Ashes and dust

. . . make my heart as a milstone,
Set my face as a flint.
Cheat and be cheated and die:
Who knows? We are ashes and dust.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson-

Who knows why people do what they do? The name Brianna, apparently of Celtic origin and a variation of Brian, suddenly made a quantum leap from extreme rarity to one of the most popular things to name your baby girl in the late 1960’s and has remained at the top, year after year, ever since. Who knows why?

Why would Californians elect Brian Bilbray, whose daughter is named Briana, to replace Duke Cunningham? Why replace the prime example of piratical Republican corruption, a man who spent eight terms stuffing his pockets, with another member of the same crew? I hope that we have not just seen an example of how negative campaigns and rabble rousing can make a cynical mockery out of Democracy; an example that predicts the outcome of the November elections.

Are we really so stupid? I fear we are and I fear that we will go the way of all previous republics from Rome to Weimar. If we continue to support the corrupt and powerful party of Ann Coulter, Jerry Falwell and Richard Bruce Cheney; the party that has taken us from wealth and prestige to debt, despair and a war designed to last forever, then I no longer want any part of it. Like Crankyboy at the Daily Curmudgeon; if the Republicans retain control of congress in November, I’ll weigh anchor rather than waste words.

Let them all dance around the bonfire of the liberties.