Home
Three Years
Little Uptown gets her Big Girl Bed today. No more crib. She's three-and-a-half now. She's ready.
We're not. For Mother Uptown and this late-life father, it's all confusion. We know all about time, and how it bends. We always grasped that life is just a blink of an eye and that, 'like an ever-rolling stream,' we shall all be carried away.
But it was only yesterday that we brought our little girl home from the hospital and fell, all three of us, into a sleep as deep as the forest. Three months of colic followed. Then months I don't remember--the baby seemed mostly inert. Suddenly she was walking, then the walking stopped and the running began. And music school. Ballet classes.
Now she changes clothes a dozen times a day. Has a point-of-view. Tells jokes. Makes analogies. Is, really, a big person trapped in a small person's body. (And is also, just a kid.)
In just three years.
Three years is how much longer we are scheduled to endure President Bush, a small person trapped in a big person's body. It does not seem like a short time--those three years stretch out ahead of us, an infinite vista of incompetence and mendacity and, for all we know, treason. A man can do a great deal of damage in three years if he sets his mind to it, and George Bush has always been a guy with his mind set.
He's also a guy in denial. Bloggers aren't supposed to use the 'bunker' word, because that's a reference to you-know-who, and we lose all credibility if we compare this guy to that guy. Yeah, but I can't resist mentioning that 'water-boarding'--a practice that the White House says isn't nearly 'torture'--has an interesting history. From the 11/14 edition of AndrewSullivan.com:
Cheery, isn't it? Who's going to find our leaders guilty? Who's going to execute them? No, they'll give each other Medals of Freedom and hope to hell Paris Hilton cracks up her Bentley again the day that the Supreme Court decides that we really can't put prisoners of war on the rack in secret jails. Or that habeas corpus actually matters.
The latest reports have Bush not speaking to his father and being PO'd at Karl Rove. He is said to speak--on a regular basis--only to first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. You'll notice: all women. You could get pretty far with a psychological analysis that starts with this image: a boy hiding behind Mommy's skirts.
And that's not the worst of it. CrooksandLiars.com ran a video of Bush campaigning the other day. Take a look. And pay careful attention to the slurring of words. If you didn't know that Jesus had helped Bush stop drinking years and years ago, you might say this guy is....sloshed.
The country has, in recent weeks, finally wrapped its mind around the fact that Bush is a colossal liar. And that his lies are compounded by the massive incompetence that starts in his office and then seeps into every corner of his Administration. And that, at many points in the chain of commands, colossal crimes have been committed--in Iraq, billions have disappeared, probably in billion-dollar chunks.
But crazy--crazy is hard to swallow. Because crazy doesn't usually get better without help. And because, if not treated, crazy gets crazier with time.
Three years. I'm going to find projects that matter, the better to store up nuts for the winter. I'm going to do what I can to help the people the government is determined to hurt. (Yes, I know this is exactly what 'they' want, but whatcha gonna do--let children starve?) And I'm going to make sure I spend as much time as possible with Little Uptown. Bush may make minutes feel like hours; time with the little one just flies.
And then, if we are lucky, three years will pass. Bush will shuffle off to his ranch, where no one will ever challenge him and the damage he can do is limited. And, having waited years for this moment, we will put our shoulders into the task of restoring our country's honor. For Little Uptown. And all the little ones.
We're not. For Mother Uptown and this late-life father, it's all confusion. We know all about time, and how it bends. We always grasped that life is just a blink of an eye and that, 'like an ever-rolling stream,' we shall all be carried away.
But it was only yesterday that we brought our little girl home from the hospital and fell, all three of us, into a sleep as deep as the forest. Three months of colic followed. Then months I don't remember--the baby seemed mostly inert. Suddenly she was walking, then the walking stopped and the running began. And music school. Ballet classes.
Now she changes clothes a dozen times a day. Has a point-of-view. Tells jokes. Makes analogies. Is, really, a big person trapped in a small person's body. (And is also, just a kid.)
In just three years.
Three years is how much longer we are scheduled to endure President Bush, a small person trapped in a big person's body. It does not seem like a short time--those three years stretch out ahead of us, an infinite vista of incompetence and mendacity and, for all we know, treason. A man can do a great deal of damage in three years if he sets his mind to it, and George Bush has always been a guy with his mind set.
He's also a guy in denial. Bloggers aren't supposed to use the 'bunker' word, because that's a reference to you-know-who, and we lose all credibility if we compare this guy to that guy. Yeah, but I can't resist mentioning that 'water-boarding'--a practice that the White House says isn't nearly 'torture'--has an interesting history. From the 11/14 edition of AndrewSullivan.com:
The use of a board was stylistically most closely associated with the work of a Nazi political interrogator by the name of Ludwig Ramdor who worked at Ravensbruck camp. Ramdor was tried before the British Military Court Martial at Hamburg (May 1946 to March 1947) on charges for subjecting women to this torture, subjecting another woman to drugs for interrogation, and subjecting a third to starvation and high pressure showers. He was found guilty and executed by the Allies in 1947.
Cheery, isn't it? Who's going to find our leaders guilty? Who's going to execute them? No, they'll give each other Medals of Freedom and hope to hell Paris Hilton cracks up her Bentley again the day that the Supreme Court decides that we really can't put prisoners of war on the rack in secret jails. Or that habeas corpus actually matters.
The latest reports have Bush not speaking to his father and being PO'd at Karl Rove. He is said to speak--on a regular basis--only to first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. You'll notice: all women. You could get pretty far with a psychological analysis that starts with this image: a boy hiding behind Mommy's skirts.
And that's not the worst of it. CrooksandLiars.com ran a video of Bush campaigning the other day. Take a look. And pay careful attention to the slurring of words. If you didn't know that Jesus had helped Bush stop drinking years and years ago, you might say this guy is....sloshed.
The country has, in recent weeks, finally wrapped its mind around the fact that Bush is a colossal liar. And that his lies are compounded by the massive incompetence that starts in his office and then seeps into every corner of his Administration. And that, at many points in the chain of commands, colossal crimes have been committed--in Iraq, billions have disappeared, probably in billion-dollar chunks.
But crazy--crazy is hard to swallow. Because crazy doesn't usually get better without help. And because, if not treated, crazy gets crazier with time.
Three years. I'm going to find projects that matter, the better to store up nuts for the winter. I'm going to do what I can to help the people the government is determined to hurt. (Yes, I know this is exactly what 'they' want, but whatcha gonna do--let children starve?) And I'm going to make sure I spend as much time as possible with Little Uptown. Bush may make minutes feel like hours; time with the little one just flies.
And then, if we are lucky, three years will pass. Bush will shuffle off to his ranch, where no one will ever challenge him and the damage he can do is limited. And, having waited years for this moment, we will put our shoulders into the task of restoring our country's honor. For Little Uptown. And all the little ones.
