Polls consistently show Barack Obama leading in every category of trustworthiness (e.g., health care, jobs, taxation, the environment, et al.) except the Iraq War, terrorism, and "international crises" in general.

What I want to know is, how is it that a man who confuses Iran and al-Qaeda, who thinks Iraq and Pakistan share a border, and who talks about defending "Czechoslovakia" from Putin's Russia (more than once), can possibly be seen by the public as strong on national security.

Keeping track of such details like Middle Eastern and South Asian geography, which ideologies are inimical to American interests and to each other, and whether or not a country has existed or not in the past fifteen years seems to me to be pretty fucking important as far evaluating a person's ability to handle "international crises" effectively is concerned.

Really, those are the areas where McCain seems least qualified to me.

Do you remember a guy that's been
In such an early song
I heard a rumour from ground control
Oh no, don't say it's true
They got a message from the action man
I'm happy, hope you're happy too
I've loved all I've needed love
sordid details following

The shrieking of nothing is killing just
Pictures of jap girls in synthesis and I
Ain't got no money and and I ain't got no hair
But I'm hoping to kick but the planet is glowing aglow aglow

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all time low

Time and again I tell myself
I'll stay clean tonight
But the little green wheels are following me
Oh no, not again
I'm stuck with a valuable friend
I'm happy, hope you're happy too
One flash of light
But no smoking pistol

I've never done good things
I've never done bad things
I never did anything out of the blue

Want an axe to break the ice
Want to come down right now

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all time low

My mama said to get things done
You better not mess with Major Tom
My mama said to get things done
You better not mess with Major Tom
My mama said to get things done
You better not mess with Major Tom

I've been better. Little seems to change, really, and this feels dead to me. Pointless. Like I should have just made a clean break, instead of deluding myself that I was capable of staying in touch. I've had time to process, you see, and with it the outrage has finally arrived. True, it's mellowed by my well-deserved disgust and contempt for my self-appointed judges, but that's balanced out by the sadness of my friends lost.

And my friends have tried to stay in touch with me. I cannot fault that. No, the fault is mine. I don't want to brood. I get tired of telling the same, sordid story. I don't want to hear about what's going on there, now. Or then. But little else is there to relate. As I say, life doesn't change much. At least it doesn't look like it - at least since I've been backsliding. And relating the details of that is too . . . self-indulgent, I suppose. Certainly distasteful and undoubtedly unproductive.

Anyway. Even in my silence - and even if that silence goes unbroken for the rest of our days - remember that I love you.

"Monsieur, when winter comes, with its cold, wet and snowy weather, your doctor says to you constantly: 'Keep your feet warm, guard against chills, colds, bronchitis, rheumatism and pleurisy.'

"Then you are very careful, you wear flannel, a heavy greatcoat and thick shoes, but all this does not prevent you from passing two months in bed. But when spring returns, with its leaves and flowers, its warm, soft breezes and its smell of the fields, all of which causes you vague disquiet and causeless emotion, nobody says to you:

"'Monsieur, beware of love! It is lying in ambush everywhere; it is watching for you at every corner; all its snares are laid, all its weapons are sharpened, all its guiles are prepared! Beware of love! Beware of love! It is more dangerous than brandy, bronchitis or pleurisy! It never forgives and makes everybody commit irreparable follies.'

"Yes, monsieur, I say that the Government ought to put large public notices on the walls, with these words: 'Spring is here again! Frenchmen, beware of love!' just as they put 'Beware of wet paint.'

"However, as the government will not do this, I must supply its place, and I say to you: 'Beware of love!' for it is just going to seize you, and it is my duty to inform you of it, just as in Russia they inform any one that his nose is frozen."

- excerpted from Guy de Maupassant's In the Spring

Fun Fact of the Day: The lead singer of the original lineup of the Village People was straight (he was, in fact, the only straight member of the original lineup). And the son of a Baptist minister.

Anyway.

I got overwhelmed with email correspondence and kind of shut down for a week or so. That's why I haven't answered you. I'll try harder.

Life is life. Hope and fear commingle still in roughly equal parts.

I'll write a real entry soon. But too many things are uncertain right now for me to catch them with my words.

Love is the most important thing.

It may be the only important thing.

While walking in the park yesterday, I saw that someone had written in chalk on the sidewalk, "Love is the first step on the road to disappointment."

This is true.

But it is also true that love is the first step on the road from disappointment.

The world and our fellow men and women are such that they will invariably, inevitably, fall short of our hopes and even our expectations. Fairness is the foundation of the social contract, but there are as many definitions of fairness as there people in any given situation, and it's almost laughably absurd to even expect a consistency of definitions even for one person to hold true from one situation to the next. We view the world inescapably through the lenses of our own self-interest, and no matter how we try to correct for that (if we try, as so many do not), it will corrupt the perfection of our judgment.

That truth does not excuse those who do not try, of course. We have a responsibility to our conscience, and to our fellow beings, to try to do right, and to try to be better people than we were yesterday. Yet, even so, we cannot expect that everyone will always even try to do right by us.

And so love is disappointed. Compassion, graciousness, honor - these are not always returned to those who act with them. Sometimes our wages are hate, envy, and contempt. Even from people we may admire or cherish affection towards.

But without love, there is nothing but contempt and hatred. Without trust, a gesture of kindness from a friend becomes an act of sociopathic manipulation. Without honor, a gesture of graciousness from a rival becomes a contemptible display of weakness.

Without disappointment, then, there is no hope. And without hope, life has no worth.

Anyway. This is Zarth.