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A hawkish Democratic Congressman and decorated Vietnam Veteran, John P. Murtha (D-PA) has called for the US to pull out of Iraq. He said, “Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region.”

The Republican leadership, led by Dennis Hastert, immediately responded and said, “”They want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world”. But Republicans know that Mr. and Mrs. Red State, the ones who drive the pick up with the “W” bumper sticker and believe in the literalism of the Bible and Rush Limbaugh, are driving down the road towards withdrawl. They have had enough of this war with its everyday bombings and insurgent attacks. They know that there will never be a day when the US “wins the war” because the enemy is endless. Our presence in Baghdad is creating the conditions to expel and kill us all over the globe!

The war was created under false intelligence which was politically motivated to serve the ends of the Bush Administration. It was full of lies and half truths that were given the official stamp of veracity by such noble men as Colin Powell and ignoble men like Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney. Knowing that the American people were terrified and demoralized by 9/11, the Bush regime took advantage of our weakness to propel and create a “feel good” war that would finally accomplish what had not been done in 1991: the removal of Saadam Hussein.

The innocents were our young men and women of the armed services who have been sent over to Iraq to serve as the maids and housekeepers for silver-spoon fed George W. Bush. This gung-ho, bring it on President, has simutaneously cut Veteran’s benefits as the latest and greatest generation sacrifices its lives to establish a new Shiite dictatorship in place of the old Baathist one.

The domestic health of the United States has been under attack by the war regime in the White House which has pursued environmental destruction. It has sanctioned the replacement of torture and spying and a Patriot Act in place of constitutional protections and the Geneva Convention. We have offended and purchased the hatred of the entire world. Both our enemies and our friends cannot understand our irrational policies both at home and abroad.

A religious agenda, one built on the nonsensical elevation of intelligent design to compete with the fact of evolution is only the latest episode of stupidity supported by the GOP. Stem cell research, restrictions on abortions and liberalization of assault weapons, expansion of prisons and the death penalty…these are the policies laughingly supported by pro-lifers!

A Supreme Court nominee, with no legal writings or discernable intellect, who wrote love letters to the President and called him the most intelligent man she ever met, was nominated to sit on the highest bench without a single day on a lower bench! Harriet Miers, a dear and sweet old lady, who worked 18 hour days in the White House, was sent into the shark’s tank of Congress where she was ripped apart while her commander-in-chief pretended that her resignation was due to a protection of executive privelege.

I haven’t any more to say on Katrina. The rotting corpses, the poor and homeless, and overflowing toilets in the Superdome say it all. We surely are in good hands with the Department of Homeland Security…….

We Americans and the human race are in grave danger of self-destruction. It may come in the melting of the icebergs, or in a nuclear catastrophe, or in the belief that we are in the eleventh hour before Armageddon. We are ruled by the ignorant and illiterate who once entertained us as masters of the media but have now been uncovered as the despots of democracy here in these United States.

Modern Amusement is a men’s clothing line owned by Mossimo. MA, which began in Costa Mesa, California is one of the most innovative apparel companies.

A houndstooth track jacket features an old pattern on a new forms. Unusual colors like purple and rust recall Carnaby Street in the 60’s. MA’s signature is the Crow, which can be seen [above] on a t-shirt and sock.

Young guys are moving away from the enormous and baggy clothing that dominated the 90’s hip-hop decade. There are classic influences of tailored menswear, and borrowing from fabrics like pinstripe, checks and tweed but used in disarming and new ways. Instead of a three piece suit, wool tweed might appear on the back pocket of a pair of denim jeans. Autumnal colors, like orange, gold, and rust are juxtaposed against high tech sportswear to produce a look that is both timeless and eccentric.

There is also a hint of femininity in the flowered shirts, pink and purple and Kelly green. These clothes are mixing up sexual signals and gender rules that have always terrified American men who reflexively buy clothing thinking, “I hope I don’t look like a fag in this”. MA may be worn by the best looking, most athletic and most desired guys today…….those who dare not speak its name.

I have just returned from spending a few work days in Ft. Myers, Florida and Rockford, IL.

Autumn in Northern Illinois is still breathtaking when the trees turn. Our hotel, on the Rock River in Rockford, IL, was surrounded by dazzling reds, yellows, and rust colors.

We stopped off in Chicago on our way to the airport for a brief walk around the vibrant and gracious area near the Water Tower. Chicago is still a city of professional courtesy, the architecture is dazzling, there seems to be development everywhere. Walking past the enormous hulk of the John Hancock Center, I felt strangely protective of it.

This is my hometown, this is the city where I was born, this is the city at least where the boasting is deserved.

Amidst the gritty realities of a soldier’s life as portrayed in the new film, JARHEAD, is the unconvincing transformation of Jake Gyllenhaal into a tough, muscular fighting man.

Photos from the new film show the skinny actor with impressively big biceps. The left arm of the actor is seemlessly fused onto his shoulder with a dexterity that would impress any Photoshop expert. In no other photo of Gyllenhaal that I could find, did his arms have the enormous circumference seen in Universal’s publicity shots for JARHEAD.

Publicists will no doubt be working overtime to talk about the physical training involved (5 hours a day of running up canyons with 25 pound weights wrapped around his legs) or talking up such explanations as: “he ate 5000 calories a day”. As convincing as President Bush talking about the last historic novel he read…………