More than ten years ago – wow, my thinking has changed radically since then. Today, especially in light of the burgeoning militant state, I’d write it very differently. But I’ve kept the original version, as it’s a good (if naïve) family-friendly introduction to a liberty-loving viewpoint of government’s more-or-less legitimate purpose, if a government we must have.

And it seems to fit the “sparkly” spirit of these recent times. Yes, because I dare to think, with Inelia Benz, that “the powers that be” are (perhaps ponderously) becoming “the powers that were.” Bless your heart, Ron Paul, and the hearts of all who cheer you on.

Most people think, perhaps quite sincerely, that our government’s job is to do what’s good “for the people.” Many of us have been taught that that’s the function and benefit of a “democracy.” (This ignores the fact that our government was created as a republic.)

And, when we think about what we expect and want our government to do for us, much of it is what some would call good for the people: build highways, subsidize schools, etc. Sure, you could make out a case for them, right? But if you try, consider this: someone’s paying for it all, and “someone” might well be you.

In an early episode of The West Wing, President Bartlet, as a candidate during the New Hampshire primary, admits to a dairy farmer that some legislation he voted for when he was in Congress meant that the farmer “got screwed.” Bartlet then justifies his vote by saying that somebody had to lose in the deal, and poor people who “needed” milk shouldn’t have been the losers.

I say that NO ONE should be a loser by anything our government decides. If there has to be a loser, there shouldn’t be a deal at all.

Our government can’t even play by the simple rules we all learned before age six: Don’t take what’s not yours. (See U.S. Constitution, Amendment Article V: “…nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” See? Social Security and eminent domain are unconstitutional.) Play fair. Treat people right and with respect. Clean up your own messes. I sound like Robert Fulghum here, but you get the idea. We all know that decency is basic and understood by most people.

So I’m going to propose a radical new standard for our governmental operations: If it ain’t good for EVERYONE, then you, benevolent leaders, have no business in it. By EVERYONE I mean the decent, law-abiding citizens of the U.S.A., those who work their tails off and pay the taxes to keep this country going.

We cheer when someone, like Kevin Kline’s character in the movie Dave, figures out the obvious, and shows us how simple it really is to cut government spending and balance a budget. But what do we do about it ourselves? Sure, no one wants to run for Congress nowadays, not with the way they’d make hash of every parking ticket you ever got, not considering the kind of deals you’d have to make to get the campaign cash you’d need. Most of us are just too sensible.

Anyway, we KNOW that our government is way out of control on spending and in the way it treats US, its own supporters-in-chains. Please note that I refer always to OUR government. We need to remember that that’s exactly what it is.

There’s no reason why we can’t, as free individuals, spend our own money to support studies of the mating habits of houseflies, or subsidize rulers of other countries in what we see as charitable purposes. We’re perfectly able to do so as and when we choose. More power to you if you do so: you should always put some money and energy where your values are.

But then what would our government be doing if I had my way? Well, first of all, it wouldn’t be doing 99 per cent of what it does today. It wouldn’t fake us into thinking it’s planning for us to have a prosperous retirement while stealing our money AND the interest it should be earning (and then refusing to allow our heirs to inherit our “investment in the system”!). It wouldn’t butt in presumptuously making choices for us that we, as adults, are fully capable of making for ourselves, thank you very much. Don’t tread on me, man.

What our government WOULD be doing is simple: protecting from harm, violence, and fraud the people who pay to keep it functioning.

This means domestic redress of wrongs, and the punishing of true, harmful crimes of force and fraud, through police and the courts (both dedicated to honor and real justice), and it means national protection (defense, not war-making and empire-building) from foreign threats, through a reliable and ready military.

Doesn’t this also mean, for instance, that our government should provide jobs for the “disadvantaged”, or free health care and day care to anyone who qualifies, since that would keep them from harm? No way. Why? Because in order to pay for such jobs and services, our government would harm, by forcibly taking money and perhaps other commodities from, people who work to keep the economy going to PROVIDE the jobs and such.

