Obama-Richardson or Obama-Clark?

Some political observers started floating the idea of an Obama-Richardson ticket well before Barack Obama announced his run for the White House. Indeed, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson would be a potent vice-presidential candiate, because he has Washington insider experience and a wide-ranging international resume. He is a former U.S. Energy Secretary and U.N. Ambassador who also has been a capable U.S. negotiator during difficult and sometimes dangerous situations involving North Korea, Iraq and Cuba.

At least one other former Presidential candidate may also get a hyphenated shot at the White House, however. Retired four-star Gen. Wesley K. Clark was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 1997 to 2000 and a Democratic candidate for President in 2004. He has extensive combat experience and has held numerous command posts during his 34-year Army career. His civilian-life credentials now range from investment banker to book author, as well as tireless fundraiser and promoter for Democratic candidates and causes. Gen. Clark has endorsed an old friend, Hillary Clinton, and has worked hard to help get her elected. But if her campaign falters in the next primaries, he may be free to entertain offers from the Obama camp.

The next President, whether Obama or Clinton, likely will need Clark's unique background to help oversee the complex process of getting the U.S. out of Iraq. Indeed, Clark and Richardson both might play major roles in the next Administration, even if neither gets a vice presidential offer and John McCain unexpectedly wins the presidency.

Gov. Richardson might not want to be Energy Secretary again, but the nation now faces enormous challenges in its energy future. It would be a bigger and more crucial job this time.

Gen. Clark might not want to be Secretary of Defense, but America's military is exhausted and short-handed at a time when other international powers, such as China and Russia, are rising again. Someone who knows how to regroup, reorganize, re-equip and re-energize fighting forces will need to have the next President's trust and attention.

#

Has the Clinton Campaign Now Become Bosnian Toast? If Memory Serves Me…

By Si Dunn

Can you accurately remember what you did 12 years ago or longer? How about things you did last week? Or last night?

CBS News recently has been pounding on Hillary Clinton for claiming to have been under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996, when their old videos seem to show her mainly receiving incoming flowers and handshakes after arriving in a very dangerous area.

Memories can, as the old saying goes, play unfortunate tricks on you. One case in point: A close Hillary Clinton ally, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, and I were friends in junior high school. (I am briefly mentioned in one of his books.) For years after he became a famous military leader and presidential candidate, I enjoyed telling people how he and I also had been close friends in elementary school and how he, on more than one occasion, interceded with the principal and saved me from being paddled for misbehaving.

The only problem is, when I met up with Gen. Clark again last year at a Dallas political fundraiser and brought this memory up, he assured me that he and I had attended different elementary schools and didn’t even know each other until the 7th grade. (I have to believe Wesley on this, because 50 years after he edited the school newspaper at Pulaski Heights Junior High School, he still can recite my best times in the 440-yard dash.)

Somebody helped me get off that hook with my elementary school principal, and, obviously, I can’t recall who did it. But it was easy, years later, to conveniently insert Wesley Clark into that scenario, then let the combination meld into a warm memory that I honestly came to believe.

I think Hillary Clinton fell into a similar memory trap, one that snares us all at times. To her credit, she now has admitted that she “made a mistake" and added: "That happens. It proves I'm human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation."

If CBS News and other media outlets tried hard enough, they could search back through past videos of all candidates and come up with numerous snippets where memories or claims do not mesh with reality.

Meanwhile, if you asked me at this moment to tell you something I did 12 years ago, I could state with complete accuracy that I had some meals and brushed my teeth. And I probably did not do these things while under sniper fire. But who knows? Maybe a celery stick or my toothbrush was blown out of my hand, and I simply forgot?

I really was in some combat during the Vietnam War. But I didn’t shoot anybody, and only one bullet (sniper fire!) came within 50 feet of me. Still, if I were running for high (or low) office, my campaign staff could intone with complete accuracy: “He saw combat in Vietnam.” My eager supporters then might imagine me dashing into a Viet Cong stronghold with automatic weapons blazing in each hand.

Yet the truth would be this: I watched planes drop bombs nearby. I saw ships fire their guns. I observed Marines hitting the beach. And I was scrutinzing a nearby hillside--gawking like a tourist, actually--when the sniper’s bullet thudded into a metal armor plate.

