How do we banish grief and despair? We turn to our friends and we spend time doing those things that make us whole - days with your granddaughter watching butterflies? No?

When I am angry I play soccer. Anger flows out in the long, hard runs. It makes me swift and strong and sure of foot and when I shoot the ball flies powerful and true. And after, we leave the field, barefoot in the grass, and the coolness and calm seeps up my tired legs and the heat within me ebbs. No room for anger when I am tired.

There are times when the crush of knowledge becomes too burdensome. And the energy needed for anger is nowhere to be found.

Furrowed brows weigh and sink, carrying hopes and hearts too low to embrace. The quest to understand can be overwhelmed by the tidal pull of despondence.The endless beating waves from beyond comprehension.

Humanity dissolves into inhumanity.

The desire to know, to comprehend, must then yield to a gentler, more protected place.

A healing space.

For me this is my garden. Its heat and humidity a womb for the senses, the emotions. It soothes the protective face I turn to the outward world. It softens my masks. It removes the poisoned burdens of daily life.

In my garden I am Supplicant, Caretaker, Nurturer, Architect and, when I am Soul in Need, it lifts me up and carries me on the scent of 4 o’clocks and lilies and butterfly weed and, somehow, that is enough.

I understand monarch DUIs. It's the butterfly weed! 4 o' clocks can take you to the edge too, but if neocons knew what lilies do well, they'd just outlaw them ('cause sometimes lilies are almost as good as good loving) and that would really be acryin' shame!

Yes the blueberries are almost gone, but that just means we shift to blackberry cobbler now and it's just as good as long as you're careful to check for seeds before smiling. ;->

Please keep smiling Bebop-o. I like your teeth, blackberry seeds and all.

"Liability Defense" should read "Liability Absolution".

Your legislative suggestions are brilliant and one has to wonder about the intellectual capacity of our elected officials that no one has seen fit to propose any such "pick your poison" legislation since this new Congress convened.

Perhaps we could add a list of "Legislative Tacks" to our YouTube "Blow them Back On Course" campaign. In fact that might be the increment that could cause it to go viral since Glenn has shown that a good chunk of the country is eager for change.

I wonder if Robert Greenwald might be interested in our little campaign. He's been the closest thing to a video juggernaut that I've seen thus far in terms of exposing the administration, its goals and the military-industrial-greed complex behind their every move. He is the video equivalent of our prose Glenn. He uses the exact same techniques and it is devastating.

When will Bush demand (in the interest of fighting terror, of course) that ultimate tool from the Dictators' Tool Kit:

President-for-life status.

Over time there have been posters here, and even Glenn, who have offered various reasons why this cannot happen. Yet it is still a chilling fear that I cannot entirely banish from my thoughts.

So many of the checks and balances have been either warped beyond recognition, reduced to insignificance or outright destroyed and with such single-minded focus and in-your-face gall that I am finding it difficult not to believe that they will, as a matter of the assumed righteousness of their cause, take what has to be the ultimate step in their march to the Unitary Executive. The word Unitary does not acknowledge the existence of opposition. Neither does the administration.

I mean, these people consider the Constitution, as it has been perceived for the last 200 years, to be 'Evil'. It just doesn't strike me as all that far-fetched to then believe that they would not want to continue to exercise the powers that they have so assiduously hoarded and fought for over the last 6 years.

I reallyreally hope and pray that I am wrong.

Heartfelt apologies to those who have been reading my comments and wondering just exactly where I am in the universe. I have had two browsers open (on my old machine) and have been reading Glenn's Zimbabwe post, while responding in Various Items. Gack!

Not sure how to fix that, so maybe I should just quietly retire to my garden for the rest of the day and blush in private.

Glenn, your usual level of excellence shines in this latest deconstruction of the MSM propaganda waltz.

Do you, or anyone else, have a comprehensive list of all the interviews that were conducted with O'Hanlon and Pollack after their little Iraq junket? I certainly wouldn't mind participating in a campaign to share the facts (and admissions)of your, more revealing, discussion with Mr. O'Hanlon, along with a few choice words of criticism towards those media organs who swallowed the, well...I guess they just swallowed, period. Time to induce a bit of therapeutic regurgitation.

"Scholars" aren't reporters---they don't need to hold themselves to the same standards. When they report, they are by definition amateurs---even though they are PAID amateurs.-- Baldie McEagle

Yes, and when they hold forth in the op-eds and appear on "serious" news media shows to hold forth on their "experience in Iraq" they seem to benefit from being attributed as both scholars and reporters, instead of being decried for being, at best, half-assed at both. Hell, they don't even have a quarter of an ass between them.

@WT and the issue of Glenn's comeliness, I have to agree with Anonymous. Glenn definitely qualifies as cute. And when you add in the brains, for those of us who recognize intellect as an attractive attribute, 'devilishly handsome' becomes my descriptor of choice. ;->