Ahhh... Maureen...

Yesterday, on Neil's birthday, Maureen Dowd out did herself again with a brilliant column on Bushworld. The administration's alternate universe was laid bare in her column and again, I am so jealous! I could have written that! (If I were completely steeped in politics)

Here's a snippet in which she touches on the soldier remains issue I was steaming over last week:


April 25, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Orwellian Olsens
By MAUREEN DOWD

It's their reality. We just live and die in it.

In Bushworld, our troops go to war and get killed, but you never see the bodies coming home.

In Bushworld, flag-draped remains of the fallen are important to revere and show the nation, but only in political ads hawking the president's leadership against terror.

In Bushworld, we can create an exciting Iraqi democracy as long as it doesn't control its own military, pass any laws or have any power.

In Bushworld, we can win over Falluja by bulldozing it.

More...

If only Maureen's columns were required reading for every American.

Neighborhood

More tales from the neighborhood.

On our walk yesterday, Barbie, Wiley and I met some kids in the park. I walk the dogs through the park every day so they can run on the grass and this was the first time we saw anyone there. At first I was concerned. The kids had a couple skateboards and a random collection of garden tools. "Vandals!" I thought as we approached. Two of the four kids were closer to the path we were walking on and they asked if they could pet my dogs. I made introductions and the kids started telling me about their dogs, current and deceased. They must have been about 10 or 11 years old and after talking to them for a few minutes, I realized that they were not the hoodlums I suspected them to be. Their two friends were working on something across the field and I asked them what they were doing in the park.

"We're building a baseball field," one of the boys said.

"Oh, cool," I said as I began to notice carefully placed mounds of sand in the grass that must have been the bases.

"Yeah, we built one before, but someone took it down," the other boy said. "It might have been the guy who mows the grass. We also built some skate ramps over there, but they took those down too."

I admired their sitck-to-it-ivness and told them I wished them luck on the baseball diamond.

Shortly thereafter, I continued my walk, passing out of the park and noticing the tallest boy using sidewalk chalk to construct a scoreboard on the rock wall bordering the park. As we passed them, I couldn't help but to giggle because it was impossibly cute that they were building a baseball field and because I could just imagine the conversation at the next neighborhood association meeting:

Secretary: "Agenda Item number one: Park vandals. Someone has been vandalizing the community park. Piles of sand were on the grass and the wall has been marked up with chalk."

President: "Clearly this is a serious issue and we need to get to the bottom of this. We need to find out who wants to harm our neighborhood and why..."

And so on...

Being pro-kid and very anti-neighborhood association, I did my part and encouraged them to build the field. That's what kids do and really, it's a pretty boring park. Two slabs of grass and a dirt path...A baseball diamond with sand for bases would be a big improvement. I hope it's all still there when I walk through this evening.