I did fire some weapons a couple of times during the Vietnam War. My booming bullets made puny little splashes in the Tonkin Gulf and hit absolutely nothing except maybe a poor fish or two. Yet it’s possible two evil North Vietnamese frogmen might have been right under the waves and I got them both with my shots.

I think a heroic new memory may be taking shape.

#

Mars Rovers: Saved by the Blogosphere?

By Si Dunn

Somebody at NASA must have peered beyond the universe of their corner office today and realized the blogosphere was going berserk over March 24's leaked news that the Mars Rover program and the Mars Odyssey program both faced budget-cut shutdowns in 2008 and 2009.

The Associated Press reported late this morning (March 25) that "NASA says it has absolutely no plan to turn off either of the Mars Rovers because of budget cuts."

However, nothing apparently has been said yet about the fate of the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has made many significant findings and photographs over the past seven years.

#

DON'T Shut Down the Mars Rovers!

By Si Dunn

Space.com has reported that the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars are in danger of being shut down by NASA budget cuts in 2008 and 2009.

The two robot explorers have been driving around on the Red Planet since January, 2004, making surprising scientific discoveries and going and going and going like the Energizer Bunny well past their 90-day life expectancies.

For more than four years, it has been wonderfully easy and educational to follow the rovers' adventures at the Mars Exploration website: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/

Now, one or possibly both rovers could be killed by budget cuts that will total a paltry $12 million over two years.

In a nation currently wasting billions to drive manned, armored vehicles around in the sands of Iraq, surely $12 million can be found somewhere to keep Spirit and Opportunity alive and continuing to do peaceful exploration of a neighboring planet.

• In her will, the late Leona Helmsley left a $12 million trust fund for her dog, Trouble, last year.
  
• John McCain's campaign raised $12 million in February, 2008. (McCain, of course, is not known as a great fan of serendipitous scientific research.)
  
• Several wealthy Hillary Clinton supporters offered to pay the $12 million cost of funding a new state primary in Michigan.
  
• The website CafeMom recently raised $12 million from venture capitalists to continue its expansions.

Money is out there. It can be found somewhere, somehow. Contact your U.S. Representative and Senator now and tell them to do something to help save two of America's finest roving ambassadors and national symbols: Spirit and Opportunity.

And while you are at it, don't forget the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. It has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2001, taking thousands of high-quality images and, like the rovers, making many surprising findings. It, too, is facing the NASA budget chopping block in 2008 and 2009.

Space exploration is one of America's crowning achievements and a source of great national pride. Let's not give away some of our most spectacular crown jewels, Spirit, Opportunity and Mars Odyssey, for a few million bucks.

#

Memo to Obama, Clinton and McCain: Shut Up About Each Other, Already

By Si Dunn

All's fair in love and war--and politics.

That, of course, is just the polite way of saying nothing is fair in love and war and politics--particularly politics.

So now, in a suppposedly tight race for the White House, we are stuck once again in a short lull between "key" Democratic primaries.

Meanwhile, the candidates and their campaign staffs are busily finding any direct and obtuse way they can to try to discredit their opponents' potential abilities to be commander in chief or national healer or shining beacon of peace and hope to the troubled world.

Oh, please, Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain. Just shut up about each other now, please, and get on with explaining yourselves.

Convince us why you (without any further mention or slam of your opponents) should be the next President of the United States. Tell us what you (without any further mention or slam of your opponents) propose to do about the national economy, the housing crisis, the war in Iraq, and America's shattered world prestige, to name just a few of today's troubling issues.

Put away the race cards, the White House cards, the combat cards, the patriot cards, the religion cards, the ringing-telephone cards, the retired-generals card, the endorsement cards, etc., etc., ad naseum.

Skip the overseas "fact-finding" photo ops and the strident demands for apologies, retractions and resignations from each other's campaigns.

Rise above this petty crap. Step out of your political Green Zones--and Twilight Zones.

Between now and the November general election, just show us and tell us who the hell you really are and what you propose to try to do about the many incredible messes the current Administration will leave behind in January, 2009.

That's what we voters want and need to know. Who are you, what needs to be done, and how you think the massive mountain range of problems should be approached.

Most of what else you are doing and saying right now amounts to absurd, empty posturing and a babble of irritating noises that we voters can, and will, shut off very soon.

So shut up about each other already. Tell us something that we actually can use to help us decide.