Our founders knew it and made it clear: You can’t have a government that favors one group of people at the expense of other groups. Yet, that’s exactly what we have today. Boy howdy, is it ever.

When someone tells you that a government edict is “for the good of the people,” your first response should be, “WHICH people?” Don’t kid yourself. It isn’t about YOUR good, if you’re a decent, hardworking, live-and-let-live American. It’s about the good of politicians, their corporate cronies and financial wizards, their pet interest groups, and any other mobs that have learned how to kowtow for a few favors. There’re an awful lot of squeaky wheels out there screaming for some grease, and getting it.

Ever heard of regular folks creating a PAC to lobby Congress in their own interests? Nope, and you never will. It’s a losing battle, and the thing is, we don’t generally have enough in common to get militant together. We’re of many different minds about things.

And that’s exactly my point. If we can’t agree pretty clearly as a whole people that something is good (and “the will of the people” is something that doesn’t even exist!), then: a) it probably ISN’T good for many of us, so it isn’t REALLY “for the good of the people”; and b) our government should stay the heck out of it.

It’s that simple. And it would make our Congresspeople’s lives much easier. They could stay home in their districts most of the time, since there wouldn’t be much for them to do. We’d already have the basic laws we really need, and the systems in place to carry them out. We could go back to the way it was when Abraham Lincoln was a Congressman: our “leaders” would only have to work in Washington for a couple of months a year, which is all we’d pay them for, including reasonable expenses, and they could stay in boardinghouses as Honest Abe did.

The rest of the time, they could go home and get real jobs, just like us. Forget the multimillion-buck lobbying-firm jobs once they leave office. Provide their own retirement funds and “health” insurance. See what it’s like to live the way they tell us to.

Now THAT would be good for the people.

Update: E-book editions are ready to rock — and walk! I’m proud to say that AMC chose our book as one of the ten inaugural titles to launch their new e-book venture. Kindle version. Nook version.

Much more coming soon. This is an exciting time. Thanks to you all for being here.

Jefferson, for instance, with all his legendary bookishness, loved to experiment at Monticello with varieties of peas, his favorite vegetable, to see how well they’d grow in his soil, when they would ripen, how they tasted. He also introduced viticulture to the United States. He kept copious notes over years and must have learned a great deal.

And Washington, who vastly preferred the life of a gentleman farmer over that of a politician, enjoyed using his ingenuity to develop a plow that would cut effectively through his pebbly, tough soil. He also designed a 16-sided threshing barn with a grooved floor through which the grains of wheat would fall after horses’ hooves worked them out of their hulls. In the barn cellar, slaves would then gather and sack the grain.

These two men of the world, of accomplishment and experience, dearly loved the land. I think they had a bond with it that many of us today have never known: the fruit of their own land sustained their very bodies, while the beauty and challenge of that same land sustained their spirits. I also think that this life of physical and mental health is why they both lived to ripe old ages and remained young in their excitement over what the next season would bring.

One reason I so love the writing of Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry is the way they draw (and live) this steel-strong link between agriculture and true culture. Between the work of one’s hands and the joy of one’s life. Between a human life and the lives of plants and animals who share it. Berry is a professor, poet, essayist and musician as well as a farmer — he’s culture with a capital C. Logsdon, well, he’s just a plain hoot to read. I’d love to meet him one day.

Because of them, and of men like Jefferson, I don’t see that farming has to be merely manual labor. It can be a big multifaceted mental game too. Farming, plumbing, carpentry, cabinetmaking — it’s a terrible underestimation to dismiss them as “working with your hands,” when there’s so much of the brain and heart required, too. There’s intelligence and creativity involved. There’s a respect for one’s ancestors’ work coupled with the courage to face and answer a new generation of questions. Culture!

I told the good folks in my cover letter that “without the freedom to farm, this country has little freedom to grow.” And I see now that I meant it even more than I realized at the time. I want to think about this some more.

