Fatale Abstraction

As a person with a cousin on death row in California's San Quentin, I say "God bless Arnold Schwarzenegger." I think fiscally and socially Arnie has made great strides in improving the future for California, and I think it was daring for him to take the tremendous pay cut to serve the public as a state official. I believe he has more important things to worry over than whether to bow to political pressure from nattering nabobs in his hometown of Graz Austria. Considering how people in other countries - particularly France - crowed smugly about how the national (but not the local or state) government didn't respond to help Katrina victims in NOLA, and considering the US press was WAAAAYYY more deferential to France when their little social problem erupted into terror in the suburbs of Paris, I think a more critical view need be taken of what other countries say about us, rather than using this as "constructive" criticism. Unlike letters to editor in most publications I read blaming our federal government for racism and elitism in its "non-response" to Katrina, I have yet to read a single letter or hear pundits on news programs crowing about similar cracks in the veneer of French society as indicated by the riots. Incidentally, I saw a news article last week that said that most fatalities from Katrina where white - fancy that! Therefore, I think we are wise to keep our own counsel with regard to the way the US handles everything. Democracy is the one true hope for the prosperity, health and general wellbeing of everyone in the world, and I don't see anyone but us and sore few others striving to spread the notion of individual liberties throughout the world. We should continue to send workers to help innoculate people against disease, install safe water and irrigation systems, and sponsor literacy programs throughout the world. By the way, if you'd like to make a small (or large) gesture to help someone in a lesser-developed nation, I think Heifer International is one of the best charities I've ever heard of, and I intend to give some bees to a family through that organization, and plan to do so in years to come. Haters. They're out there. I say we stick to doing what we do best and let the haters squirm as we improve the world and win the hearts and minds of those we help.