Sobering up

I guess we're in for a long haul. 1st shopping day of Holiday Season 2004 and stores open at 4 am. At Whole Foods, they were playing "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire". (Even though the sun is out and I'm wearing a t-shirt...) And I've started reading The Daily Kos. Come on, everybody's doing it! (www.dailykos.com) even my hero Craig Newmark. (so says Foreign Policy magazine).

The biggest call to sobriety is Cindy Sheehan's latest letter to Dubya, written yesterday, the 2nd Thanksgiving she has endured without her son Casey, who died younger than I will. Probably younger than you too.

Yes, it's sobering, this talk of dissent being unpatriotic, a supposed lack of patriotism and support for the troops...how exactly are we defining troop support these days? Because during the Clinton years, we had 10,000 American troops in the Balkans, supported by 50,000 allied troops. A ratio of 5 to 1? I haven't heard numbers like that lately.

Too much sobriety too soon can be a shock to the system. Where's my shopping bag?