The Smell of Hope in the Morning

It really is a new day in America, and I just can't believe we pulled it off.  WE!  I feel the pull of history and am swirling in the enthusiasm of an uplifted people.  But mostly I feel a weight on my heart--to do something better, be something better, bring something better to every interaction I have.  Surely that's part of the change we wrought.  Amen, and amen and amen.

Goodbye Moral Code, Goodbye Manners

It's official: we don't have any standards of right or wrong in this country. Honesty or lies. Moral or amoral. Good or bad. Decent or reprehensible. These and other nominal forms of character, of organizing tenets, of guiding principles--they all get thrown out the window when losing an election may be the cost of guarding and upholding and exhibiting right, honest, good and decent behaviour. It's sickening, really, and yet people are lying down with the dogs right now, smearing shit on the opponents in the most degrading fashion. Is this meant to make us feel good? To somehow convince us that the presidential candidate with the most blood (or shit) on his hands at the end of the day is the guy who can right the economic ship? The meanest dude, the one with the most poisonous arrows in his quiver, is he the one we can count on to end the disastrous war and restore our place among nations? Really? Because as far as I'm concerned, the guy who throws the most shit at the end of this race will just end up smelling like it too. I'm not looking forward to holding my nose for the next four years.

Need a Little Refresher Course?

I was just listening to an NPR story about the Interior Department and the recently revealed scandal in its Minerals Management Service. You know, our own government employees who are managing the rights and income derived from minerals and mining on US property. (Read http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10491395 for the latest.) Turns out there's a contagious bad-behavior bug running rampant through the place, causing our employees to have sex, snort cocaine and party with the oil and minerals company people they're supposed to be managing. Well, that's some kind of management, is all I can safely say here. NPR reported that the Interior Department will shortly issue a reminder memo on ethics to the oil companies and others who rip precious resources from our land and pay the government for the pleasure. Here's an idea: how about we take the rights to these resources away from the fine men and women who have had sex, snorted cocaine or partied with the Interior Department team of crack minerals overseers? Hmmm....wouldn't eliminating access to the rights to drill and strip-mine and otherwise remove the valuable booty from our land be slightly more effective than issue a memo reminding them of ethics? Or maybe it's just a time saver: the Interior Department can use the Duke Cunningham memo on ethics, the Ted Stevens memo on corruption, the Sarah Palin memo on firing former brothers-in-law without cause. Yeah. Save time, save paper, send an old memo today. I'm pretty sure everyone involved will put down their cocktails, unroll their dollar bills and read up on ethics right away.