You can’t ignore countries you don’t like, especially when they probably have nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them. These people don’t understand that the rest of the world is not subject to US whims.

The Chinese are probably having a heart attack over this, because they have to believe there will be a very nasty reaction if North Korea tests a long range missile. The Japanese can’t ignore it and the current prime minister literally worships at the shrine of the World War II militarists.

I suppose the only worse place to be in that era was Germany. A formerly German colleague of mine, a professional musician, tells the story of his mother teaching him as a child to steal food from the market when necessary, and of her trading a cake she baked to a neighbor to obtain his first musical instrument (a recorder). They managed to get out in time before W.W. II, and came to the U.S.: he took U.S. citizenship, joined the Army and became a radar technician. Many years later, I worked with him as a performer and an associate professor of music at the same university at which I taught as a lecturer on the adjunct faculty. I suspect he was grateful for every MRE (or its W.W. II equivalent) that he ever ate.

What is it with the Bushies ignoring intelligence about genuinely dangerous threats from abroad? We’ve lost parts of NYC and the Pentagon because they plugged their ears (why? to be as different from Clinton as possible, to ignore every bit of intelligence left to them from the previous administration?); are we also going to lose a couple of West Coast cities to similar “la-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you” behavior by the neocons?

My Mother grew up in the Depression, so she has always had more food than was necessary, and even after the recent letter carriers food drive, her stock doesn’t get low. I think the fact that she tasted an MRE at an open house convinced her that she never wanted to be forced to eat them.

Now the North Koreans are going to test a missile that might be capable of reaching the West Coast because no one will take them seriously.

Less than three years and counting.

Actually I felt quite self-congratulatory when I heard the report about the lack of preparations on the part of city and state agencies. I knew this would be the case and after Katrina I built up a very solid disaster prep kit and plan. I can even provide assistance to one or two neighbors if the need arose.

As to the rest of it, the state of this country along with this sudden summer weather has made for a very unpleasant disposition on the part of The CultureGhost.

If you have been there and seen it, you don’t want souvenirs, you don’t want to remember.

And still it goes on, damn it…