Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Pescadero Beach, September, 1997
In my mind’s eye, I can see my son as an infant, toddler, eleven-year-old, and everything in between, a smooth continuum. I wonder if it will always be this way. I hope so. I hope, twenty, thirty years from now, that I have the opportunity to think these thoughts.
Last night, Jake asked his mom, “If you had one wish, what would it be?” And good mama that Karen is, she replied, “I would wish you would have the happiest life you can possibly have.”
Sorry. I’m still a bit freaked out over Bush’s saber-rattling tonight vis a vis Iran and Syria; and Chris Matthews just said, “A lot of people are going to go to bed tonight terrified.” My response: Oh, yeah. Terror is a good word for it. We’ve been in Iraq for four years and we’re in the shit deeper than ever. In seven years, Jake will be eighteen. Do any of you doubt that, given enough leash, Bush would want an American military presence in Iraq seven years from now? And when does reality truly set in — when will we see reinstitution of the draft? The man clearly has escalation on his mind, escalation of unconscionable proportions. At some point, he’s going to run out of bodies.
Yes, maybe everything will be hunky-dory in two years when Bush leaves office. But what about the 17- and 18-year-old kids who are in harm’s way now? Also, I don’t doubt Bush’s talent for getting us into a mess so horrific we can’t extricate ourselves in any simple fashion . . . even with a Democrat as president.
Folks keep talking about the Democratic Congress’s wondrous powers of investigation and subpoena. Will investigations prevent Bush from taking pot-shots at Iran and Syria? Will subpoenas bring the troops home?
He’s a danger to our security, to our children, and to the world. Impeachment is the only solution.
D.
*agrees*
*squees over how cute your son is*
i wish i lived closer to you, so i could offer you free babysitting.
Shaina, it’s late on your coast! Go to bed! Sleep is a good thing!
And thanks 😉 but he’s eleven now. He babysits himself.
Tiny Jake is so adorable.
Bush is obsessed with Iraq. I think Daddy Bush spurs him into that arena. I can only hope when he leaves office, we leave Iraq.
Sadly for the Democrat who is elected after Bush leaves, there is no easy exit from Iraq, and you shouldn’t kid yourselves about that. Whoever he or she is, he will have to choose a plan that will minimize the enormous damage that has been done, and that will be done, to the American image worldwide.
This is a bigger clusterfuck than Vietnam. At least in VA there was a semblance of legality to the whole affair, and the country was embroiled in a civil war before American involvement.
In the case of Iraq, the whole thing is such a transparent tissue of bullshit that by 2008 the only people who will maintain Bush’s claims will be the hardest of his core support, that 20% (or is it 25%?) of the country who would literally die before they would vote Democrat.
However, I don’t believe that Bush could possibly mount any action against Syria or Iran. The Iraq debacle has guaranteed that. Probably the worst he can do is to bomb, or participate in bombing, Iran, although that will be bad enough.
That’s the problem. Despite our shortage of ground troops, I believe we still have huge stockpiles of bombs as well as the means to drop ’em. And we can easily expand what is already a regional clusterfuck into an even larger regional clusterfuck.
By the way, when did ‘clusterfuck’ get such a negative connotation? It sounds like it ought to be a good thing.
pshh. i didnt go to bed until 2. when you have nothing to do the next day, sleeping to noon is possible, and going to bed at two is normal.
so there.
and i would come play with him anyway. even if he doesnt need babysitting.
My god, you two made a beautiful child.
This has nothing to do with your post, Doug, but I ran across this very GOOD science the other day, and since it’s about spiders, I figured either you or Karen would be interested.
Thanks, Maureen. And OH MY LORD that link is hilarious. Freaking why-didn’t-I-think-of-that hilarious.
This is why a choose to live in a fanatasyland inside my head. Ooh, pretty velvet rooms full of chocolate fondue fountains and KITTENS OMG PONIES!!!1!
I don’t think impeachment of Bush is the answer. I think impeachment of him, everyone who voted for the the war, and the entire cabinet is the answer. And then Dennis Kucinich should be president and oil companies and megachurches should be severly taxed and… oh, hell, just BURN DOWN WASHINGTON! BURN IT ALLL!!!
Oy, my blood pressure.
the only good news is that the headlines tend to be about how everyone thinks Bush sucks the big one, even over at Freeperland.
Even the GOOPers are jumping ship. Yahooo! But will he ignore all but the voices in his head?
Have you communicated your opinions to you Congressmen? The more letters they get about Impeachment, the more likely they are to talk about it.