How Come You All Know So Much about Vlad the Impaler? April 15, 2003February 23, 2017 Hey: Don’t forget to file your taxes. The President has filed his. President Bush reported $856,056 in adjusted gross income for last year (probably about the same as you), and paid $268,719, or a staggering, confiscatory 31 percent, in federal income taxes. After the tax grab, the Bushes had not even $600,000 to live on. According to an estimate by the Bloomberg News Service, his latest tax cut proposal would have eased his and the First Lady’s taxes by $44,500, which would go a long way toward making the tax burden more equitable. (Fortunately, the $44,500 would come out of thin air and not added to the national debt.) Bloomberg estimated that Vice President and Lynne Cheney would save $327,000 a year from the cuts. (‘Most of the tax reductions go to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder,’ said then candidate Bush of his tax proposals in the second televised Presidential debate. It was such a gross misstatement – it would be unseemly to call it something worse – that it just boggles the mind.) And now . . . Kevin Clark: ‘You write, ‘Religious faith has led to more needless slaughter than perhaps any other cause.’ I believe Marxism wins that contest hands down with well over 100 million dead. Thank goodness Queen Isabella didn’t have WMD.’ ☞ Oops. Good point. I blew this one. Mike Lynott: ‘As both an avid reader of your writings and a Christian, I’d like to mildly chastise you for your comments about religion as the source of many wars and calamities in the world. There is an excellent study of this area that I commend to you and to your readers: When Religion Becomes Evil by Charles Kimball. Just as the ‘accounting’ of Enron and others was not true accounting, Queen Isabella’s religious opinions do not reflect true Christianity.’ ☞ I totally agree. But somehow she and her clerical advisors didn’t see it that way. Noah: ‘Joel Margolis listed the following [non-religious scourges]: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler. But Genghis Khan considered himself to be heaven’s chosen. And according to this, Vlad saw himself as a Crusader against the Turks.’ Russell Turpin: ‘Lenin and Stalin did not believe in a personal god. But they believed in something that served much the same role: Destiny as described by Marx’s dialectic. Like traditional religion, it prescribes a higher estate (communism) that is man’s utopian future, it gives a purpose to the individual (solidarity), it justifies authority (dictatorship of the proletariat), it claims higher knowledge (Marx’s dialectic), and it requires a large dose of faith. To the rational and secular individual, communism is a modern religion.’ Jonathan Edwards: ‘According to this, Vlad the Impaler ‘was a member of The Order of the Dragon (a position from which he derived his surname, Dracul). The Order of the Dragon was a group of Slavic rulers and warlords who were sworn to uphold the Christian faith by fighting off the advancing Turks of the Ottoman Empire.” Bob Novick: ‘Just in case you were not being sarcastic about Vlad’s ‘bad rap’ . . . ‘By 1462, when he was deposed, he had killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people, possibly more. He killed merchants who cheated their customers. He killed women who had affairs. Supposedly he had one woman impaled because her husband’s shirt was too short. He didn’t mind impaling children, either. Afterwards he would display the corpses in public so everyone would learn a lesson. It’s said that there were over 20,000 bodies hanging outside his capital city. Of course, the stories about Dracula’s cruelty might have been exaggerated by his enemies. Despite all this, Dracula’s subjects respected him for fighting the Turks and being a strong ruler. He’s remembered today as a patriotic hero who stood up to Turkey and Hungary. He was so scornful of other nations that when two foreign ambassadors refused to doff their hats to him, he had the hats nailed to their heads . . .” ☞ There is a connection someplace to be made here to hats of meat, but I can’t find it. Need to file for a four-month extension to file your tax return (though not an extension on paying an estimate of what is due)? You can now do it by phone, toll free – 888-796-1074 – provided only that you filed a return for 2001 or 2000. VOLUNTEER HELP WANTED Are you good at making web pages? Maybe with java applets and flash animation? Am I even saying this right? Does applet have two p’s? Me-Mail me.
