The Watcher's Council has another seat available. I'm not sure if it's all you can eat or not, but heck, a seat is a seat, right? Now there are rules you must follow, but you'll love the atmosphere.

I don't quite know what to think of this…

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will miss the state funeral for former President Gerald Ford at the Capitol Rotunda on Saturday night, opting instead to lead a delegation to South America with an expected stop at the Machu Picchu Inca ruins.

Reid, D-Nev., left Wednesday afternoon from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland with a bipartisan group of five other senators, including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the incoming assistant majority leader, for what has been described as a weeklong visit to Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.

The highlight of the trip is said to be separate meetings with the presidents of the three nations, with the last one scheduled in Peru on Tuesday afternoon.

"They would be difficult to cancel," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said via mobile phone as the congressional delegation took off in a U.S. military plane.

It would be difficult to cancel? Why cancel? Why not re-schedule? I'm sure the presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru would all understand if they wanted to pay their respects to the late President Ford.

But instead, they made it very clear they would rather travel around South America and visit ancient ruins, since they left the day after President Ford died.

Of course the ruins might not be there another time. How rude was it that President Ford did not check Harry Reid's schedule before dying?

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

At this time, I hope all of the senators visiting South America enjoy the dance.

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In August of 1974 I was nine years old. I wouldn't turn 10 for four more months. I remember the day Richard Nixon resigned, and I remember President Ford being very accident prone, but I don't remember much more.

To a 9 year old, without a care in the world, he wasn't a very memorable President. To a 42 year old, looking back in time, he was the safe port in a very bad storm.

Thank you Mr. President. Thank you for everything.

Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments — including an angioplasty — in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Rest In Peace, President Ford.