Edd's Gatherin' Place

What’s your opinion? We in America are apathetically accustomed to the safety of our polling places and we all give bellowing speeches on freedom. Although it is my experience, we take our freedom with an abashed grin and a much-ballyhooed Ho-Hummm… Again, “How would you react if we in Sumter had to open one of our community places for the Iraqi election on January 30, 2005?”

Chicken of the Cloth

Iraq isn't the only place where Iraqis will be voting a week from Sunday; polling sites will also be operating in many countries with large Iraqi expatriate populations, including America. Iraqi immigrants will be able to cast ballots in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville and Washington.

But while tens of thousands of U.S. troops are risking their lives every day for Iraqi democracy, some cowardly Americans are frustrating it right here at home. "A prominent local Catholic priest is supporting a movement of businesses and churches who are demanding that city leaders move one of the Nashville polling sites in the upcoming Iraq elections," reports the Tennessean:

The Rev. Joseph Breen of St. Edward Catholic Church said he represents a group whose members either live, work, send their kids to school or worship near Coleman Community Center, one of two Nashville-area polling and voter registration sites for the Iraqi Transitional National Assembly election. . . .

Breen worries that a suicide bomber could target either the community center or the other polling station, the Fraternal Order of Police building at 440 Welshwood Drive. . . .

''Five years ago no one would be thinking about this. But there's not a day that goes by when you don't hear of a roadside bomb going off in Iraq. People may think it couldn't happen here, but it could,'' the priest said.The Associated Press reports a similar story in Niles, Ill.:

An organization assisting in voter registration for the upcoming Iraqi elections left their headquarters Thursday in this suburb north of Chicago after village officials expressed security concerns, officials said.

The International Organization for Migration said Niles officials told the group they had concerns that the building could be a target for violence. The organization plans to move its administrative operations to the northwest side of Chicago. . . .

Mary Kay Morrissey, Niles village manager, said officials were worried they could not provide adequate protection for the organization's Niles site. She also said the organization did not get necessary zoning permits.

What kind of people are so pathetic and cowardly? Morrissey seems to be living in the past; her Web page declares: "As we approach the millennium and celebrate our 100 years of pride and progress, the General Government Department will continue to work together with residents, businesses, and community organizations and provide high quality services, efficiently and effectively!" Iraqis need not apply.
As for Father Breen, he should stick to giving fashion advice.