July 30, 2007
by Mike Palecek

Is This Heaven?

No, no. It's not.

Hey, c'mere, c'mere.

Hey.

Shhh. I have to whisper. I am here amid the market lambs and the Myers Family, shhhh.

I wish you could see me, but I'm incognito.

I have managed to slip inside the infrastructure of the Culver County Fair.

The sun is shining bright. It is hot. It is very early, but the little bleachers in the sheep judging arena are already packed hip to butt to brisket.

Over here.

I am the understudy judge ... my public persona.

Actually, I am here under the not-quite-official auspices of the United States Department of Homeland Security, although I understand that if I am captured they will deny any knowledge of me whatsoever. I'm used to that, my parents said the same thing.

I get to wear this green vest with a big button with a photo of a sheep, and there are about a hundred other badges on this vest. I'm wondering if it might have belonged to an insane girl scout at one time.

And I've got a straw hat that kind of hangs in my eyes, black-rimmed glasses, yellow judging shorts. The real deal.

I'll be here all week.

My goal is to get over to the Iowa Sweet Corn Dipped in Butter And Then Chocolate booth and back here without loosing my spot.

Baaa! Oops. That just came out.

For some reason, I'm finding out I have a certain affinity with sheep.

But I am not taking my eye off the target, not for a moment.

I have my eyes on the prize. There isn't anything or anybody in this arena that will escape my extreme scrutiny.

Go about your day. I got this.

(Article Continues Below)

I actually think the guy in the brand new coveralls in the third row from the bottom would fry up real well. And his wife has good muscling and a nice rump.

They both have good thickness through the leg, with natural thickness as well over the top, definition is apparent, with good straightness of lines.

Baaa! Sorry, ma'am, undercover.

Hey, while there is a break here I want to tell you about something. I recently received an email from the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and it got me remembering.

Something about sheep and human beings and how to tell the difference.

It's about terrorists and whatever, too, at least I think it is.

When I was a reporter I interviewed Leonard Peltier in Leavenworth Prison and then I talked to Nick O'Hara, the head of the Minneapolis FBI division. O'Hara had been involved in the Peltier case for years.

I wanted to know the truth about the thing, because I think it's important.

And I went out to talk to some people at the Jumping Bull Compound at Oglala and visited the graves of Anna Mae and Joe Stuntz and the memorial at Wounded Knee, and I read the book by Peter Matthiessen.

I still think it's important. I just haven't thought about it for awhile.

Maybe it's the sheep, the Myers Family.

I wrote to the FBI and asked them to put me in touch with the families of the dead FBI agents.

An agent from Minneapolis, Coleen Rowley, sent me a letter which included a response from Coler's widow.

I wrote my story and said that I was not sure who was lying, but surely someone was.

Awhile later I ran for Congress. By then I had decided who was lying.

I sent a letter to O'Hara to tell him.

He wrote me back.

It's here, below.

This is a strange place to start thinking about dead men and their lonely families and a man who has been in prison for thirty years, here amid the sheep and the kids and the proud moms and dads, looking for terrorists.

Who is the terrorist? Is it me, or is it you?

Is it Leonard Peltier, or Nick O'Hara?

And if we know the truth, what are we doing here?

Who are we to judge sheep?

Baaa!

Reporting from America, former award-winning reporter now undercover sheep judge ... in Culver County Iowa ... back to you, Jason.

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Mike Palecek [send him email] is an activist for peace and social justice. He served time in federal prison for civil disobedience and has run for US Congress. He has authored a number of books [click here to view] on behalf of the cause.