By the rivers of Babylon . . .

By the rivers of Babylon,
as we sat down,
and there we wept
as we remembered Zion.
- traditional folk song

As I read up on current events, researching the politics and the events that seem to be slamming us almost daily, from the misery of the people left homeless and without social services, health care, electricity, and food as we rage through Iraq, to the unspeakable misery, both physical and mental, of the millions affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami, to the mess in the fight over the leadership of the Democratic Party, war, the systematic shredding of our civil rights by the so-called Patriot Acts (that name alone makes me want to smash things!), I feel a very nearly unresistable urge to just break down and hide under a table.

Mother Nature's outrages: the tsunami, torrential rains here in southern Callifornia that just won't quit . . . seem to be a reflection of the terrible things that are being done to my country.

Alberto Gonzales will be confirmed as Attorney General, the torture will go on, people will dissapear just like in the banana republics. The Shrub will lead us back into the Dark Ages, and I feel sick and trembling unto death.

A public thrashing

Over on the Smirking Chimp pages, Joe Bageant lets loose with a diatribe on American stupity, malice and distain for the rest of the world and it's troubles.

"The people' however, do not deny reality---they create it from the belly of their perverse ignorance, even as the left speaks in non sequitur and wonders why the hell they cannot get any political traction."

Reading it almost made me feel better.