Before the flight

This blogger will be returning to the States soon. A Canadian friend said:

"Ah, you are soon to enter your beloved homeland, filled with guns and scary extremist politicians."

Indeed, and it's no joke. There are plenty of extremist and uninformed citizens to support those politicians, too. And some of them are my siblings (may Bush bless them). I am just glad I wasn't in the U.S. during the week-long Reagan beatification. You know the facts: the eventual poster boy for labor busting cheated his way into office by selling weapons illegally to Iran for the promise that American hostages would not be released before a hostage-crisis-provoked defeat of Carter so that he, Reagan, could use the weapons money to fight an illegal, covert war against leftist rebels in Central America, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were to die at the hands of the thugs he trained and supported. He spent 3 trillion dollars on weapons and eased the swift descent of 11 million Americans into poverty. And this character is supposed to be a national hero? Yikes!

After flourishing for a good week in the shadows of Reagan's corpse, Bush will have to confront some ugly news from the living: 26 former diplomats and top government officials getting set to condemn his pernicious administration of U.S. foreign policy, and Colin Powell calling a recently released annual State Department report asserting a decline in terrorism last year "a very big mistake" and "very embarrassing." It's been a long time since the brain-freeze of 9/11 swept over the nation, and Americans are wising up to Bush Inc.'s crooked ways.

As for my having to pass through customs, my anti-Bush blogging could be cause for concern, but at present I'm only worried about my guitar getting damaged. Still, who knows what John Ashcroft may have up his sleeve for me? I'd better make sure I know the Pledge of Allegiance by heart and perhaps the names of all the state capitals. Does anyone know the capital of Maine? I always forget that one...

It's supposed to be sunny here at my departure, so I'm hoping my window-seat immobility pays off with clear glimpses of the stunning archipelago.