2004-11-11 - 10:21 p.m.

how I'm really NOT a midwesterner.

Arafat has died, something that marks an end of an era. I hope more than I expect that he will be replaced by leaders more rational than he.

In the USA, John Ashcroft has stepped down as Attorney General, and it looks that he will be replaced by Gonzales, a man about which I know extremely little except that he refered to the Geneva Convention as "quaint," with reference to the anti-torture clauses. I am not so hopeful. Although perhaps he will remove the curtains from the nude statues that so offended (aroused?) Ashcroft. shudder.

My brother works in the steel industry and sends out information to a group of his colleagues. As a member of academia I am surrounded by like-minded individuals. My brother, however, is in the corporate world, in a sea of Bush-voters who actually LIKE that cartoon that is circulating about the USA becoming "Jesusland." My brother sent out a comment about democracy to a group of his friends, and received the broadcast reply "Just get over it, we won!"

How typical that in response to a thoughtful criticism one receives hostile unthinking macho aggressive nonsense. It really isn't just Bush. There is a whole population of people out there who try to think using the wrong organs. (thank god I escaped.)