BUSH—A PIMPLE ON CHURCHILL'S ASS

The following excerpt is from Salon | by Sidney Blumenthal | March 8, 2007 at 11:32 AM:

[SNIP]
President Bush held one of his private book club sessions that Karl Rove organizes for him at the White House. Rove picks the book, invites the author and a few neoconservative intellectual luminaries, and conducts the discussions. For this Bush book club meeting, the guest was Andrew Roberts, an English conservative historian and columnist and the author of "The Churchillians" and, most recently, "A History of the English-Speaking People Since 1900."

The subject of Winston Churchill inspired Bush's self-reflection. The president confided to Roberts that he believes he has an advantage over Churchill, a reliable source with access to the conversation told me. He has faith in God, Bush explained, but Churchill, an agnostic, did not. Because he believes in God, it is easier for him to make decisions and stick to them than it was for Churchill. Bush said he doesn't worry, or feel alone, or care if he is unpopular. He has God.
[PASTE]

The only advantage that Bush seems to have over Churchill is in Bush’s endless arrogance, lack of concern for the suffering of the troops over whom he holds sway like a petty god, and no humbling and humanizing awareness of what an ugly pompous ignoramus he truly is, whereas Churchill was a truly humble man with all the normal doubts that any idiot knows he ought to have—specially if that human were a Christian, but, then, Bush isn’t a Christian—he’s an Old Testament fundamentalist tyrant. No, he's not even that. To compare him to an Old Testament tyrant is like comparing an ant turd to the defunct planet of Pluto. Imagine—this man admits that he doesn't care at all what his emplyees, us, think of his performance. Bush maintains, by definition, a tyrant's attitude toward his subjects.

YESTERDAY WAS A FINE DAY

Yesterday morning I went out early in the morning and drove down to the Columbia River waterfront of my new hometown of Vancouver. It was a fine morning, and for a few minutes, at least, I forgot all the sadness I’m still dealing with since leaving all my friends in Spokane. This will be a good place to go to for a short trip to peace. Now, if I can only find an espresso joint on the water where I can do algebra problems after class. Here’s a few pictures of the walk.

That's the I5 bridge in the background.

This is looking up from a very small beach area back to the main walking path.

This is looking East, toward the rising sun along the wide, concrete walking path.
Ahead would be a lot of very expensive condominiums. To the right is the Columbia River.

I'M DYIN' OVER HERE! HULP. I MEAN, HELP!!!!

This move is so stressful for an old man like myself, let me tell you. We had to put Chi Chi, our chihuahua down. Fifteen years old, he was, and he was totally disoriented by the move, besides being mostly blind and very deaf. In Spokane he knew his way around his backyard life. The turf was familiar. He knew all the smells of his life very well. Here, he was crapping all over the floor. This is a tough thing to do, to stand in a cramped room with a tranqulized small dog while they stick a needle in his leg and then he's gone—poof—with open black eyes gone lifeless. I told Mertie I was going to pull down my pants and crap all over the floor too. Poor wife—she's got a new job to orient to, plus losing her dog (which was her dog, not mine very much) plus a 69 year old house-husband falling apart in her bed. I mean to tell you that this move is harder than I remember any move of my younger life being. I don't much feel like keeping up this blog either so my entries may be sporadic temporarily, though, I must admit that doing this one familiar thing in a wide world of new things does help a bit. I can feel it helping as I make the effort to type. I think of all my friends on the other coast of Washington reading it and hearing my cries for help. Help! But what can anyone do to help an old man adjust to a signifcant change in his later years? One day at a time I hope it'll get easier. Today was significantly tougher even though I quit unpacking the final boxes and sorting and arranging and went out into the world to look around. All I saw were a lot of expensive houses beyond our affording. The world seems divided between rich and poor and nothing in between. I can't imagine affording a house over here. Anyhow, here' a couple'a pitchures.

This is a party that my friend Ruth threw on the night before I left.
She's the crouching tiger.
It was also her birthday, so it was a birthbondayvoyage party.
The grinning girl and the girl with back to camera are Ruth's daughters.
The young man is the redhead's boyfriend.
They met in Montana where they both attend college.

Mt. Hood in the distance as I drove to Vancouver
on the Washington side of the Columbia.

The Columbia River from one of the parks along the river West of Vancouver.
That's an ocean going tanker, believe it or not,
in a not very wide nor seemingly very deep part of the river
just outside of the Port of Vancouver.