Price Grabber April 14, 2003January 22, 2017 Have you tried PriceGrabber.com? It seems like a good site to visit before making a significant purchase. The range of prices on the amazing Casio Exilim EX-M2 digital camera – which can attach sound to your photos and short videos and play Beethoven’s Ninth – is a low of $309 to a high of $399. The prices on a 42-inch Panasonic Plasma TV – which I gotta tell you I am dying one day to own – ranged from $4,999 to $3,526 after allowing for tax and shipping to my zip code. The mini-countertop portable dishwasher that Office Depot delivers to your door for $296.79 is yours, delivered, for $189.48 from Wal-Mart. Remember when you actually had to let your fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages? And, before that, actually walk? We didn’t realize it at the time, but life was hell. Comparison shopping could take all day. (All that said, remember that the cheapest plasma TV of all is not to buy one. That’s my brand. I know you only live once, but I have always believed in pacing myself. An annoying young man once wrote, ‘Pace yourself! Tease yourself with anticipation. Ease the fingers of your aspiration up the inner thigh of your cupidity. Tickle your fancy.’ ‘Of course money buys happiness!’ he concluded. ‘But both will last longer if you remember the importance of foreplay.’ So I’m waiting a few months more. As to countertop dishwashers – would it kill you to rinse your fork and plate in the sink and then wipe them clean on your shirt sleeve?) Tomorrow: How Come You All Know So Much about Vlad the Impaler?
Vlad the Impaler; Soros Redux April 11, 2003February 23, 2017 But first . . . Breaking News from the Borowitz Report: IRAQIS TOPPLE GIANT STATUE OF SADDAM LOOK-ALIKE ‘Just to be Sure,’ Jubilant but Cautious Iraqis Say [Shipping any minute: Who Moved My Soap? The CEO’s Guide to Surviving in Prison, by Andy Borowitz.] And now . . . BAD VLAD Joel Margolis: ‘Those of us who are not part of the secular left will have to take responsibility for all of those individuals who did things in the name of religion which violate the commandments. But at least we know that there are plenty of people in the world (some of whom appear to be your heroes – e.g., Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King, Jr.) who did good things based on their religion. Let’s see who you have on your side – Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler. I guess their actions, in your view, are more deserving of honor and recognition.’ ☞ Now, Joel. In the first place, I think Vlad the Impaler gets a bad rap. But leaving that aside – and understanding that you obviously don’t think I really was saying that people of faith are ‘responsible for all of those individuals who did things in the name of religion which violate the commandments’ – I guess what I am saying is that I hope people of faith will pray for the wisdom and strength to do the right thing . . . but determine what is right based on logic and common human decency. Most people of faith have these qualities in abundance. Some, though, can come to feel they are on a divine mission, and that feeling can sometimes – despite what in their minds are the purest and most devout of intentions – lead to illogical actions that go very badly wrong. No? (And of course I’m kidding about Vlad the Impaler. I am embarrassed to say I have only the vaguest idea who he was, and he wasn’t very nice.) GEORGE SOROS REDUX In light of the wonderful news coming out of Iraq – and it is wonderful, particularly compared to what might have been – celebrants would be well advised to re-read this piece by George Soros. Basically it might be summarized: Right war, wrong way – watch out. Have a great weekend.
Hurry! Hoorah! HooIRA! April 10, 2003January 22, 2017 IRAs Don’t forget you have until April 15 (but only until April 15) to make your IRA – or Roth IRA – contribution for 2002, and even to set one up if you haven’t already done so. TIAA-CREF accepts enrollments on-line. If you’re flush (though who is ever flush?), you could make two contributions while you’re at it – one, in time’s nick, for 2002, and one, nice and early, for 2003. BAPTISMS Magda: ‘I have several problems with the baptism story. First, those are our tax dollars at work: they paid for the soldiers’ time, the water, and the salary of the Chaplain. So much for the separation of church and state. Second, it would be a simple humanitarian gesture for anyone to make the water available to hot, tired soldiers – without any strings. Are we going to see the military withholding water from the Iraqis pending conversion? Third, this is a severe abuse of his role as chaplain. My godfather (a rabbi) was a navy chaplain. It is their job to provide comfort and lend an ear, to play confessor when needed, and to either provide the religious services or arrange for the religious services needed by the troops. It is not okay for an individual chaplain to misuse his post to evangelize his own religious convictions to the troops. He is there to serve, not to convert. And certainly not to withhold anything that could be for the good of the troops, in order to serve his personal agenda.’ ☞ Well, of course, I agree. I thought the story was sufficiently loony that people would recognize I was not being entirely serious when I said, ‘makes sense to me.’ Duncan: ‘You write: ‘I do not begrudge [the President] his faith in any way. But I would like our foreign policy to be entirely logic, rather than even a little faith, based.’ In other words, the President is free to believe anything he wants, but when it’s time to make the really important decisions, he should ignore his deeply-held convictions and instead rely on ‘logic.’ Wouldn’t that be rather hypocritical of him? Not to mention the implication that faith and logic are somehow incompatible, an idea that religious people from across the political spectrum might question. Secular people in government all have beliefs that inform the decisions they make on behalf of the public. These beliefs may or may not seem ‘logical’ to those who do not share them. Nevertheless, we do not suggest that they abandon their beliefs before performing their public duties. Let’s not require religious people to do so either.’ ☞ Religious faith has led to more needless slaughter than perhaps any other cause. (‘I have caused great calamities. I have depopulated provinces and kingdoms. But I did it for the love of Christ and his Holy Mother.’ – Queen Isabella of Spain) Sometimes war is necessary and just – but that’s something, in my view, not to take ‘on faith,’ but only when facts and logic lead to this conclusion. Just my opinion.
