A recent column by Joel Mowbray here at Townhall.com brought back some very personal memories of my several visits to the country of Israel.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JoelMowbray/2008/05/28/miraculous_under_fire_aftermath_of_a_terror_attack

In my considerable world travels I have some favorite countries and cities I will go back to in a NY minute. Israel happens to be one of those countries. I’ve been to Israel 6 times on ship port visits of various durations, from 3 to 10 days.  Some of my fondest travel memories originated there.  I visited the birth and burial sites of Jesus, got my first tattoo, performed an honor guard ceremony and danced at a Kibbutz, went to the Elvis café, got frisked by a lovely female IDF soldier at the Wailing Wall. Not really. She just questioned me. The frisking happened only in my warped mind. I was thinking she was reacting to my innate charm and animal magnetism while she was thinking that I looked like an Arab terrorist.

What impressed me immediately about Israel (other than the beauty of some of the women), was the friendliness of the Israelis, whether they were Jews, Christians or Arabs.  Not to mention the pro American attitude prevalent throughout the country. 

The next thing I was most impressed with was their joyous demeanor and their unabashed pride in their country. These are some resilient people! I visited during several of those PLO uprisings so prevalent in the 80’s and 90’s. In the midst of all this, I not once encountered bitterness, paranoia or hostility. At one time I was actually 3 miles from the Gaza strip. In conversations with several Israelis, they have out and out invited me to come live in their country. “Bring your family, move here, it’s wonderful. You’re wife and kids, they will love it!”  they would say.  It was a country where I felt the most welcome in almost all my travels. I remember standing at Calvary Mount thinking how anyone, Christian, Jew or even secular, could visit that site and not be moved by the impact on history Jesus of Nazareth had.

Over the years I have watched the horrors inflicted on the Israeli people and have been impressed by the restraint of their reactions. I wonder how we would be as a people if we had to face the equivalent of the terrorist attacks continually inflicted on Israel. I’ve often wished they’d just go open that can of whoop a$$ already on some of the most irrational of their enemies. Remembering them as I do, I understand how out of character that is for them.  

So whenever I hear an American complain about the good ole US of A, I think of the war weary Israelis I’ve met and it always makes me want to grab the ungrateful whiner of the moment and slap them around like red headed stepchildren. Then I think again of the Israelis and the moment passes.  

If you ever get the chance to visit the Promised Land, I highly recommend it. I know I’ll be back someday.

I received a scanned copy of a column by Will Manly of They Hays Daily News, a newspaper in Kansas. You know, the heartland? The people Barrack Obama says turn to guns and church because they’re bitter? Well this old boy fired back with both small town barrels. I tried to find a link directly to the article in the paper but couldn’t find one. The closest I’ve come, without spending more time looking for this is another scanned version here:

http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2008/05/15/60150.aspx

For those who cannot get to that or cannot enlarge it, I’m reprinting the entire article below (the grammatical and misspelling errors are all Mr. Manly’s):

Dear Barack: You’re wrong about small towns.

By Will Manly of the Hays Daily News

Dear Barack Obama:

I grew to like you over the last year. I’ve always thought of you as dangerously naïve at best. Eloquent, gifted, genuine, yes. But dangerously naïve at best.

I couldn’t vote for you – but not because of your funny name or your lunatic pastor. I couldn’t vote for you because you say we should raise taxes (even on the rich, who I’m convinced already pay too much), and because you say we should abandon Iraq (which I’m convinced would be surrendering a war we must win), and because you don’t respect the Second Amendment (which I’m convinced should disqualify any politician from any office).

Still, I’ve liked your message of unity and your ability to inspire. And, since your rise I’ve hunted quite frantically, for young conservative leaders with your talent. (To my relief, I found Bobby Jindal.)

And I’ve long said if you beat Hillary Clinton, you will have done your country a tremendous service. But anymore I’m having a harder and harder time rooting for you.

First came your wife’s comment about being proud of America for the first time – conveniently, right after you started winning primaries. Then came your own words about your grandmother who is just a “typical white person” – a racist, or at least someone with racist tendencies. (I’m a “typical white person,” I suppose, and I’m no racist.  In fact, little makes me angrier than when it’s insinuated I am.)

Sometimes people say things they don’t really mean. But this is a pattern.

Last week, we heard your comments about small-town America. Someone at a San Francisco fundraiser asked you why it’s so hard for Democrats to win in rural areas. You said:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…”

   Is that a minority? HEY CLETUS, GET THE GUN! (If only we had a job to go to, some time in the last 25 years…)

Here’s a thought: Maybe gun rights voters know gun control laws kill people and steal freedom.

Here’s a thought: Maybe some of us have moral objections to an immigration system that forces rule-followers to wait decades for legal status, and rewards border-violators with amnesty.

Here’s a thought: Maybe some Americans cling to their church because their pastor is a nice person, because they find love there, because there they have something they can believe in.

Here’s a thought: Maybe, just maybe, us simpletons in small towns find it harder to be bigoted than all o’ y’all cityfolk. Maybe in small towns, where everybody knows your name – and how hard you work, if you pay your taxes, how well you treat your neighbors, how often you volunteer in the community, and whether or not you’re a good parent – people see the content of your character, so they don’t give a hoot about the color of your skin. (But I grew up in a small town where about a third of the population is of a different race than me. What do I know?)

And here’s my favorite thought of all: Maybe small-town folks are – really – capable of thinking. All on our own.

You’re wrong about why small-town Americans don’t vote for Democrats.

We don’t vote for Democrats because we’re self-reliant so we don’t like the government trying to “solve” everything for us. And because you tell your rich friends in San Francisco that we’re dumb. And because, each election, whichever one of you is running for president traipses all over the country telling us you have all the answers, that you’re the one on our side, that you understand and respect our way of life.

But each time, a little bit here and there slips out- and by the end of the campaign, we can tell what you really think about us. And we manage to learn who you really are.

And we see you’re just a horse’s a$$.