Wow.

I'm kinda at a loss for words. Just when I thought the worst was behind us, that the horrible, shameful situation in New Orelans was starting to improve and that America just might find its mooring again, I woke up today as most did to learn that Rehnquist had died. That may sound like apples and oranges, and really it is, but it just seems unbelievable to me that all of the different nightmare scenarios are coming true at once....

...what seems to be the unwinnable war against the insurgency in Iraq, where we've created a world in which one whole constituency rejects the draft Constitution and where panic is running so high that a thousand people die in a stampede because they thought there was a suicide bomber...

...the total failure of civil infrastructure in New Orleans, which is a terrible tragedy largely because it seems so preventable - people have been predicting the large-scale flooding and destruction of New Orleans for years but politicians have systematically cut funding for civil engineering projects to upgrade the city's abillity to keep the water out. Our nation's real shame is that tens of thousands of our own citizens were left behind - with no food, no water, no sanitation, and no real plan to get them to safety. Were it not for the generosity of Houston, San Antonio, and other communities that are accepting these evacuees with open arms, would they still be stuck in New Orleans now? I can't imagine how people like Bush, Chertoff, Brown, Rumsfeld, and others can even show their faces right now. Our country should be not only embarrassed, but horrified, that we leave our own citizens so unprotected, so uncraed for - and this is in a natural disaster. What are we to expect if there really ever is a terrorist attack? I think we've learned that we have to ensure our own survival, because this government can not be relied on...

...And now, what seems almost like an afterthought, our nightmare of TWO vacancies on the Supreme Court has come true. Bush's failures will not only affect us now, and for the next three years, but for at least another generation. It terrifies me that this man and his administration have this opportunity to reshape the highest Court, that their far-right ideology will now be instituted in the highest levels of American government for another 30 years. Can anyone really imagine a Chief Justice Scalia? or Gonzales? Or Starr?....

Wow. If I were to watch a movie or read a book that had all of these parallel plot lines, I would probably think it was too outlandish and unbelievable. But it's real. It boggles the mind.