In another life, I spent a lot of time going into and out of jail.  Not as an inmate, mind you, and not as a lawyer (God forbid) though I am acquainted with several and remain friends with some.  I was an investigator-paralegal-gofur for a public defender's office. At that time it had been jail policy for many years that inmates could purchase tobacco products from the jail store or commissary.  If an inmate had no money on his books, rolling tobacco but not rolling paper would be provided at no charge.  Toilet paper served for the roll your own group.   If you could stand not being allowed to go anywhere, the constant noise and doing what you were told.  Life was not that bad.  Three hots and cot as the saying went.  There was TV (generally tuned to Spanish channel Univision because the channel was determined by direct democratic vote and the majority ruled.)  There was aways somebody to talk to.  Always.  And you could smoke. 

However, after a few incidences of bad boys being a bit badder boys (setting toilet paper on fire, luckily no one was hurt but the place got smoked up), the county commissioners revisited the policy of free tobacco.   Looking at the cost to provide tobacco to the moneyless among the incarcerated and it was also the beginning of the No Smoking anywhere, anytime era, it was decided to discontinue the sale or issuance of tobacco to inmates.  Now, I don't know if it was a grizzled sergeant or just an officer more interested in keeping the peace over monetary concerns of the county, but somewhere, someone realized that confiscating the tobacco that was already on the block would be troublesome if not impossible.  However, given enough time, it was believed, that the problem would-literally-go up in smoke. 

What followed provided me with a most enlightening lesson in the economics of supply and demand.  So as not to be stuck with an unsold tobacco inventory, it was announced to the detention center's population that on a date certain no more tobacco-not cigarettes, loose leaf or pipe –would be sold or distributed.  Some enterprising incarcerates, sensing an opportunity, cleaned out the jail accounts they had and purchased all they could of the soon to be unattainable commodities.   And so it began.  At first, for a few weeks anyway, even though the price of a single cigarette went from evening meal desert to evening meal desert plus the next morning's cup of coffee, things were, well, OK.  As time marched on, exorbitantly priced commissary cookies, chips or candy bars had to added to the barter arrangement before a deal could be struck.  For a single smoke. 

There were, of course, thefts.  I mean, these guys were not in lockup for jay walking or using harsh language in the presence of women and children.  So, business carried on.  The suppliers were doing pretty well.  Some even started selling some of the trade goods they had received for their tobacco.  But, then there was something that came to light, which in hind sight should have been anticipated, but was not.  When the commissary stopped selling or distributing all forms of tobacco, it also stopped handing out matches. 

Well.  You can see the problem.  You've got smokes, but no way to smoke 'em.  Where before there had been fights over cigarettes, now there were fights over matches.  Matches were horded.  There were thefts of matches.  Until, at last there were no more matches.  That didn't mean smoking stopped  I mean, these fellows were prisoners.  A very resourceful group of folks.  They found ways to get what was left of the smokes consumed.  But, finally, no more tobacco.  For the long time smokers who were now long time inmates (one year in jail was the maximum sentence for a misdemeanor) being forced to quit smoking was hard.  The first month, lots of tempers flared.  No one seriously hurt.  After all, you're ticked because you can't smoke.  Even after you yell and maybe punch someone, you still can't smoke.  Withdrawal can be hard.  There were even some awaiting to go to the state pen that asked if the transfer could be hurried up.  Smoking was still allowed at the pen.  

Now, all these years later, I see an interesting parallel.  Our country's addiction to oil is much like those inmates desire for tobacco. I guess it could be argued that the inmates only WANTED cigarettes, but we NEED oil.  Once the supply becomes threatened, people-nations go a little crazy.  We can say we went into Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction or proof of development of such.  Or that we went in to inject democratic government after a regime change.  What we wanted was our hand on the spigot of a shrinking supply of oil.  Our supposed problems with Iran are/will be the same issue.  This will not end until we get off of oil and restructure of our way of life.  We can drill off shore.  We can drill in the tundra.  We can even shout "Drill, baby, drill" or scream "Oiiil!!" in our loudest voice at our conventions.  This addiction is the root cause of the economic straits we are in today. It's why we are in this war.  No matter what is said, it is the reason we will be in the next war.  About the only thing we have been able to manufacture and sell lately is debt.   Of that we have an abundance.  I wonder exactly how long we will be able to sell that.  We've locked ourselves in this prison.  And we have the keys to our cell.  It will take courage to use them.  I hope we can.     

See you later,

D-Dog

  Here’s what I am thinking---July 4, 2008.  Happy birthday to the United States of America!  Our independence was approved on the 2^nd, rather than the 4^th, but no matter.

