1/11/12 PLEASE, MR. PRESIDENT

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  37 degrees. Wind WSW, light.  The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts precipitation.
    A small group of ice fishermen (perhaps three or four) were just barely visible yesterday about noon, far out on the rotting ice near the end of the old ore dock in Ashland.  I could see no motorized equipment.  Maybe they were roped together like mountain climbers, I certainly hope so.  They were really tempting fate and headlines.  Late yesterday I saw a little flotilla of three small fishing boats off the Sioux River at the beach.  Fishermen are a determined, if not always sensible, lot.
    Commentary: Iranian President Ahmadinejad is currently visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, cementing a growing alliance between the oil rich dictators.  Anti American, Anti Israel, Anti democracy  schemes are sure to be the topics of discussion.  As far as I have heard, President Obama has no objections to such visits or discussions.  Indeed, all his actions toward both men and their regimes have reeked of naiveté and appeasement. 
    What ever, I ask, became of that two century old bedrock of American foreign policy, the Monroe Doctrine?  Please, Mr. President, before these tin pot dictators over-reach, and we are faced with a Twenty-First Century reiteration of the Cuban Missile Crisis or worse, state simply again for them and all the world to hear, the words of President Monroe: ”The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any…powers.”  “The political system(s) of [such] powers is essentially different…from that of America…We should consider any attempt on their part …to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”