Of Soapy Baptisms and Budget Deficits April 9, 2003February 23, 2017 >>>>>>>> JUST WOKE UP TO SEE THE GOOD NEWS! A huge thank you and deep bow to our Armed Forces for their courage and care in Iraq, in what now appears to be the successful liberation of the Iraqi people – and no small measure of appreciation on their part. For all the challenges and hazards that remain, and all the sadness over the lives lost, and all the frustration that we somehow alienated so much of the world in the way we went about it, this is still a day to give our men and women in uniform an even sharper salute than usual. And now (anti-climactically) back to what I posted last night: CORRECTION Steven Noble: ‘On April 2 you referenced an item from ‘ABC News.’ This reference is to the ‘Australian Broadcasting Corporation.’ They certainly have every right to call themselves ABC, but when referencing them this should perhaps be clarified.’ ☞ Right you are. I saw ABC and just assumed it was ‘our’ ABC. But the Australians are not exactly from another planet, even though they do all live upside down. That item was headlined: US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush and began, ‘They may be the ones facing danger on the battlefield, but US soldiers in Iraq are being asked to pray for President George W Bush.’ So now comes this item from the Miami Herald, which may or may not be as reliable as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, headlined Army chaplain offers baptisms, baths and begins, ‘In this dry desert world . . . there’s an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water. It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity. ‘It’s simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,’ he said. And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks. . . . First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano’s hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible. ‘Regardless of their motives,’ Llano said, ‘I get the chance to take them closer to the Lord.” Makes sense to me. Or if not sense, at least it doesn’t worry me as much as the prayers that begin each of our nation’s Cabinet meetings, and the suggestion that our President believes his foreign policy is a divine calling. I do not begrudge him his faith in any way. But I would like our foreign policy to be entirely logic, rather than even a little faith, based. AMPLIFICATION Frank Alejano: ‘In the interest of fairness, how did the Clinton administration handle the reporting of the Social Security surplus [that you decried Monday]? Did they treat it as spendable revenue, as Bush is doing it, or did they actually set it aside as reserves for future obligations, as promised?’ ☞ Great question, and one that several of you asked. I now kick myself for not including the answer in Monday’s column. I originally did have it in (“In fairness … ” that little section began), but it was interrupting the flow of an already dense column and I decided to snip it out. Not my best decision. Anyway, the short answer is that Clinton/Gore used the same accounting gimmick as Bush (and previous administrations) until near the end of their term, when they began at least to point out that the budget wasn’t really in surplus if the Social Security surplus had to be treated as revenue in order to get it there. (Even with that, the budget went into real surplus in the last year or two of Clinton/Gore.) I can’t remember how explicit this acknowledgement was – probably not explicit enough – but the oft-repeated shorthand for it was: “Don’t squander the surplus; save Social Security first.” This mantra was more than lip service for Clinton/Gore and Gore/Lieberman. Bush/Cheney promised a “a lockbox” as well, but canned that once they were elected, cutting taxes for the very best off instead. (And no, kids, you are not in the top 1% unless your taxable income is well in excess of $300,000 a year.) Bill: “I registered Democrat for the first time ever this year (after registering Republican since 1984).” Michael Irwin: “Uh-oh.”
