Andrew Campbell's neighbourhood between Little Wittenham and North Moreton, UK.
All lousy political news this week, so I'm only including the most important items, and starting with a funny editorial:
Buy My Ballot Please: An intentionally hilarious rant by Dirk Olin in the NYT about the fact that corporatists get to sell their influence to politicians, but voters can't.
Grist Checks Out How Green the US 2008 Presidential Candidates Are: And finds the Democrats mostly a pale green, and the Republicans mostly grey. Not nearly good enough, any of them.
John Gray Sums Up the Iraq Situation: "The most important - as well as most often neglected - feature of the conflict shaping up around Iraq is that the US no longer has the ability to mould events.
Whatever it does, there will be decades of bloodshed in the region.
Another large blunder - such as bombing Iran, as Dick Cheney seems to
want, or launching military operations against Pakistan, as some in
Washington appear to propose - would make matters even worse."
And the Iraq Humanitarian Crisis Worsens: Ten million Iraqis need emergency aid, and millions are fleeing, hollowing out the country, says Oxfam.
Another US 'Surge', This Time to Canada: No point hanging around there until they bomb Iran.
China, the Endless Catastrophe:
If poisoning the rest of the world, driving up oil demand just as
supplies have peaked, and wreaking the worst environmental disaster in
the history of civilization wasn't bad enough, now comes word that China's glaciers are melting at astonishing rates, threatening decades of droughts, floods, famine and heat waves.
Thoughts for the Week: Two inspiring and lovely thoughts on community, discovered while finishing up (yes, it's finished!) my book:
Years
ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my
mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I
said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it;
while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in
prison, I am not free. -- Eugene Debs
We clasp the hands of those that go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us.
We enter the little circle of each other's arms
And the larger circle of lovers,
Whose hands are joined in a dance,
And the larger circle of all creatures,
Passing in and out of life,
Who move also in a dance,
To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it
Except in fragments
-- Wendell Berry
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
