2009: NO ONE EVER SAID IT WOULD BE A FUN YEAR

Recent news reports attest to one truism concerning the human condition: the more things change, the worse things get. New years used to bring with them new hopes and notable changes. With all of five days down in A.D. 2009, this year promises to be one for the record books, and not for setting good records.

Three illustrative examples:

ONE: War Is Hell

William Tecumseh Sherman is credited with the brutally honest observation that “War is hell,” but the ongoing Gaza conflict has added a whole new dimension to that sage reflection.

Death and destruction are the handmaidens attendant on any war and collateral damage is always a sad and unfortunate by-product, but when it comes to the deaths of children as a facet of that damage, then bloody battles seem bloodier by far.

The savage forces of Hamas have taken the horror of war a step further. Rather than respecting the victims of an Israeli bomb attack, they chose to exhibit the lifeless bodies of the dead children of Hamas leader Nizar Rayan in a bizarre and ghastly funeral march.

Not content with simply tarnishing Israel with the fact that Israelis had killed ten of his children and his four wives, Hamas employed Rayan’s dead children as props in the battle for world opinion, brazenly and shamelessly parading them in all their grisliness for all the world to see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1104296/Bodies-Hamas-leaders-children-paraded-group-promises-painful-revenge-deaths.html.

Israel’s hands are filthy in the assault on Gaza but, compared to Hamas’, they are pristine. Both sides are proving Sherman correct. War is indeed hell but some hells are worse than others.

TWO: More Flying Dirt

President-elect Barack Hussein Obama is finding that the path to his new residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is more pockmarked and potholed than the rocky road to Dublin. Teflon-coated during the presidential campaign when slime such as Ayers and Dohrn and Rezko and Wright failed to stick to his hallowed garments, Obama is discovering his media-generated mystique doesn’t extend to his retinue.

It seems transitioning is even more challenging than bowling.

First, it was soon-to-be hatchet man/chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel...

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)