A year ago today

Today makes one year since John passed away. There have been so many times this past year that I've told him how glad I was that he hadn't been forced to see what is becoming of our country. The on-line antics of the representative from New York, who doesn't need his name in print any more than it already is, are just the last in a long line of things that I'm glad John is well out of.

From a purely personal perspective I would certainly prefer he was here to protect us and be the responsible party, and I know that was what he had wanted to happen as well. The world is a lot scarier place without him.

Am Isriel Chai!

Happy Independance Day to Israel. May peace reign over Jerusalem.

Administration say whaaat!?

Sorry, my kids have been watching Hannah Montana and I'm afraid it's rubbing off on me no matter how hard I try to prevent that.

Anyway, it's a legitimate question given that it seems like it's a rare twelve hour interval that passes without some major revision of what started out as wonderful news a week ago. In one way though this week has served to confirm my general world view. What is still certain after all the re-writes is that the SEALs are a remarkable and extremely competent group of men, and this administration is made up of a remarkably incompetent group who can. not. stop. talking. even when it serves only to reveal their own incompetence.

So much

I haven't posted in a long time mostly because there's so much happening, both domestically and internationally, that it's pretty overwhelming. I find myself filled with sorrow for those who just want to live their lives as best they can but are being bombarded, some literally and some legislatively, by those to whom it is simply not possible to give enough.

But is that Crazy?

The radio news this morning was reporting that in the days before his attack the Tuscon child-killer researched, on his computer I presume, the laws regarding capital punishment. If this is accurate, then using the traditional method of determining insanity, which I don't know if the courts still do, he is clearly not insane as the only reason to look up the laws would be that he knew full well that what he was doing was against the law. The only sticky point might be that there's a difference between knowing that an action is against the law and knowing that it is wrong. A disturbing trend I've noticed, that I think is a sign of the general narcissism of the culture, is the number of people who agree that an action would be wrong if done by another but feel that in their own, special case the same action is perfectly justified. What I'm trying to get at is that a disturbing, though I don't know how large, portion of the population doesn't have a sense that their behavior is wrong and may well then qualify as insane under the traditional rule and, while I don't know where the line should be drawn, I also don't believe that the protection of an insanity plea should be granted to such people.

Since He-who-doesn't-need-to-see-his-name-in-print-anymore-than-it-already-is didn't enter an insanity plea the whole thing may be moot. Then again, entering a plea of not guilty when a couple dozen people saw you gun down a bunch of innocent bystanders doesn't sound real sane either. Or rather, it sounds like "playing the game" and, no matter how disturbing his expression may be, I believe that truly insane people can't play the game since they don't know there is a game to play.

I am a terrible citizen

I must be since I have no plan at all to watch the State of the Union address. The last one was so bad, not that I watched it either, that I plan on watching a movie with my kids, sending them to bed, and then watching more episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while working on my mom's very late Christmas present. I may keep up with what's happening by reading Ann Althouse's liveblog, but that's as close as I plan on getting.

Drat

I missed the fact that the past weekend was the National Right-to-Life observance. I had really wanted to see about participating in any local events, particularly with the news that has come out of Philadelphia this week, but lost track of time, and days.