Buzz Kill

The details coming out these days about what the American government is doing are very troubling. Any article with NSA in the headline is sure to ruin my day. It's very unsettling to think of the invasive things that they and other agencies are doing to us, purportedly to protect us from those who would do us harm, but harming us considerably in order to do it. At best, it's like undergoing especially harsh chemotherapy to rid us of a cancer. They propose to very nearly destroy our freedom in order to save it.

As unpleasant as that is, the means by which we've learned much of this makes me very uncomfortable. Men like Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning (whose name and gender change I must confess I have yet to internalize) and Julian Assange have taken it upon themselves to release very sensitive information on the grounds that the government is doing bad things in secret and should be exposed. I don't know.

Revolution?

Before I was born, the people of Iran were stuck with an unjust autocratic government. It was partly of our making, and a change of regimes was probably called for. I think that reasonable people were sorely disappointed by what followed. It's been a long, hard row for the good people of that nation to hoe, but there's just a ghost of a chance that the end of the bad days is in sight. As I write this, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Iranians are marching and demonstrating after what appeared to all the world to be a rigged election. It was one which kept out the reformer and kept in the despicable Ahmedinejad. A nationwide strike is in the offing, and if the movement hangs together, they will not have to hang separately( as Dr. Franklin said during our fight).