spirit born free, destined to soar above the rainbows. Today his spirit is soaring through the heavens. He is now forever free."

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

What Really Happened in Benghazi!

The terrible incident in Benghazi was a nightmare for those who had to live through it. We owe it to them to tell the truth about what happened at that diplomatic facility in Libya. The radicals in the Republican Party wanted nothing to do with the truth.
by Charlie Leck

 David Brock and Ari Rabin-Hart, The Benghazi Hoax. (Amazon is selling it as an e-book for 99 cents.)

Benghazi is a major city in the nation of Libya. It’s in the northeastern portion of the nation, right on the Gulf of Sirte, where “police were only as honest as their next bribe.”

The description of Benghazi by Burton and Rabin-Hart is remarkable. I can’t wait to get my hands on their book. In the meantime, I recommend this Huffington Post summary of the story by the author himself, David Brock.

Can you remember the setting for The Benghazi incident?
I mean, do you remember what was going on in the U.S. at the time it happened. David Brock, author of a new e-book about Benghazi seems to think it is important to remember; and I agree with him.

It was September 11, 2012 (9/11) and the campaign for the presidency of the United States between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama was going strong. Romney trailed by a significant amount. The two candidates agreed that all negative campaigning should be set aside on this anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Romney was going to speak to the National Guard Association in Reno; however, he vowed to keep any attack against the president out of his speech.

At 3:00 P.M. (U.S. Eastern Time), in Benghazi, a U.S. compound was under attack. The siege would be deadly, killing the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans. Stevens, age 52, was a former Peace Corp worker who had been raised in Northern California. He was considered remarkable by everyone who knew him and he could have entered the private sector and been extremely successful financially. He earned his B.A. in history from the University of California at Berkeley and at a Masters Degree from the National War College. Stevens spoke Arabic and French fluently. With the Peace Corps in Morocco (1983-1985) he taught English. In 1989 he earned his law degree from the University of California. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991. He quickly became a highly regarded and respected diplomat. He died on September 12, 2012. The cause of death was listed as smoke inhalation. He was buried near his childhood home in California.

It should not be forgotten that two other Americans died in the Benghazi attack. They were Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, both former Navy Seals who were working as private security and intelligence contractors.

In America, it took no time at all to politicize the event. The right-wing of the Republican Party was hungry – starving – for food and this was shark bait! There was no concern about the truth. There was a presiding President who needed to be defeated. The sharks began to circle. Brock calls them “a hungry right-wing leviathan of savage punditry and pseudo-journalism.”

The truth was the key and most significant target of the sharks. It got devoured and was replaced by a nearly total disregard of anything that might resemble the facts.

The army of right-wingers, who were desperate to elect Mitt Romney, finally had their issue and they would ride this huge, black horse as hard as they could.

“Had the Benghazi attack not occurred at this unique moment -- on a day when the Republican candidate for the presidency and his promoters in the conservative media were desperate for a new storyline, especially one that would undercut the popular effect of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden the year before -- this tragedy might not have been converted into a political scandal. After all, Benghazi was just one of at least 157 attacks on our diplomatic facilities over a 15-year period, 9 of which resulted in U.S. fatalities. That Benghazi would remain at the forefront of the contentious American political conversation for the next year, and likely beyond, speaks less to any special circumstances of the September 11, 2012, attack, and more to the insidious nature of a Republican noise machine that has grown in size -- as well as decibels -- over the last four decades.”

Disregard your conscience, if you have one, for here is our chance to bring down the President of the United States. Romney and his advisors sprung into action even before the day of no political attacks was up. Without any concrete information from the scene of the attack, the Republican presidential candidate and his supporters began to blame the Benghazi attack on the President. John Sununu, a former big-wig in the Party and a member of President George W. Bush’s staff, even went so far as to say that President Obama had “to learn how to be an American.”

The attacks were lies and they were disgraceful. The evidence presented by the political attack sharks was created totally in their heads. The facts show that American security forces sprang into action promptly after the surprise and totally unpredicted attack. They saved many American officials and office staff in another diplomatic building within the city. And, information gathered since the attack shows that there was no sufficient warning to protect the embassy against the attack. It happened quickly and unexpectedly.

The truth wasn’t good enough for Rush Limbaugh and the Romney machine. They invented the story they hoped would be true. It included fictional information about constant and regular pleas for help. This invented story wasn’t true. Brock’s careful and attentive book documents the truth about Benghazi and it shows there is no truth to the Republican accounts of this terrible night.

But then, who among us really thought there was any truth to the constant attack machine that is the new Republican Party?

I urge you to get and read the small book by Brock and Rabin-Hart. It will set the record straight.

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Benghazi and All the Reddening Faces

There’s a big story – about a hoax – that needs careful attention. I’ve been doing my due diligence reading, but I’m not ready yet to sit down and explain just what happened.
by Charlie Leck

My first inclination is to believe that the right wing invented a story about Benghazi that would embarrass and damage the reputations of both the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the United States Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. The recent news debacle at Sixty Minutes (the showcase news report of CBS) is becoming clearer and clearer with each passing day. There were lies told and there were failures to run truth-tests. We want to see clearly where these lies were birthed and who exactly (besides CBS) took to spreading and expanding them.

It appears to me that Benghazi will turn from a presidential and State Department embarrassment to a bright red face for the extreme conservative wing of the Republican Party. We’ll examine that possibility beginning on Sunday. I’ll try to have a full blog explanation of just what happened by Monday morning at the latest.

If you want to get out in front of me on this, you can order the e-book by David Brock and Ari Rabin-Hart, The Benghazi Hoax. Amazon is selling it for 99 cents.

You know, the right wing of the Republican Party will do anything to destroy the good character honesty of this administration and this president.

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

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