Indian Summer

It is time to start thinking about the holidays, although it is hard with the leaves still on the trees and the temperatures unseasonably warm. It is an amazing Indian Summer, the Fall stretching out by more than a month from what it is supposed to.

Everyone commented on it at the Admiral’s house, where we met to clean up the files of our fraternal organization and plan for the future. We enjoyed beer and pizza on the porch when we had completed the task, and talked about the future.

Planning assumptions are everything. We are all Cold War veterans, with the exception of Mac, who was there to fight the Japanese. We all shared the beginning of the new global war, but none of us will see the end of it.

We tended to agree that it was Global Warming that made the day so extraordinary, and it was hard to concentrate with the air warm and inviting. It is hard to believe that Turkey Day is only three weeks away. The weather will break at some point, and then things will accelerate in a blur until we are sitting around in January, bitter cold wind blowing through the chinks in the single-pane windows of Big Pink, wondering how far away Spring might be.

In the meantime, there are a couple things we need to wrap up before the holidays grab us, and the shopping and the Christmas cards- make that “ Holiday ” cards, don’t want to offend anyone- distracts us from important affairs. There is an election tomorrow, and I still don’t know who to vote against. According to the ads, the Democrats want to pardon Hitler, and the Republicans all graduated from Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Academy .

It must be true, since the candidates appear on each of the spots, telling us that they personally approved the content. It is a pity I can’t register my protest on a Congressional candidate, since that august body won’t be up for election until next year. The House and Senate needs to get the last of the FY-06 spending bills out of the way before Indian Summer is gone for good.

It is dry business, considering the impact that these massive pieces of legislation have, so a catchy name is useful. It helps the Members remember what they are voting for. The “No Child Left Behind Act” is a recent example, though I hear some kids are still missing in action.

With the impact of the hurricanes and the war, there are huge numbers sloshing around in the omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. I am not privy to the specific provisions, but people are saying that social programs must be slashed to pay for other social programs in a zero-sum game. It seems appropriate that it should have a name, too.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J, has suggested that we call it the “Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act.”

I don’t know. There is so much to worry about. If the social programs that dampened the inner-city discontent of decades ago are gutted, will  it not inevitably lead to a culture of alienation and hostility?

Or is it the other way around?

I opened up the Times this morning to read that the rioting was continuing in France , the eleventh consecutive day, and bigger than ever. Over 3,300 cars have been torched now, and the Renault-and-Citroen pyrotechnics start each night just after dusk. The acts of arson are spreading out of the ghetto neighborhoods, even to the old Jewish Quarter of Paris .

The new development is that rioters are firing shotguns at the police. They wounded ten officers on Sunday. I think the French rules for firearms are more lax than they are in the UK , though not nearly so liberal as they are here.

I shudder to think what might happen if some kids armed with shotguns advanced on Loudoun County . I imagine the locals would start bringing heavy artillery out of their garages.

Shotguns are designed for sporting applications, putting out a relatively broad pattern of shot for a short distance. Or for close-in action. The ones the police carry here are still fitted with bayonet lugs, so that they become short spears, if you could imagine such a thing. They are much better suited for defensive purposes than an insurrection.

But I suppose you go with what you have. I’ll be interested to see how the French deal with it. There is a strain of Fascism in France that is maintained just under the surface, parallel to the Socialism that brought about this mess.

President Chiraq made his first public comment on the disturbance yesterday. He called for order, and  reconciliation and reason.

I think President Bush had been in New Orleans three times by that point in the hurricane crisis. And if it was my Citroen that was smoldering on the street I might opt for stronger measures.

If there were elections tomorrow in France , as they are here, it would be interesting to see what the citizens of the Republic think.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra

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