 Last week-end I went to an Arena Football game.    The Star Spangled Banner was sung very impressively by a young Afro American man, and as is so often the case these days, the roar of the crowd joined the singer as he entered the final phrase, the “home of the brave.”  As in every case that I hear the song, tears come to my eyes and a tingle goes down my spine.

It has always been so.  The Star Spangled Banner has affected me that way from the earliest days of my memory.  As I have said, I fondly remember going to baseball games in Hartsville, South Carolina with my grandfather, Bogan Cash Kelly.  Whoever operated the ball park made sure that two seats right beside the p.a. announcer in the first row behind homeplate were saved for “Mr. Bogan” and his grandson.  When my sister was old enough to join us, there were three seats saved.  When the “home of the brave” was played or sung, “Big Daddy” put his right fist in the air, just shoulder high and gave it a pump----long before the fists of power were “invented”.  He then took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “Damn sweat” he claimed.  So, I guess I came by my feelings as to the Anthem quite naturally.

In my young days we were taught that it was not proper etiquette to applaud at the end of the Anthem.  Don’t ask me why, don’t ask me how the story developed.  I just know that in school we were told that it was not proper etiquette to applaud.   My late friend Jack Stroud, who knew and practiced  etiquette styled to his military days,  told me that it carried over from the military’s stoic response to the Anthem.  So, I never applauded when those great high notes were hit by a good singer.

That changed at the first Boise State football game after September 11.  The Blue Thunder band played the anthem, soundly and proudly as it always does.  That day a young Afro American student sang the words.  And, when she paused for just a second before conquering those last difficult words/notes, the cheer began, and it grew and grew to a crescendo as she finished “the home of the braaaaave”.  I joined in that roar, and have ever since.

On September 11, I was working at home and Lodice called to tell me to turn on the television.  Just as I turned it on, the second plane hit.  As I watched, and it sank in what was happening, I admit the tears flowed.  But, I also remember that I cursed the Arabs who had done this cowardly thing, and said aloud “You picked the wrong city you asses; it shows you don’t know much about America.  You won’t bring New York to its knees.”

To this day I don’t believe that bin Laden and his ilk understand the Will of this nation.  They continue to bluster and they take our reluctance to bomb them from the earth as a sign of weakness.  But, deep down in the people of this Nation-----not its leaders, not the administration, not the congress, but in the people----is a spirit and a love of liberty that will not be defeated.  I have worked with ranchers in Idaho for the past few years who live that spirit.  During the past few months I have worked with 4 mayors of small Texas towns and with officials of their school districts who take that spirit to the table in defending the rights of their citizens.  And, in the course of my Texas work, I have met  a tall Texan named Ralph Snyder who has the stature of Abraham Lincoln, the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt and the suave strategic mind of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  He exudes the spirit of our Republic even when silent.  And, mayors Mae Smith, Ronnie White, Arthur White and Billy Crowe, unpaid mayors of those small Texas towns, talk to the important, big city bureaucrats with that same spirit.  My wife, Lodice, who always had the spirit, likened it to that displayed in the musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

 How very specially blessed we are.  Blessed by the willingness of young men and women----of all races and creeds----to endanger themselves and their families at the call of the Executive in Chief.---no matter the issue, no matter the place, as long as it is in defense of this Nation.

My brothers served at war: Jack in the navy during World War II, and Bob in the air force in WWII and then Korea.  I saw the anguish of my mom and dad---especially mom every day when she went to get the mail.  I remember the day that the radio carried the news of the surrender of the Japanese.  I rounded up the seven or eight kids in our neighborhood, we put pots on as helmets and paraded our bikes, and my sister Deanie on her tricycle, around the neighborhood shouting to whoever would listen that the war was over.  Did I recognize the significance of the event? Sure I did:   my favorite Jack was coming home.  That night in my prayers, I remember I changed the “please take care of Jack and Bob” to “make Jack hurry home”.

The love of my life, Lodice, had a brother in Viet Nam, and a cousin who was killed in Viet Nam.  She loved this country and its heritage.  She believed that there was enough talent in this land that, with our power and our ability to mobilize, that talent should be able to diplomatically resolve all issues without war.  Ronald Reagan believed as she did, and helped bring down the tyranny of the Russian empire. He used the power of this nation as a threat to bring down, through direct face to face diplomacy, a REAL THREAT to our liberty.  Lodice’s solution to war was “Let the President and the Congress be the first to go, not as officers but as troops   Let them be followed by every other elected  and appointed official of government before we put young men and women on the line.”

She loved the 4^th of July.  She indulged my claim that my birthday, the 2^nd, was the real birthday of the Nation because the Resolution of Independence was voted on that day, but she loved the 4^th----family, fireworks, barbecue.  This is the first of the 4ths for me when she is here only in my heart.  But, before our festivities start today, I will do what she used to do---find any grandchild who will listen and explain the importance of the day.

God bless America.