Almost all of my friends and most of my relatives dislike President Obama.
     Some think that he’s a communist, just waiting to come out of the closet. Others sincerely believe he’s a socialist, slowly molding the country into a socialist state. Others think he’s a big government liberal, steadily shaping the country into a massive federal holding company.
     And there are some who hate the President for deeper reasons than his political ideology. To this group of people Barack Obama is a giant mistake and should immediately be removed from office before more damage comes to the nation.
     Other than the last group, to whom nothing the President does or doesn’t do will change their opinions, I can’t quite get a hold on why these groups dislike the President so much. I hear their generalizations about him, but I don’t hear enough specifics – certainly not accurate, proven, demonstrable specifics that would prove that the President is in the midst of a campaign to considerably alter the very foundations of our country for his own clandestine ends.

     President Obama addressed the nation this week, to mark the end of American combat operations in Iraq.
     Let’s hope he’s right.
     If he is, it will be one of the very few plans to work out as intended in that unfortunate and unfathomable region. Do not forget there are still 50,000 American men and women in uniform in Iraq, and they’re not exactly strolling through the park. Danger continues to lurk around every corner in a country that’s still a toss-up to go into civil war.
     There are lessons to be learned from America’s long slog:

• This was a war of choice, not necessity, and that’s nearly always going to be a mistake. Iraq did not attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
• Extremists within the borders of Afghanistan did attack the United States on Sept. 11. The United States should have gone into Afghanistan with guns blazing. But, did the Iraq campaign take America’s eye off the ball in Afghanistan? Seems so to us. Undoubtedly, it’s harder now to play catch-up in Afghanistan.

     A brief hour away from the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley, a quaint fishing village offers a look into the past by the cool Pacific Ocean. 
     With a backdrop of the landmark 500-foot smokestacks of the surreal Pacific Gas and Electric Power Plant structure on Highway 1 lies the town of Moss Landing, busy with fisherman still fishing commercially, picturesque streets of Victorian homes accommodating antique and collectable shops, and a variety of restaurants offering everything from fish to enchiladas. 
     With a population of about 500, the coastal getaway was named after Capt. Charles Moss, a Texan who established fishing facilities and a pier developing commercial water traffic in the mid 1800s. The gold rush demanded products and California’s coast developed rapidly to assist. Among the cargo was produce from Watsonville and Pajaro Valley. The vegetables arrived at the nearby Elkhorn Slough at Hudson’s Landing for shipment to San Francisco. 
    

     It was 1773 and the good citizens of Boston had decided that they were fed up with the insolence emanating from the British Crown. The latest insult to their newly formed American sensibilities was based on the recently levied taxation on their tea. The King and his court in Britain had decided to bypass the selling of their teas from China and India through American middlemen and do it directly –but still containing the heavy taxes established to fill the coffers of Great Britain.
     The furious Americans, still living under the thumb of King George III decided that things had gone far enough. John Hancock, John Adams and Samual Adams and other patriots put their heads together and decided that freedom from tyranny was worth the dangers involved in staging a mammoth protest against the core of the problem – taxation without representation.
     Thus, the idea of the “Boston Tea Party” was formed in the minds of the men who would soon be instrumental in the creation of the larger battle – The Revolutionary War – the fight for American Independence from England.
     So, to protest the British taxes on their tea and to send a message to King George III, Hancock organized a disruptive protest to be staged in Boston Harbor. Hancock thought of a way that would get the King’s attention. The message would be “no more taxation without representation!”