Journey of Disharmony

The ceremonial relaying of the Olympic Flame from Olympia to the site of  the games is the brainchild of none other than Joseph Goebbels. That's right folks, the whole torch thing was a Nazi good idea. I only mention this because of  this controversy surrounding the current Journey of Harmony, which has met some resistance by the rest of the world in light of China's treatment of Tibet.

Some people worry that the violence that has confronted the latest edition of the flaming tour will crush a sacred tradition. Most people don't know that the whole torch thing originated with the 1936 Berlin Games--you know, the one's that was closed to Jews. The United States considered boycotting  the games, but then Germany put a couple of Jewish names on its athletic roster, not that they were allowed to compete. In the United States, Jewish organizations staged rallies against the German Olympics and two Jewish-American competitors abstained from competing.

That's the trouble with boycotts, the reason for the boycott never changes, but athletes pay the price by not competing.  The Olympics will survive this, and so will the torch relay. But before we become teary-eyed about  the whole process, it's good to remember how it started. By the way, the  Berlin Olympics were also the first games to be televised live, albeit only in Berlin and Potsdam. 

Crocodile tears

George W. Bush wept yesterday at White House ceremonies honoring 22-year-old Marine Jason Dunham who died two years ago in Iraq. I'm not sure I'd call that single tear that dribbled down his mottled left cheek weeping, but Georgie's eyes watered. Could have been emotion. Could have been hay fever.  No word on whether he has wept buckets over the other 3,999 US servicemen who have been killed in Iraq, or the thousands who have been permanently injured, or the hundreds of  thousands of Iraqi's who are living in a war zone. We have been in Iraq for five years, and no one's life is better and no one is safer, and the economy is in the tank, crushed under the weight of an ever escalating, never ending war debt. It's about George Bush shed a tear for something. The invasion was a failure, the occupation is a failure, the surge is a failure, and the government wants to continue. I have no idea where these soldiers are coming from, short of a draft. Bush continues to characterize this debacle as central to the "war on terror," which would be laughable if it were not so tragic. All Bush has managed to do is to turn more people against the United States, make it citizens the focus of Islamic distrust, and make the whole world generally more dangerous for the rest of us. So, why can't we just cut our losses and walk away?

Why bother?

I'm way past  the time when I voted on principle. Ralph Nader wants to be president, and to get there he will be hammering at the Democrats, once again, pushing more people into the arms of the dysfunctional Republican party. And yes, I am talking about independent voters who believe that John McCain is the best alternative to Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama. We have already seen the kind of damage Nader and his single digit has in an election. Nader may not he able to derail the Juggernaut that is Barak Obama, but do you really want to take the chance? Do we really need John McCain as president? 

Obama-rama

I have a problem with Barak Obama, and it has nothing to do with his African father or his Caucasian grandmother. My problem is that since his election to the Senate, Obama has been running for president. He has no senatorial record to attack because he has done little, so, people may begin looking at his record in Illinois, or they will continue to spin their wheels about what his pastor said and what his pastor meant when he said what he said. In the end, the issue of race may trump everything else, you know, the failing economy and the increasingly expensive colonization of Iraq. With his very liberal voting record in Illinois, I, for one, am not convinced that Obama can gain important non-partisan support for issues that will challenge the next administration. I am not moved by Obama's politics of joy. My fear is that Hillary Clinton cannot beat a Republican candidate in the fall and I don't think we can stand four more years with business as usual. Once again, I feel backed into a wall with all the exits blocked. I think we deserve better, but barring a sudden resurrection of Al Gore, I don't know what that could be.