driving while black

In this day and age I've just read one of the most amazing articles from a noted columnists from the Kansas City Star. The guy was on his way to give a speach in Lawrence and was pulled over and issued a ticket by the Kansas Highway Patrol for "failing to yield" (or pulling over to the left lane) while passing a parked patrol car. He said there was a car on his left which prevented him from moving to the left lane. And he was issued a ticket for over $200.00. Then went on to say that he has observed many motorists who "fail to move over" when passing a parked patrol car.

I've driven back and forth between Ark City and Kansas City for the past 15 years at least twice a month and have passed many a parked patrol car because I could not move to the left. And seen other motorists do the same. Am I glad I'm white? $200.00 worth anyway.

Why do we still treat black people this way? I wrote the guy a letter and said I prayed that perhaps his children's children would never have to feel the ignorance that is still so prevelant in our society.

This space reserved for Bush/Cheny Jokes

You've got to have a little sense of humor to be a democrat and live in Kansas. This line will be reserved for the Jokes. Anyone willing to contribute is more than welcome. Danny

Impeachment of President Bush

According to a recent poll, Americans now support impeachment of President Bush if it is proved that he lied about the validity of going to war in Iraq. 53% to 42%. Perhaps there is still hope.

An Old Soldier

Shortly after high school and just before I turned 18, my mother took me before a judge in Iola, Kansas who gave me a choice of joining the Army or starting a career on the wrong side of the criminal justice system. Although I partied like a lot of teenagers during the 60's, I was never abusive nor criminal in intent - but I will always love my mother for trying to steer me in the right direction.

The only problem was, the year was 1968 and the Vietnam War was in full bloom. As I stood in line at the induction center in Kansas City, a marine sergeant as bog as god came down the line picking out the biggest and meanest for the corps. For once I was glad I was slight of build. The 1st Infantry Division of the Big Red One was bad enough - a jar head I had no desire to be. And although I "volunteered", Tillman I wasn't. My first fire fight I put my face in the mud and cried like a baby blindly firing that M-16 until the clip ran dry. But being shot at tends to make a boy grow up rather quickly.

My father came back from WW II a Staff Sergeant SSG E-6 as did his father before him in WW I. At age 20 I was made one of the youngest platoon sergeants in the 1st Infantry Division. The turn-over was pretty intense. And I will always be somewhat proud of having served during war time, sort of like I had carried on a family tradition.

But while walking down the Height-Ashbury District of San Fran in 1970 after returning to "the world", in my new crisp dress greens with three stripes up and one below, and a few medals penned to my chest, it came as quite a shock when two people came up and spit on my uniform.

Looking back, I think it was that very act of being spit on which caused me to start examining the world around me. It was probably then that I really started to grow up. It was probably then that I started to become aware of what President Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex. And I came to realize how our politicans instilled the fear of the spread of communism to advance that military industrial complex. And now this old soldier sees the new fear being spread through out our country - the fear of terrorism. And once again our military industrial complex is doing what it does best.

Looking back on that war now, I have formed everlasting opinions that I will take to the grave. First, war is hell, but actual combat is a real bitch. Second, I hear the Vietnam Memorial is quite something to see although I have never been able to bring myself to make the pilgrimage - and I think the most wonderful thing about that memorial is that my name is not on it. Third, that if it were not for those protestors who put this country through such turmoil during the late 60's and early 70's, I might have had to serve a 2nd tour in Vietnam and my name might very well have ended up on that wall. And lastly, we the American people have a duty, even more solemn than a teenage soldier carrying an M-16 in a foreign land. It is the duty of the American people to ensure that we never allow our politicans to send our sons and daughters into war except for the right reasons at the right time. To ensure that Bin-Laden was chased to the ends of the earth would have been worth of the present sacrifice. But when this country declared war on, and made the first strike agaainst another country for the first time in history, I felt like the politicans had just spit upon my uniform.

Danny Newland

Oil Industry Profits

This country must stop sending money to the oil producing countries which produce the terrorists. In the interest of NATIONAL SECURITY we must nationalize the oil industry (we all should be willing to sacrifice for national security) and channel those record profits of the oil industry towards ending our dependence on foreign oil. The price of gasoline should be set by the government at $1.50 a gallon which would do more to spur the economy than any tax cut given to Bill Gates or Warren. Surely the SECURITY OF OUR COUNTRY is more important than the windfall profits the oil industry and the terrorist producing countries are receiving !

democrats in kansas

Of Rosa Parks - Born in 1949, I was reared in a the small town of Toronto, about a hundred miles east of Wichita, right smack dab in the heart of the bible belt. During the 1950's and 1960's, Newt of Newt's Tavern would sell some of the older looking teenagers those tall frosted mugs of beer for ten cents a glass. Newt didn't care that you might not actually be 18, only that you looked old enough and acted responsible enough to drink a little beer, lived right and didn't act up in his place and he was happy to serve you.

In the summers we baled hay, and in the winter we moved that hay from the barns to box cars for the school board members. We would quit in time for football practice so my literaly skills are somewhat limited. But such was a typical life for a teenage boy in the hay capital of the world.

But back to Newt. Old Newt hated the Germans and the black people. I could understand Newt's hatred toward the Geremans. He served during WW II, was captured and castrated. But I could never understand Newt's hatred for black people. Until I turned 18 and joined the Army I had never spoken with a black person. It was said that Toronto had a law prohibiting black people from spending the night within city limits. I can still remember the gallows behind the old meat locker.

Whenever a black person would stop at Newt's, the old way he could buy beer was "to go". He coulnd't drink within the tavern. And old Newt would always charge the black guy "double" the going rate for beer and then mutter "damn niggers" as they left the tavern.

Of course the civile rights movement of the 1960's fashioned by outlook on life every bit as much as the Vietnam War - but that's a another post. Just as I could never understand old Newt's hatred for black people, neither could I understand why the people of the south held such hatred for or would pass laws demeaning the the black race as we watched the civil rights movement unfold on television during those turbulent years.

Of course we came to realize, like everyone else of the baby boom generation, that that hatred was spured by ignorance. It wasn't until many years later that I came to realize that prior to the civil rights movement that the entire south was basically democratic simply because Lincoln was a republican and wanted to free the slaves. Then when the political right figured out that they could influence entire masses of people through the church and the preachers got up and decreed that separate but equal was right in god's eyes, did that political hyprocisy reach up and slap me in the face.

As the nation mourns Rosa Parks, and all that her act of defiance has accomplished for our society, this old white man from the middle of the country mourns that fact that there even had to be a "civil rights act". I mourn the fact that we as white people would even presume that we had the authority to "withhold those rights" merely by having to have to renew this act. I mourn the fact that we as white people would even presume to have the power to and the right to "grant" others those same rights in the first place. And I pray that our children's children will never have to meet someone like old Newt. Danny Newland