UMBRELLA LADIES

by Beth Homicz

Sometime in the early 1960s, when John F. Kennedy was president and his lovely wife set fashion standards with a wave of her hand, a company started up to provide tour guide services to groups visiting the nation’s capital. The guides were ladies, and showed it by wearing white gloves as Mrs. Kennedy was wont to do (the company advertised “white-glove service”), and by each carrying an open umbrella for use as a sort of standard ‘round which the group would rally.

“Follow the umbrella,” these ladies would chirp to their charges. Group leaders who returned annually would ask for their favorite “umbrella lady” and gush about how the group had enjoyed the tour the previous year.

Over time, the umbrella became a tradition among guides in the capital, even those who worked for other agencies, and in other cities as well – Montreal, for instance. The original company is still going strong as the oldest and largest guide agency in D.C., although male guides are now common (they don’t wear the white gloves).

I worked for this agency for a time and acquired the umbrella habit. What a way to go. Find a couple of standout parasols, and I’m all set for rain, sleet, snow and sun. And the occasional pigeon or Canada goose flying over. (You laugh? I’ve seen a couple of those buggers drop unwanted cargo on folks in my groups. I carry wet-wipes all the time just in case.)

Many’s the time some yahoo trying to be funny has watched me lead forty eighth-graders down the Mall with my umbrella on a glorious clear day, and bellowed, “Hey, sweetheart, expectin’ rain today?”

“Nope,” I answer, “but you never know what might fly over.”

I’ve owned all sorts of umbrellas in my seven years of guiding, from Tweety Bird (I had a tweety whistle to go with it, which I used to get the group’s attention outdoors) to pink-and-yellow plaid, to stars ‘n’ stripes, to Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” We guides are quite jealous of our signature umbrellas (or “brollies,” as my English colleague Suzanne Pell calls them). We love to show off some rare and stunning find.

My friend Mona Royer, who is a renowned artist with a wonderful sense of drama, as well as a guide, has several brightly colored fringed satin parasols she’s actually named. People love it. I know another guide, Jane Junghans, who says she has a different umbrella for every outfit she owns. Sigh. Accessorizing can be such a headache.

For the past few years, many guides have also found creative ways to guide tours after dark. One of the most popular tours in Washington is of the monuments by night, what we call an “illuminated tour”. There’s no better way to marvel at D.C.’s beauty.

Well, the guide has to be illuminated too, so colleagues have used everything from Luke Skywalker light-sabers (collapsible), to strobe lights, to those lamps a miner straps to his helmet. Most common, though, is a simple flashlight held facing up along the umbrella shaft, creating a sort of glowing dome over the guide’s head. Makes your hand ache after a bit, but it works well.

The umbrella is a great tool to have in inclement weather, or when it’s beastly broiling hot (at such times, you gain many new foul-weather friends). We tour a lot in late winter and early spring, too, when sleet likes to put in an appearance. But on a windy day, an open umbrella means trouble. And, naturally, that’s when we get the greatest number of references to Mary Poppins. (I’ll bet you were wondering about that.)

I often tell my groups that if they have trouble remembering my name, I will answer to “Mary Poppins”. (I prefer it to “Tour Guide Lady.”) Of course, they test me repeatedly on this, young people especially: “Hey, Mary!” “Oh, Ms. POPpins!” So I add a caveat: If you call me Mary too often, I’ll start singing like Julie Andrews. “Just a spoonful of sugar…” With my voice, this usually does the trick.

But, the way I figure it, Mary Poppins isn’t too bad a role model to be associated with. She used her creativity and sense of wonder and fun to brighten the lives of two lonely children who didn’t get to see much of their rich, busy father, and didn’t much care to learn about anything. She gave them affection, opened their imaginations, made it a great experience for them, and did what she set out to do.

So, when my groups call me by her name, I don’t worry too much. I can see that they, too, are enjoying their learning, getting involved in it. What a great opportunity for a guide. At least they’re paying attention. It’s a shot in the arm when teens listen to you.

