Maybe I’m learning, maybe not. A few days ago, two friends who run a media firm offered me $20,000 for one-month’s work shooting a documentary in several foreign countries.

On the surface, it sounded like a dream assignment (and the money wasn’t bad either) but when I met with the client, she said they would be cooperating with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on the project.

That killed my involvement. I cannot, and will not, work with DHS because I think the mere creation of such an agency threatens what little is left of our freedoms.

Even the name “Homeland Security” has Germanic “fatherland” overtones. Sadly, those who genuflect to every brain fart that spills out of George W. Bush’s mouth stand idly by while our freedoms march in perfect goose-step out the door.

I can’t join that march into oblivion, not even for twenty grand.