Good Math, Bad Math on the shameful spectacle of Saddam Hussein's trial and execution:

[Good Math, Bad Math/Law vs Thuggery]: We could have shown that we were different from him. But we didn't. In the end, we and the Iraqi government we created acted as a gang of thugs. We allowed Saddam Hussein to die secure in the knowledge that his view of power was correct, and that he was justified in doing all of the evil things that he did in his life. We betrayed everything we claim to stand for, everything we claim to believe, and everything we claimed that this war was meant to bring to the people of Iraq.

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The Coming of 2007

Are you coming? Trudy asked from outside the tent.

The moon had been down just an hour or two. The sun would be rising over the eastern hills soon.

No, I groaned.

Then I came to my senses. Wait! I shouted, hoping she wasn't too far away.

It was cold, so I didn't bother to get out of my pajamas but just pulled my jeans on and a coat over the vest I slept in. I grabbed a pair of mittens from the duffel bag and stumbled into dawn's early light.

The fly of the tent crinkled as I zipped the door shut. It was covered in frost. The grass was white. Trudy was smiling her morning smile. The dog was picking his steps gingerly and wagging his tail in anticipation.

As we left our spot under the great Oak on the hill and gazed out to Muleshoe Bend where the river loops around a wide grassy plain, we noticed that we were alone. No one else had spent the night, except for the guy about a half-mile away who evidently slept in the back of his truck.

On the other side of the road, tall grasses grew in orange-brown clumps standing above our shoulders, and short frost-covered grass crunched underfoot. And there were new Bluebonnets hugging the ground. The white lacework of frost etched on the edges of the dark green petals made us want to pick our steps carefully. In the distance, a buck watched our approach and then ran off.

When we got to the river, the western hilltops were just glowing with the first rays of light from the east. It was bitterly cold where we stood in those last shadows, and I picked up our shivering dog and bundled him into my coat. Within minutes, the eastern sky began to burn golden-orange, and the advancing edge of day crept down the hillside behind us in the west.

Trudy grabbed my hand, and we stood there, frost-covered grass about us, Bluebonnets at our feet, and we waited for the sun to peer over the eastern hills and make (if only for a moment) the cold go away. Which it did.

Happy New Year, she said to me.

Happy New Year, I said to her.

And we kissed, with a shivering dog between us.

So began 2007.

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Muleshoe Bend Recreation Area
Texas

9:57:51 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []