The Weekly Screed

Yeah, it's me again.

Like that poor soul in the plague scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "I'm not dead yet..."

Even when I signed off last week, I thought I might continue to use this space to monitor those developments that might give us further cause for concern about the direction we can expect leaders to steer us in over the next four years.  Here's a couple of "markers" that have come to my attention over the past few days:

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From NPR's Morning Edition: Trading Rouge for Camouflage

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(Last summer I rented the DVD of "Triumph of the Will," Leni Riefenstahl's famous 1934 Nazi propaganda film.  I wanted to see if there were any similarities between the Germany portrayed in the movie and the America we are living in now.  I thought it was encouraging (!?) that, in all of the scenes of the various rallies, everybody was wearing some kind of militaristic uniform.  We don't see much of that in America...and now this:)

School officials in Texas agree to give up the annual cross-dressing day. The school says it was meant to be fun but a conservative group accused the school of promoting a "homosexual agenda." So from now on, cross-dressing day will be "Camo Day," when students dress up like soldiers.

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NYTimes' Nicholas Kristoff on Colin Powell's departure:

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Kristoff seems to be reading my mind when he writes: "A litmus test of foreign policy prospects will be whether John Bolton, a genial raptor among the doves at State, is promoted to be its deputy secretary. For liberals who have been wavering on whether to move to New Zealand, that would be a sign to head for the airport. "

OK, maybe not exactly billboards that say "Next Stop Nuremberg" but road signs nonetheless.  Drive carefully....

--PS

And no, John Bolton is not Michael Boulton's brother. He's a the Undersecretary of State for arms control and International Security, whose specialty is breaking up all kinds of international negotiations.  Just the kind of guy we need leading the charge....

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What Should We Watch For?

Hello again,

Well now, that was certainly entertaining, if not altogether productive.

When people started calling and e-mailing last Wednesday, I really only had only four words for them:  "Beam Me Up, Scotty."  Like most of you, I was really at a loss, literally and figuratively.  I could not even fathom how the Red Sox vanquishing of 86 years of World Series futility will compensate for the prospect of just four more years of George W. Bush.

Nor am I'm getting much satisfaction from the notion that now that he's been re-elected, George W. Bush will have to clean up his own mess, because -- given his new sense of a "mandate" -- I harbor serious doubts about his ability to clean up the existing mess  without creating an even bigger mess first.

So I figured I'd wait a few days for some of the post-election dust to settle, to see what informed perspective I could arrive at rather than simply jumping to the conclusion in that phony Time magazine cover that said "We're Fucked."

Speaking of magazine covers, I do think the essence of this past week was pretty well captured in that not-so-phony cover of the London Daily Mirror that asked the question, "How can 59,087,045 people be so DUMB?"

But the Mirror doesn't ask the really important question, which is:  Who's dumber? The 59-some-million people who voted for Bush, or the 58-some-million who could not persuade another 2-some-million not to?

Oh, well.  I guess I was right about one thing:  calling everybody "stupid" was not the best way to win friends and influence swing voters.

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Wuz we robbed? Did we back the wrong horse?  Did we misjudge our opponent?  Or was the whole election hacked before a single vote was cast?