Wild 'n Wooly
We've been havin' some wild and wooly weather these last coupla weeks. Where we were once several inches below the seasonal rainfall average, we are now an inch above it. And the clouds continue to mass and dump, between winks of a marginally-warming early winter sun in a sea of blue sky. Everything is turning green, except for the trees, most of which lost their autumn leaves to winds that cranked up to 60 miles an hour. The stark fury of nature is awesome, and tends to diminish the public authority of man. Would we sapients took a cue, but apparently not. Viz, this sampler from the evening news wires.
From Los Angeles, "I couldn't for one minute accept a guilty plea from a person I thought was innocent. I could not sleep. I intend to sleep very well tonight. [Sara Jane Olson] pleaded guilty because she is guilty," said Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, refusing to let her change her plea. Fidler has been patient with Olson, who after pleading guilty the first time walked out of the courtroom and told the attendant media that she was really innocent. She was subsequently called back into court to find out if she had been lying when she pleaded guilty. No, your honor, I was guilty, she said. But she took another shot at judicial patience, claiming that she had been coerced into pleading guilty by her attorney, J. Tony Serra, the notorious headline chaser. Serra says he might have been a tad forceful — why does he still have a license? — but the judge wasn't having any of it. Olson continues to give the anti-war movement a bad name.
From official hell, a 20-year-old man from Fairfax, California, a small community north of San Francisco known for its different drumming, is apparently in American military hands, having been captured in Northern Afghanistan where he'd been fighting with the Taliban. John Walker also survived the lethal Mazar-i-Sharif prison revolt and its consequent quelling. Walker converted to Islam when he was sixteen, and after studying in Pakistan for two years, fell in love with the Taliban teaching. His parents are concerned about his fate, as well they should be, considering their son fought with the enemies of the United States, love or no.
From tacit hell, the Israelis are "striking back," which is the way we report their attacks against the Palestinians for a rash of suicide bombings that left two dozen people dead and hundreds wounded. The Israeli military blew up Yassir Arafat's helicopter and several of his HQ buildings, knowing that he wasn't in the area. It was yet another message being sent. Arafat had ordered the arrest of a hundred Hamas and Islamic Jihad people, in what sounded like a specious order to "round up double the usual number of suspects." I guess when the Holocaust is your recent history, you draw a line in the sand and expect to bleed into it, but they will never know peace if they continue to build settlements on Arab lands and to elect psychotics like Ariel Sharon to lead them.
I love the rain, and the wind in moderation, and look forward to more, requesting of the powers-that-be that they give us an hour or so every day of good weather for a constitutional with Buster and a chance to stack more firewood. Oh, and keep the rest of the world at arm's length.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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