A tour guide can also work as a tour manager/director. In such a case, I greet the group upon arrival at the hotel or the airport. I’m hired to be there around the clock to see that all the various elements of the tour run smoothly and according to plan: we get to dinner on time, the student with the birthday gets a cake, the Holocaust Museum tickets don’t get lost, the hotel check-ins go smoothly, the security guard shows up each night in the hotel…that kind of thing. Detail work. Actually, I really like this kind of job. I get to know the people much better, and so we have more fun together.

The tour director usually stays in the hotel with the group, to be on-call if anything should go wrong. I’ve often wondered, shuddering, what that might entail. Once, a group of girls got frightened after they secretly dyed their hair (a dark shade) in the hotel room shower, then found they couldn’t wash away all the evidence. Well brought up as these girls were, their consciences smote them, and they called their teacher at 2 a.m. to confess.

The teacher then called my room, asking me what should be done. I answered that I thought we should all get some sleep.

Next morning, all was solved with the aid of some Soft Scrub cleanser, and we checked out of that hotel with a sigh of relief.

Things certainly can and do go wrong on tour. Someone gets ill (often in the motorcoach, unfortunately), or injured, or taunts a security guard, or keeps up serious noise all night long. Or an overnight power failure prevents the wake-up call at 4:30 a.m. on the morning we’re scheduled to go obtain White House tour tickets. That’s a biggie.

If you’re not at the White House bus ticket line on Constitution Avenue by 6:30, and often earlier on the busier days, you might as well sleep in. Every minute counts, as buses and more buses pull up into place in the line. Knock wood, though, I’ve never had a group miss getting those tickets in seven years. [Author's note: This paragraph is now obsolete; much has changed, for the worse for tourists, in D.C. since 9/11/2001.]

Shown up in their jammies, yes. Routed out of their warm beds by chaperones on a mission – “Your parents didn’t pay all that money for you to come to Washington and not see the White House!” Dedicated people, most chaperones are.

I’ve often wondered, though, what would happen if a group of tired students decided to mutiny on that one morning and all sleep in! In fact, it never ceases to amaze me that the kids haven’t thought of it yet. At least, not that I know of.

When you’re the tour director, you have to exude confidence, capability, and authority. You have to be able to handle real emergencies as if you eat them daily and eagerly for breakfast: sprained ankles, heat exhaustion, sudden snowstorms, cancelled flights.

If you have people on the tour who don’t know each other, you have to find gentle ways to bring them together and to include someone from each group in the decision-making. And because you’re clearly so efficient, the group, even the leaders, come to rely on you to take much of the responsibility off their harried shoulders.

And then you really feel like you’ve earned the Mary Poppins designation.

Rosa Parks Redux

For much of the time I worked as a D.C. tour guide, I lived downtown, and — thanks to Washington’s clean, convenient Metrorail subway — didn’t actually need a car to get where I needed to go. On the other hand, one difficulty that we guides often faced (until recently) was early meeting times on the weekends, when the Metrorail didn’t open until 8:00 a.m.. (It was one of our pet peeves, and you bet we loved to gripe about it amongst ourselves!)

Thus it happened one Saturday morning, several years ago, that I needed to take a city bus to get to my meeting point by 8:00. I can’t recall now just where I was headed –- somewhere in Georgetown, I think — but I walked five blocks to Independence Avenue and caught the even 30’s bus line toward the northwestern end of town.

For 7:15 on a Saturday morning, it seemed to me that quite a lot of people were aboard, and there was no seat available anywhere in the bus. So I squeezed myself and my overnight bag into the area by the rear stairwell, and hung on as best I could to the slippery stainless-steel vertical bar.

Here I should mention that the population of the nation’s capital city proper, some 572,000 people according to the 2000 census, is about two-thirds African-American, black, people of color, or whatever term you like best. Never was that fact more clear to me than on this morning.

For, as I glanced idly up and down the length of the bus, it dawned on me that mine was the only white face anywhere.

