Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

Rush hour distraction, Phoenix AZ, Oct 2005. For some reason it made me think a bit about the country we live in now. Maybe you've seen these numbers, either still or in motion: World War I Woodrow Wilson, DEMOCRAT U.S. deaths-115,000 World War II Franklin Roosevelt, DEMOCRAT U.S. deaths-400,000. Korean War Harry Truman, DEMOCRAT U.S. deaths-36,000 Vietnam War John Kennedy, DEMOCRAT U.S. deaths-58,000. The War in Iraq George Bush, REPUBLICAN U.S. deaths-4,000. This recently surfaced in response to a Joe Conason column in the New York Observer. Of course I answered it. And in honor of the 15 people who'll read this in the next few weeks, here it is, in an expanded exposition. I love it when crap like this bobs up! Lets review the facts, as it is still a "reality-based" world. Let's take down two of these howling wing-nut talking points for starters... World War I : US entry speeded by German torpedos at US shipping, culminating in the sinking of the Lusitania. I...

I took this photo at the 2002 Doo-Dah Parade in Pasadena, CA. The more I've looked at it the more it reveals. The rollerskating amputee, the seemingly complacent "US Marshal", Vampira in her teddy, and the ever-present media. The underlying ironies and drama of the ensemble have only grown in retrospect.

Saddam is in the bag. The insurrection continues with no let up. The Bush Administration is deluded in this process. Iraqis hated Saddam. And now that he’s gone, they hate the Americans more. This is not what Bush & Co had in mind, and it certainly riles Paul Bremer, the erstwhile caretaker. All this was not “supposed to happen” Why? Leadership is undergoing rapid evolutionary change. For the first time in thirty years Iraqis have decentralized decision-making opportunities. Sunni, Shia, nationalist, Baathist—everybody is on the move. People are making direct decisions without oversight, or approval from a distant centralized source. Motive and weaponry intersect neatly in a wide-open gun-culture that would make the NRA proud. Some will be caught and killed, no doubt for their own good, if the Coalition is to be believed. Along the way they are sharpening their game. The knowledge-base will increase. Coalition appointees like Chalabi have been sidelined, and they are uneasy. They ...