Dear Mr. President,

From the mind’s prison, I release you – consider your time as served. However, Mr. President, be mindful that your freedom was not earned, nor was it reward for good behavior. Rather, your freedom was granted of my epiphany, after more than six years, that a mind consumed with holding one captive is a mind itself held in captivity.

I, as the jailer, had become as imprisoned as the jailed.

You were taken prisoner when you took the presidency, winning the best out of nine despite the least out of millions. I first considered your release in the days following that bright and terrible blue sky morning in September, when the eloquence of your words and the newfound poise of your presence guided our nation through its grief. Then you misled our grief to war, waged on a people who played no part in our tragedy.

For that despicable deed I condemned you, in the court of my mind, to a life sentence in my mind’s prison, without chance for parole.

I held you in the same manner that you hold your “enemy combatants”, without due process or appeal. Shameful, that, I must now admit.

This is not a story about a woman who raised four children, sent one off to war, and collapsed one day in a fit of screaming at the news that he was dead.

This is not a piece to describe how that woman tried to stay awake for the next three days so as not to have to scream like that again after waking and then remembering that news. There will be no attempt in this piece to comprehend the maddening indecency of the overgrown frat-boy president who sent her son to kill and die for lies and still had the gall to call her “Mom” and sits day after day-- to this day --as the self-appointed, unrestrained king of the world.

This is not a piece about a woman who exposed her grief and her rawest nerves, who sacrificed a twenty-nine year marriage and time with her remaining children, to a country calloused to the daily loss of life and succeeded in stirring many to their feet, into the streets, and to the tops of their lungs.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- He shot 55 men and women in the back, killing them with a burst of bullets aimed at the heart, while each person was tied to a wooden cross.

"I think the system of execution has become more humane, compared with when they hammered nails under people's fingernails, and did other torture, or whiplashed them before they cut their heads off," Chavoret Jaruboon said in an interview.

"Those things are in the past."

Mr. Chavoret, 58, is a Buddhist who describes himself as Thailand's "last executioner."

"Every Buddhist monk would say that killing someone is a sin. But the question is whether you take pleasure in killing that person," Mr. Chavoret said.

"What I have seen is that these prisoners have done bad to others, and they are incarcerated because of their own karma."

After two decades as an executioner, Mr. Chavoret switched jobs three years ago to become head of foreign prisoners' section at Bangkok's dreaded Bang Kwang Central Prison, where he coordinates the detention of Americans, Europeans, Africans and Asians.

The Ohio Lavender Festival is seeking volunteers for the 2007 event slated for July 6,7 & 8 at DayBreak Lavender Farm in Streetsboro, OH.

Will you work four hours for free soap? That's the deal says Jody Byrne, manager of The Ohio Lavender Festival. “Last year we had 35+ volunteers who worked a four-hour block of time … either 9 - 1 or 1 - 5. By way of saying thank you, each received a $50 Gift Certificate good for any of DayBreak Lavender Farm's handmade soaps, home spa or lavender culinary products. In addition, they each volunteer gets 2 Free Festival passes so they can return with a friend and enjoy the festival on all the days they're not volunteering.”

From lavender planting and grooming in the lavender field, to Nature Hunt Guides working with kids, to the Gourmet Pavillion … there are all kinds of tasks that the Festival needs your help with.  If you are interested, just email SoapPlease1@aol.com and write volunteer in the subject line.  Jody will send you complete hours, dress and work assignment details.