Monday, October 25, 2004

Return from Camping: Is it Over Yet ?

As El Jefe Maximo’s readers know, El Jefe, Maximum Leader of this Blog, was away this weekend on a camping trip with his son. Truly an experience ! We couldn’t have had more splendid weather -- such wonderfully hot, muggy weather that our tent was converted into a poor-man’s sauna, convincing me completely of the truth of the old saw that Santa Anna really gave up Texas because it didn’t have AC.

No camping experience would be complete without lots of mosquitoes, gnats, no-see-em’s and plenty of other creepy-crawlies – and we certainly saw our share. Another Cub Scout swears he saw a snake, but with Cub Scouts, snakes are usually more heard of than seen. We saw lots of well-fed looking raccoons and armadillos after dusk, hanging about the tree-lines waiting to dash down on unsecured food supplies. Gave my Republican heart a positively environmentalist feeling – the campers feeding the raccoons, the dillos, the bugs and God knows what else. One of those circle-of-life kind of deals. Come on, sing Kumbaya, somebody.

On the other hand, we saw lots of beauty as well. Among other things, whole forests of Live Oak, complete with Spanish Moss; many deer (who didn’t seem too afraid of all the humans in the area, even if they were mostly very LOUD kids). My friend John the deer hunter would have died of an itchy trigger finger, all those targets hiding out in that state park. As advertised, we even saw a gator or two, but after a time, El Jefe stopped worrying about them and decided that there was nothing wrong with them that a handle, Samsonite label and some wheels wouldn’t fix.

The Cub Scouts had lots of fun playing Frisbee golf (don’t even ask), and chasing each other through the woods, and occasionally even learning something. The dads were kept on the hop cooking, cleaning up etc., although El Jefe’s son is at last learning to be somewhat helpful in the camp maintenance department.

But the best part of the whole experience: NO POLITICAL NEWS. I was so hoping I’d come back and find the whole business somehow over and gone away like Brigadoon, leap year or something. No such luck – no escaping ol’ Thurston’s shrunken-head grin poppin out everyplace.

National Review Online today says Thurston’s latest plan appears to be to declare himself winner on election day and start naming a cabinet, irrespective of the election results. This ploy is intended to support the Democrats’ efforts to contest an unfavorable election result. So, no matter who wins, we wind up with a President 48 percent of the country will never accept.

We are being warned almost hourly now of the consequences of not doing what our own and the world’s opinion elites want us to do – elect Thurston. On Saturday, the UK newspaper, The Guardian, a popular left wing journal, published a story online by one Charlie Brooker which mourned Bush’s possible reelection, and stated, inter alia: “On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinkley Jr – where are you now that we need you ?”

No, I’m not making this up. The Guardian, to its credit, had the good sense to pull the piece from its website on Sunday, stating that the author apologized and said that the piece did not represent the views of the paper. Mr. Brooker tried to explain the closing comments away as an “ironic joke.”

Meanwhile, according to the Drudge Report, the wife of Democratic vice-presidential candidate Edwards, in response to a question from a worried supporter, opined that there would be no riots “if we win.”

Well, that’s nice. Gee thanks. Good to know there won’t be rioting if we peasants do what we’re supposed to.

Why bother anymore with any of this ? If we have to have a banana republic, lets just go whole hog and dispense with elections. The result is the same, but at least we get some peace and quiet.

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