I grew up in Illinois, and went to a football game at Memorial Stadium when I was 12 years old. The halftime show was one of the most dramatic and inspiring things I had ever seen. I took it as a real dance, and the "chief" as someone doing something that amounted to channeling the spirit of the Illini tribe.

Later, the Catholic high school I went to had the nickname "Fighting Irish." This was in a town that was settled by French Canadians. We all identified with the "Fighting Irish" spirit, and even had our own version of Notre Dame's fight song, and a logo that was an exact copy of the Notre Dame leprechaun.

My ancestry is mostly indigenous Irish, othewise known as Irish Catholic. No longer "Catholic," I also no longer identify with being Irish. And certainly not fighting Irish.

A few years ago I had a conversation with a well-off cousin, an M.D. who graduated from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I told her about a camping trip out west that I had taken, and the time I spent on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, doing sweat lodges with a supposed "medicine man" and some tribe members. I mentioned how the people on the reservation were dirt poor, living in the most meager of circumstances. She told me in the most abrupt and arrogant manner that it was their own fault for the condition they were in.

I was stunned, but told her that the white ranchers had control of all of their land. This made no difference. They were lazy good-for-nothings, and that was it.

So much for honoring the Indian tradition. My cousin lives in the north shore suburbs of Chicago, about as ruling class as it gets in America. It is also about as mono-culture as it gets in America. It's kind of an incestuous area, closed in on itself, mutually reinforcing. I'm sure they are not happy there about the demise of Chief Illiniwek.

Just for a little more perspective, I now live in Madison, Wisconsin, where the teams that people are in a frenzy about are known as "The Badgers" and "The Packers." Somehow the University of Wisconsin manages to win without having a "Chief Badger" dance. There's no "Chief Packer" dance either. They don't even have an inspirational video of people packing. They still manage to win enough to keep the fans at a high level of fanaticism. Maybe the University of Illinois should change its name to "The Woodchucks." They could have a "Chief Woodchuck," who could dance and leap to the chants of "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?"

In one of the strangest twists of fate of this ill-fated "war," the prospect of the sone of Princess Di going to Iraq may have the effect of hastening the British departure. Nothing works on the consciousness of the British public like the royal family. Even the possibility of one of them being in harm's way in a "war" zone is likely to arouse public outcry for redeployment.

Of course, here, the opposite would be true. If any members of our pseudo or faux royal family, the house of Bush, should volunteer for duty in "Iraq," they would not be missed. We'll never know, though, because no memeber of this family would actually serve the country.

Now that Tony Blair is due to become a private citizen, the real question is where he will face the first criminal charges. The Hague would be the proper place, but Nuremberg would be my choice. If there is any justice in the world, he will be joined by the members of the Bush crime family. For a visualization aid, copy and paste this URL: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7882/640/1600/WarCriminals850.jpg