And I was the only person standing up.

Wow, I gasped inwardly. Times have changed.

Was I a bit uncomfortable at first, a bit taken aback? You bet I was. Is that a shameful thing to feel? I didn’t know what to do or how to act. Many eyes were suddenly upon me, and I was the minority! The outsider. Even the intruder, I worried.

I thought of a lady named Rosa Parks, who, way back in the ‘fifties, was tired – in body, perhaps, but certainly in spirit – one December evening, when she boarded a green-and-yellow bus in Montgomery, Alabama, for the ride home from her seamstress job. That day, she’d had enough of being treated as a lower form of human. She didn’t see any earthly reason why she shouldn’t take a seat when one was available, or give it up for another just because he happened to be white, no matter how unfair the rules of her time and place.

She needed to stand up for her dignity by remaining seated, and in affirming her right as a human to do so, she changed our country.

In Mrs. Parks’s time in the South, one of the people sitting on that bus with me would have been required by local law to vacate his or her seat so that I could sit instead. How insane is that? But so it was.

I decided that I didn’t mind standing up one bit.

The gift I was given, for a few minutes that morning as we bounced along, was the chance to appreciate what Mrs. Parks did, and why. And to take in the reality she made possible.

For I saw dignified, twinkle-eyed elderly men on that bus who, I felt sure, were going to visit their grandchildren for the day, and women who slumped sleepily, trying to stay awake on their way to a second job. I noticed several tough-looking workers with strong, calloused hands, and a couple of teenagers who smiled shyly at me as if they, too, appreciated the utter reversal of some horrid history that we all embodied in that small space, in that tiny jewel of time.

I found myself, irresistibly, smiling back. What I saw was a wonderful, complex, never-happen-again miracle. We were all equal, the way we always should have been.

I spent the rest of my ride praying wordlessly that no one would get up and offer me a seat.

No one did.

But, welcome to fascist la-la land, aka modern-day America. Go Sedgwick!

My thanks to Kevin at Cryptogon for the link.

Petroglyphs near Chloride, AZ

Chloride, Arizona…population 352…about 30 miles and half a world away from us here in Kingman. Nary a stoplight, no gas station, and only a convenience-store market, mostly filled with cheap souvenirs made in China.

It bills itself as a ghost town, a former mining mecca (which it apparently is – its name comes from the silver chloride ore found locally by prospectors).  They’ve built a faux old-timey town square, and every Saturday at high noon there’s a “gunfight” in the street.  (This past week, it was the Wild Roses troupe of sassy gun molls in rags and Colt .45s.) You can even hire a group of local characters – and all the locals we met were definitely characters! – to film you and your family or friends acting out a Western shootout, costumes and all.

But it’s really more of a hippie town, full of amiable misfits, where broken bottles and rusted chamber pots become “yard art,” and the local boy-made-good is artist Roy Purcell, whose rock mural “The Journey” is a 1.5-mile, kidney-busting Jeep ride east of the town.  Seriously.  Don’t try this four-wheeling adventure unless you’re in a real Jeep or at least a heavy-duty pickup.  The ruts crossing the “road” are a foot deep in many spots, and there are rocks at least that high jutting up from the surface.

It’s worth it, though.  Purcell repainted the mural in 2006 to brighten the colors.  They say he camped out in a cave in the rocks all summer while painting (smart move!).  And among the bright-colored images are ancient (dating back to 700-800 A.D.) Indian petroglyphs – rock art of a much older and more practical sort.

Who lived and camped and hunted here?  Why did they etch images onto these particular rocks?  How did those images last for so many centuries?  We had the sense that this mini-valley of rocks was an ideal place to trap and ambush wild game, when there was game to hunt.  Perhaps the drawings were a helpful hint to other hunters.

Ghosts?  Oh, yes.  More so outside of the town than in it.

Part of Roy Purcell's rock mural, The Journey, near Chloride, AZ

Lightning or snake petroglyph, perhaps