Macroeconomics and Your Money April 8, 2003March 25, 2012 In reponse to yesterday’s column, Dr. Jim A. writes: “You are getting way too political. Get back to investing and money management issues, which I thought was the purpose of the website.” The purpose of the website is anybody’s guess, but the purpose of yesterday’s column (which I was thinking of making more explicit today even before receiving Jim’s e-mail) was to say, in effect . . . Look. It’s great the war is going relatively well. (There is much to criticize about how we got into this war; but anyone would have to admit it could have gone much worse than it has so far, and we are all grateful for that.) But when we win it and the market jumps, as it may, don’t get suckered into thinking the good old days are back. The market, in my view, is not cheap here, and the economic prospects are not terribly good. I hope I’m wrong. But massive budget deficits of the type described yesterday are not the stuff of long-term prosperity. (Modest budget deficits, that grow the national debt at a slower rate than the economy as a whole, are not necessarily bad. So long as the debt grows more slowly than GDP, it shrinks relative to the economy as a whole.) So the outlook for the stock market over the next few years is not terribly bright, either.
Red, White, and Broke Keep Your Eye on the $160 Billion April 7, 2003February 23, 2017 The budget deficit this year will be close to $600 billion, handily outpacing – indeed, about doubling – the prior record, set by Bush 41. Take a minute to think about this. (It adds about $5,000 in national debt for each American household, plus whatever new debt your household took on all by itself.) Take a minute, also, to consider that we are not in the depths of unprecedented recession – the sort of economy in which you might be comfortable running a big deficit in order to stimulate the economy. The 5.8% unemployment rate, while near the peak of the last Bush administration, is nothing like the 10% of the early Seventies, let alone the 25% rate of the You Know What. Take a final minute to see if there may be a pattern here. During Reagan/Bush, we slashed taxes on the wealthy even as we were ramping up the military, and added $3 trillion to our National Debt, doubling two centuries of accumulated debt in just 12 years. Under Bush/Cheney, we are doing it again – only bigger. The reasons you haven’t seen this $600 billion number are: the Administration has not yet added in the $75 billion-plus cost of the Iraq war, and the Administration treats this year’s $160 billion Social Security surplus – the surplus that was to be left untouched in a conceptual ‘lock box’ to help finance Baby Boom retirement – as if it were tax revenue to be spent now rather than saved for your retirement. (As a practical matter, the way we’d ‘save’ $160 billion a year is by using it to pay down our National Debt, so that in the decades when we needed to, we could build it back up.) Add those two numbers to the published deficit estimates you’ve been reading, and you get pretty close to $600 billion. The problem: it’s likely to get worse. The tax cuts for our wealthiest taxpayers have only begun to phase in. And now the Bush Administration is pushing for more. It’s not impossible to imagine trillion-dollar annual deficits. This is a deeply discouraging prospect that fundamentally threatens our economy. It also threatens the Social Security and Medicare benefits most baby boomers are counting on to supplement their retirement savings. And it is so unnecessary. Why not just freeze tax cuts for the best off right here? The top 1% is already getting about $10,000 a year from the cuts passed so far, about ten times what the average tax-payer gets. Keep phasing in the cuts that apply to the bottom 97% or 98% or 99% of the people – which also benefit the top 1% – but torpedo any further tax relief for the best off. As I’ve asked before, what will Dick Cheney do with the extra $327,000 a year the Bloomberg News Service estimates he will save? Buy an extra ten US-made automobiles every year? Yet the cuts keep coming. The Wall Street Journal looked at the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Bush budget last week and reported: Bush’s Tax Plan Won’t Boost Economy, CBO Analysis Finds By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office said that President Bush’s tax and spending proposals will do far less to spur economic growth in coming years than the White House suggests — and might not provide any kick at all. So why are we doing this? Why are we closing down after-school programs for kids and running up massive deficits . . . to cut taxes on the rich? This is more than an academic question. This is going to affect how you and I and our kids live in the years to come. Last thought: Retirement looms for the baby-boomers. The year 2008 is more or less the start of that tidal wave. So it is prudent for them individually – and for us as a nation – to set money aside for the decades to come, unless we want old homeless people starving in the streets. We save individually by contributing to our retirement plans; we as a nation ought to do it by contributing $160 billion a year in surplus FICA taxes to the conceptual ‘lock box.’ Except that the Bush Administration has decided to take that $160 billion and use it to cut taxes on folks earning half a million or a million or ten million or more a year. Imagine how you would feel if your employer took the money it deducted from your paycheck for your pension plan and counted it as current revenue to be paid out in dividends to your wealthy shareholders. That’s what the Bush Administration is doing when it doesn’t include this $160 billion in its estimate of the deficit, and uses it instead to help justify the big tax cuts for the best off. Remember the final years of Clinton/Gore and the budget surpluses? The constant refrain those last couple of years was, ‘Don’t Squander the Surplus; Save Social Security First.’ That’s what the 2000 election was largely about. I’m not sure how many voters really understood. For more on our budget mess, click here. It does not bode well for our economy or the stock market. Red, white, and broke.
