On the South Side

It used to be called Armistice Day because, at that hour on that day, the war to end all wars finally ended. It was 1918; 87 years ago. I spend much time reading and thinking about World War II; I told Emily not long ago that one cannot understand the world around us without an understanding of that that war. But, truth be told, it is the Great War that defines our modern world. Notice my use of the present tense. The people we today call Islamic terrorists fight for a day when they can return to the glory that ended " more than 80 years ago... " It was then that the world we know was formed. [ from Wikipedia ] World War I proved to be the decisive break with the old world order, marking the final demise of absolutist monarchy in Europe. Four empires were shattered: The German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman, and the Russian. Their four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs, who had roots of power back to the days of the Crusades, al

I was watching The West Wing the other night, a program I started watching just to have something to talk to my father about, and in-between all my complaining I ran right over a moment when I thought, "yeah...good point." It was towards the end when the Democratic candidate was talking to a women's rights advocate. This woman was threatening to throw her support to the Republican candidate because, since they were both pro-choice, why not support the better man? The big issue was not over abortion itself but over restrictions on abortion. Since, as I said, both were pro-choice, the argument was over who favored which restrictions. The Republican candidate favored parental notification and was 100% against partial-birth abortions while the Democratic candidate's position was no restrictions at all. As the Democratic candidate and the woman were arguing, he said to her, (I paraphrase from memory) "do you favor abortion based on race?" She, of course said no.