I KEEP FORGETTING I'M NOT IN KANSAS

With those words Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz reacted to a talking apple tree, one that was pretty upset at having its apples plucked off. She was hanging with the her new bud, the Scarecrow, who was a pretty sharp cookie who tricked the apple tree into pelting them with some tasty apples. While chasing down the apples Dorothy discovered the rusty Tin Man, and she and the Scarecrow proceeded to revive the unfortunate metal man with a handy oil can. Turns out they found their new friend right in the nick, since just then the Wicked Witch of The West showed up and hurled a fireball at the Scarecrow, no laughing matter to a man made of dried straw. Mr. Tin Man extinguished with blaze with his funnel shaped hat, and they all bonded and sang another song.

Sounds reasonable, no? Now you add a Cowardly Lion and Dorothy's tiny dog Toto to the mix, and you've got a real posse to be reckoned with as they battle the forces of evil while making their way down the Yellow Brick Road towards Emerald City to see the Wizard, where they plan to petition the Great and Powerful Oz to grant them their wishes. Dorothy needs a home, the Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Man a heart and the Cowardly Lion wants courage. The Dog? Well, like most dogs Toto doesn't really want much of anything but to lay around and lick himself and get fed.

Long story short, they make it to Emerald city and the Wizard turns out to be a fraud, but they defeat the Wicked Witch and then realize that they had everything they were seeking all along if only they had looked within themselves. The Scarecrow got his brain, the Tin Man his heart, the Lion his courage and Dorothy got to go home. Toto was too busy eating, licking himself and napping to notice that anything at all out of the ordinary had transpired, but barked happily anyway.

When L. Frank Baum wrote his illustrated children's novel in 1900 he told us that we all have the power within ourselves to find what we seek. Well, Mr. Baum, where's the fun if we don't have to get out on some sort of whacky Odyssey every so often? And what's with the L., Frank? What the hell does the L stand for? If it's such a terrible name, why not just go with Frank and drop the L altogether? Is that what your own self inventory told you about yourself? That you're an L. of a guy? Well, in my book you're pretty okay, even if you do have a slight identity crisis. Anybody who can give us The Wizard of Oz has to be alright, even if his first name is really Lyman. Sorry, L. Frank, I hope you're not upset.

Oz is where we all find ourselves from time to time, that surreal otherworld that finds us all out of sorts, where trees talk, scarecrows and tin men come to life, evil witches pursue us and the guy who's supposed to set things right turns out to be a bumbling fraud. Sort of reminds one of life in America under Bush The Younger, with America not feeling like home anymore. There's your wicked witches in Cheney and Rumsfeld, the armies of flying monkeys are the legions of fascist Christians calling for blood, anyone's will do, the grumpy talking trees are the nasty TV talking heads calling everyone who doesn't agree with them un-Ozian. And then there's the Wizard himself, The Great Bumbler, Bush The Younger; inarticulate, venal and casually murderous.

The Munchkins are Congress, cowering at the specter of wicked witches and appeasing the Wizard, meekly surrendering the basic human rights of their citizens, rights hard won by the blood and sweat of previous generations of Munchkins. The good witch Glinda is the Democratic party, wielding limited power and seeing the world through rose colored glasses while the wicked witch hurls fireballs at innocents, blithely pronouncing all will turn out for the good while doing little to implement change. The Wicked Witch's immediate henchmen, those in charge of the marching Ow-ee-Ow guys, are the Joint Chiefs of Staff doing the bidding of evil witches Rumsfeld and Cheney, and they'll be the first to thank Dorothy when she slays the Wicked Witch, and act like they had no choice but to serve their evil mistress and offer their fawning services to her. Dorothy should give them all the boot, and give the flying monkeys the back of her hand too.

So, who's Dorothy in all this? Is it Obama? McCain? No, she's us, the people of Oz, those of us who must find our home within our hearts. If we want to get back to Kansas, or California or Texas or New York, the same places we've always known and loved but now seem like alien territory, we've got to do it ourselves and not rely on wizards or witches or ruby slippers. Americans know what American freedoms are supposed to be. We know how our government ought to be behaving, and that the image we project to the rest of the world is a product of what we do, not what we say. We Dorothys have to insist that the new Wizard and set of Munchkins we send to Emerald City this November knows what Oz is supposed to be all about. We have had the power inside us all this time to get back to Kansas. Let's click those ruby slippers together and go home. Aunty Em is waiting.