Dinky Winky April 4, 2003February 23, 2017 But first . . . . . . from Bob Herbert’s column in yesterday’s New York Times: ‘The House plan [opposed by the Democrats] offers the well-to-do $1.4 trillion in tax cuts, while demanding billions of dollars in cuts from programs that provide food stamps, school lunches, health care for the poor and the disabled, temporary assistance to needy families – even veterans’ benefits and student loans . . . The cut in Medicaid, if achieved entirely by reducing the number of children covered, would lead to the elimination of health coverage for 13.6 million children . . .’ ☞ It is a grand time to be rich and powerful in America. Click here for the whole column. And now . . . John Seiffer: ‘Check out dinkytown.net for mortgage and other calculations. I forgot where I got this; if it came from you, my apologies.’ ☞ Yes, you got it here February 19. But I started to play around with it a little and noticed a pretty glaring flaw in at least one of its calculators. Its 1040 Tax Calculator treats capital gains no differently from ordinary income. That’s such a huge and basic mistake, it makes we want to check everything else on the site before trusting it. I reported the error and got a prompt response that, well, it was going to stay the way it was: ‘As you know,’ writes the author, ‘capital gains are a difficult area, due to the wide variety of tax rates depending on the holding period (less than one year, one to five years, over five years if the asset was purchased after January 1, 2001, over five years if the asset was purchased before January 1, 2001). In our calculator, which is used to give you an estimate of your tax liability, we decided to use the worst case scenario assuming that capital gains are all short term capital gains. This type of gain is taxed at your nominal tax rate, regardless of the amount. The amount of information required to calculate your actual capital gains tax was beyond the scope of the 1040 tax estimator, which was targeted to estimate taxes for the more typical taxpayer, many of which have little or no capital gains and the vast majority of which have almost all of their income from employment of one kind or another. I hope this clears up your question! I will be adding additional information to the definitions section of our calculator to let people know our assumptions regarding capital gain taxes.’ ☞ Well, okay, I guess . . . But why include a line for capital gains in the first place if you’re not going to treat it the way most people would expect? Why not just rename that line long-term capital gains? Then you could say, in the definition, ‘We assume that any long-term gains you enter are taxed at the 20% rate, as most are, although for low-income taxpayers the rate can be 10%, and for assets held more than five years, the rate can be 18% and 8%, respectively.’ I have not checked out the dozens of other calculators on the site. But I would read the accompanying ‘assumptions’ carefully before relying on them. And maybe even check the calculations elsewhere, such as Bill Coppedge’s Handy Real Estate Site. And finally, for the traveler . . . S. N.: ‘I know you often talk about Priceline and BiddingForTravel, but I wanted to let you know about a similar site . . . BetterBidding.com. In addition to Priceline, they help you with Hotwire, as well as deals from other suppliers (there is an ‘Other Deals’ section). Priceline isn’t always the best solution, Hotwire can be better if you want to guarantee that certain amenities are available (like a pool, beach access, shuttle bus, kitchenette, etc). The site is only about two months old. I think it is useful already, and will only get better with time. I would ask you to encourage your readers to post their Hotwire (and Priceline) info there so that the database will continue to grow rapidly. The more information that is available, the better it is for all of us.’
The Hawk at the Village Voice April 3, 2003February 23, 2017 IT’S NOT JUST WHAT WE DO, IT’S HOW WE DO IT Joel M: ‘You and your fellow liberals keep on claiming that big mean George Bush is opposed to the Kyoto Treaty, implying that you virtuous Democrats are in favor of it. What garbage.’ ☞ No, it’s the WAY this, and so much else, was done. If I had to fire you and had 20 minutes to do it, I could do it in such an insensitive way that you came back the next day and gunned down everyone in the office . . . or in a better way that left you angry but unarmed . . . or in a way that left you hurt, upset, somewhat angry and mistrustful, but still allowing of the possibility that I really cared about your concerns and was acting no differently than you probably would have under the same circumstances. The same firing, the same 20 minutes, three very different outcomes. Since January 20, 2001, we seem to have been choosing the first method. I think Clinton/Gore or Gore/Lieberman would have come closer to the third. For an awfully good piece by Gideon Rose that makes this point better than I have (and without resorting to dumb analogies), click here. All that said, it’s worth noting the exceptional effort the administration and military have rightly made so far to minimize civilian casualties in Iraq. That piece of it should make us proud. This is not napalm in Viet Nam. THE HAWK AT THE VILLAGE VOICE And speaking of its not being napalm in Viet Nam, I think this is an important piece for those of us deeply uneasy about – or those flat out against – the war to read. That it comes from Nat Hentoff at the Village Voice gives it extra weight. LYING TO THE WORLD? Jim Karn: ‘The Bush Administration presented documents they knew to be forgeries to the UN to support an argument for war. Think about that for a minute. What more can you say about an administration that would lie to start war?’ ☞ They might have done better presenting Nat Hentoff’s argument instead.
