My and Melissa's run around Berkeley Lake this morning was wonderful; the reflection of the orange sunrise reflected upon the eastern edge of the lake as fire and gold; a wealth, an effusion of the warmth of living, of running, of being alive with my Sweet Melissa at my side.
Sweet Melissa did, by the way, have her eleventh birthday on September 9th.
Then, upon returning home, I fired up the computer and checked out the news, the blogs, the email.
Did you know:
1) As of yesterday there were 1048 American fatalities in Iraq, with 7,413+ wounded;
2) Republican Senator Chuck Hagel told a CBS interviewer that, "We're in trouble, we're in deep trouble in Iraq;"
3) Republic Senator Richard Lugar, Foreign Relations Chairman, was asked by ABC why only $1Billion appropriated last year for Iraqi reconstruction has been spent. His reply: "Well, this is the incompetence in the administration;"
4) Retired General William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, said, "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends. I've never seen it so bad between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interest have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaeda. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic;"
5) Retried General Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command said, "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong;"
6) James Webb, former secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan and decorated Marine Veteran said, "Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall."
There's more. There's so much more.
In, I believe, thirty-five days we'll pull the lever, or punch the card (producing the chad) or touch the electronic screen to determine who will be our next president and, AND to determine the course of our country for, at least, the next four years. And, I'm taking Michael Moore's advice and saying, Fuck the Anybody But Bush polemic. Bush must go. And, at this point, the only way Dumbya is going to go is if John Kerry is elected President of these United States.
Tomorrow morning, as Sweet Melissa and I circumnavigate the lake at Berkeley, I will watch the reflection of the heavens off the surface of the water where the wonderful birds of summer -- the egrets, the gulls, and the others, the unnamed others, the beautiful others who have called that beautiful space home for this fleeting summer; I will watch the surface of the lake and pray for some whisper, some little wisp of truth from the fathoms of the water; from the fathoms of the natural things that encircle, surround, infest Sweet Melissa and me for, at least, as long as it takes to run the circumference of the lake. I will pray that some sense of what Dumbya has done to us; some recognition that our country has stepped off-course and has slipped into a debilitating, testosterone-infested tragic morass from which we may never recover; yes, I will pray that Americans understand this tragedy. And, in that prayer, I will ask that the natural order of things; the ultimate balance of nature will, somehow bring an end to the destruction Dumbya has inflicted upon our land, our country, the world.
Oh, people, don't you see? Don't you understand?
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