Presidents and the changing times

Shortly after World War II, President Harry Truman's motorcade passed through Paducah, Kentucky, and I viewed him from perhaps fifteen-twenty feet away from a window in our house. No Secret Service checked us or our neighbors out to see if our houses housed a sniper. The motorcade route was depicted in the afternoon paper the day before.

This morning President Bush attended a political fund raiser breakfast in support of a local candidate, at the huge former home of Alexander Graham Bell, about a mile from my house. The TV reporters could not reveal the secret route the President would take from his ovenight stay in town, or even where he actually spent the night. From about 200 feet from my house, our street was blocked off for a mile and an intersecting street at the Bell house site also was blocked off, partly to serve as parking for the 400 attendees, but also for security. Helicopters were on serveilance duty overhead.

What a change in how the President is both protected and isolated from the public at large--a sign of the times, I suppose.

Jim Woods
www.ultrasw.com/jwoods

I suppose it reflects in part how secure his policies have made America.

One of the reasons Bush needs so much security is so many people don't like him. Also, people seem to be much less trusting today than they were 50 or 100 years ago. It used to be that 6 in 10 Americans believed that most people could be trusted. A few years ago, only 4 in 10 Americans believed most people could be trusted and the fugure seems to fall every year. It's a sign of our times.

Too bad, but that's the way it is. And yet if someone is determined enough...

My home, Pine Mountain Valley, Georgia, was founded as one of FDR's WPA
projects in the early 30's. Near there is the site of his "Little White
House" in Warm Springs where he was receiving treatment.

My mom told us stories of when she was a little girl, and seeing him
riding around alone in his touring car (specially fitted with levers so
he could drive).

My stepson, who is half Japanese, went to Tennessee with his new wife and took a little trip to see the TVA dam. He stopped and asked for directions in a po-dunk place and within an hour, 10 police cars surrounded him and his pregnant wife, took them all "downtown" for questioning. . .all on the phone call of the po-dumk gas station guy saying they looked like terrorist.

In the end the police gave him and his wife a special tour of the dam. He did not sue.

Love,
Betty

Sounds a bit like the world thinks the babarian is at the gate. Maybe they are or it just might be they're already through the gate and living next door to you ready to usher in the next dark age.