#

Too Much Stuff: The Relief and Release of Paring Down

The poet William Wordsworth once cautioned: “The world is too much with us, late and soon; Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…”

With the American economy now sinking deeper into recession, many people suddenly realize they have spent too much money on too many things. They are feeling the need to (1) cut back on cash outlays and (2) downsize their lives, to help ease some of the pain of higher energy and food costs.

Often, the world really is too much with us. We Americans tend to have too much stuff under our roofs. We fill up our houses and garages with things, and then we have to rent storage spaces when we suddenly inherit more things from deceased relatives.

Lately, I have been very deliberately paring down my belongings. I have donated items to charity; recycled items; dispersed items to family members and friends; sold items online; and tossed items into the trash only as a last resort.

As more unneeded things leave and more space opens up in my house, I feel a rising sense of relief and release.

Yet we cannot be only givers-away and sellers, especially now. Our economy needs us to still be buyers, as well, to help it recover from its current downturn and doldrums.

I am doing my part by not letting all of my newly emptied areas stay empty for long. A used book here, a new hobby item there, one or two new CDs, and maybe another movie on DVD. They don't take up much of the liberated space. Yet they do provide welcome changes and new pleasures at low cost.

You might consider that strategy, too. Pare down a bit; add a bit. Subtract much more than you add, of course. But don't cut too deeply. And don't just grab up all of your unwanted objects and impatiently throw them away. Make the effort to sort them out and determine the best ways to disperse them.

Somewhere, somebody may want and truly need some of the things that have become merely tiresome clutter in your life.

Help keep spreading the wealth in our magnificent--and temporarily weary--economy. Donate, give away, sell, or recycle. Make the landfill your last resort for lightening up your life.

Si Dunn is co-author of The Everything Online Auctions Book published by Adams Media.
#

Second-Look Book Reviews - #1

New books often don’t have long shelf lives at bookstores. Also, after just a few weeks in print, the books’ chances of getting featured in a newspaper or magazine review have all but vanished. Newer books already are flooding in and competing for editors’ attentions and shrinking column spaces.

Here are a few books that have been in print for several months and already have had their brief moments in the media sun. Yet they remain very much worthy of second looks by readers.

More “Second-Look Book Reviews” will appear occasionally in future updates of Dateline: Oblivion.

From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi
By Ambassador Robert Krueger and Kathleen Tobin Krueger
University of Texas Press, $26.00, 308 pages, hardback

Burundi is one of the world’s poorest countries, squeezed between Rwanda and Tanzania in the mountainous heart of Africa. Like many other countries on that troubled continent, Burundi has a long history of political instability and violence.

In 1994, while neighboring Rwanda was wracked by ethnic killings that claimed more than 800,000 lives, U.S. Ambassador Robert Krueger and his wife, Kathleen Tobin Krueger, were sent by President Bill Clinton to try to help preserve Burundi’s fledgling democratic government and minimize its own outbreaks of ethnic violence.

The Kruegers’ book, which has a foreword by Nobel Prize laureate Desmund Tutu, recounts their efforts to help stabilize Burundi amid surging genocide, tragic indifference by many other nations, and great personal danger to Americans and their families.

Fourteen years later, Burundi has made some progress, but it is still a troubled land where Hutus and Tutsis sometimes engage in revenge killings. In the book, Ambassador Krueger lays out his proposals and hopes for a peaceful Burundi. And he adds this urgent call: “If other countries respond to its need, Burundi can take its place as a full participant in the community of nations that by painful experience have learned to respect the value of every human life.”

Remembering Marisa
By Judd Holt
West Oak Press, $24.95, 292 pages, hardback

Judd Holt’s second novel is at once a warm and troubling story of a respected young woman, a teacher, who carries with her some painful memories of violence, as well as a dark secret she can never reveal to anyone, not even the many people who love her.

After Marisa inexplicably goes missing, her friends, her fiancé, her students, and her family start revealing the ways they know, miss and remember her. In their eyes, she is just about perfect, but not quite. As one character recalls: "She never confided with anyone about her problems. She just wouldn’t ask for anyone’s advice….[h]er folks called all kinds of people trying to find out if they had heard from her. No one had. She just ran off. "

The mystery of Marisa’s disappearance plays out across much of the varied and rugged Texas landscape, from the Permian Basin and Big Bend to the Hill Country, San Antonio and North Texas.

Judd Holt’s previous novel is A Promise to Catie, published by the University of North Texas Press.

#