Praying for Bush, A Tooth Lengthening – All That and Andy Rooney April 2, 2003February 23, 2017 From an old hand who knows all the Pentagon players, yesterday: ‘Think of Iraq as scene one, act one – that changing the world’s behavior and attitude towards terrorism won’t be stopping at Iraq’s border. The fact that Syria is acting up so soon [I had asked him about Syria] only means that they are moving their own timetable up. Mid East peace, among other things, depends on Syria and Iran’s giving up their harboring, training and supporting terrorism.’ This appears to be our objective, and it could hardly be more noble or important: Wipe out terrorism, bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East, save ourselves and the world from the chaos and catastrophy of widely dispersed weapons of mass destruction in highly irresponsible, untraceable hands. What dismays a lot of us is that we launched the war with so little backing from even our traditional allies . . . that many we thought would help us or at least stay neutral seem to be causing us difficulty at best, strapping on suicide belts at worst . . . and that we may wind up fighting an endless supply of religious fanatics who are actually eager to die – a very hard fight to win, even if entirely justified. (For a sobering – and I hope exceptionally simple-minded – animation of what we’ve started, click here. You can skip the first couple of screens, which are neither funny nor informative, and then just let the battle unfold. The thing to keep in mind, I think, is that our leaders can be really intelligent and well-intentioned, as President Johnson and Robert McNamara were in the Viet Nam era, and still make judgments that produce terrible results.) If the plan has all along been for Iraq to be ‘act one, scene one,’ were the American people adequately clued into that? I am reminded of the ‘tooth lengthening’ I was counseled to undergo a few years ago. My tooth wouldn’t literally be lengthened; my gum would be cut back, lengthening the exposed area that my dentist had to work with in attaching a crown. A tooth way, way in the back. And as the specialist was getting deeper and deeper into the procedure, which wound up involving a cleaver and tongs and a couple of hammers and an ice pick – and a lot of blood and grunting (his grunting, which alarmed me even more than my own) – I got both scared (‘Verbose Financial Writer Dies in Bizarre Tooth Lengthening Mishap’) and angry. Why hadn’t they told me what I was getting into? I might still have agreed it was necessary, but it would have been more democratic to involve me in the decision. I was paying for it, after all. To all of which gloomy thinking a largely liberal college classmate of mine, who believes in the Bush vision, responds: ‘The citizens of France, 54% to 33%, want the U. S. to win the war. We’ll see how many enemies we have. I think freedom will again win over the fellow-travelers of totalitarianism, and will bring most persons everywhere – even in Arabia – along because it is in their own best interest.’ I totally hope my classmate and the Bush Administration are right. (Even so, I cannot believe a more sensitive diplomacy for the last two years would not have allowed us to proceed with broader support.) But the Holy War part of it gives me special pause. Religious hatreds, once enflamed, are not easily extinguished. Sure we’re the good guys. But if a billion Muslims don’t see it that way, we still have a gigantic problem and will need all the good will we can get – which is why I wish we hadn’t alienated so many people in the cavalier way we killed the Kyoto Protocol and other treaties, backed out of the Mid East and Korean peace processes, and showed contempt for the UN before belatedly deciding to seek its support. For those worried about Holy War – and even about the erosion of the separation of church and state – this item from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation will bring little comfort. (‘US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush . . . Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called ‘A Christian’s Duty,’ a mini prayer book which includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying for Bush.’) All that being said, I think Andy Rooney’s conclusion to this week’s commentary may have said it best: ‘I wish my America had never gotten into this war, but now that we’re in it, I want us to win it.’ Amen.