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I Can't Go On; I'll Go On.

Regular blogging has sort of resumed, but I'm finding the backlog is hampering my unfettered hog-wallering. I'm off to a meeting in Salem in a few minutes, so it will continue until at least tomorrow. But then, the two dozen of you who read this blog are pretty cool about my idiosyncracies, anyway.

I leave you with a bit of Dionne in lieu of actual content:

Some of the most powerful words on the budget cuts came from one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Rep. Gene Taylor, whose district was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, couldn't believe that cuts in programs for the poor were being justified as necessary to cover the costs of relief for hurricane victims. Taylor's syntax only underscored the emotion he brought to the floor: "Mr. Speaker, in south Mississippi tonight, the people . . . who are living in two- and three-man igloo tents waiting for Congress to do something, have absolutely got to think this place has lost their minds. The same Congress that voted to give the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans tax breaks every time . . . suddenly after taking care of those who had the most, we have got to hurt the least. . . . Folks, this is insane. . . . This is the cruelest lie of all, that the only way you can help the people who have lost everything is by hurting somebody else."

I recall that, following the 2000 Supreme Court coup, a co-worker of mine said rather darkly that Bush's election meant that "a lot of people were going to die." Some died quickly in foreign lands, and now others may die more slowly, of disease and poverty. I believe it's what the GOP call compassionate conservatism.