[Semana de los Muertos]

Week of the Dead.

Yesterday, Bush committed his annual blasphemy, mourning the dead for which he was responsible:

In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.

On the short list of things Bush knows, the cost of war is plainly absent. The meaning of death, too, seems elusive to the "party of life." While pleased to take self-righteous stands on abortion (see Ponnuru, Ramesh, "The Party of Death"), on issues like stem cells, where a "life" (the stem cell) is traded for cures to real diseases by real humans, thinking is less clear. Add war, costs of destroying the environment, and defunding life-giving medical and social programs, and it seems the GOP understands very little about death.

So rather than run a flag up the pole and exploit the dead to hide killing, as seems to be the ritual of Memorial Day, I'll spend this week visiting death, its meaning, and its causes. I sort of aspire to take it past politics and into religion, anthopology, and philosophy, but we'll see.

Along with, as always, the usual blogging.

(Incidentally, I appropriated the Mexican day of the dead--Dia de los Muertos--replacing Babelfished dia with semana. To actual Spanish speakers I request clarification--grammar, vocabulary, and syntax look good? Gracias.)