Matriculation
Having returned a few days ago from nearly two weeks in Costa Rica -- pura vida, indeed -- I'm only now beginning to muster the interest in wading back into American news.
Traveling abroad has always been good for perspective on one's home country, of course, but in recent years the difference in tenor between life here in the States and elsewhere has grown noticeably more discordant.
As little as twelve years ago, you'd return from an extended trip abroad with the typical homesickness of the itinerant traveler: a new-found appreciation for the small familiarities of your native land, for the cleanliness of American streets and the friendliness of the American people.
With a few gifts for your friends and family, and the requisite jar of Nutella, you were usually glad to be home.
These days, the return is much more stark -- and it's not simply because one is returning home from a vacation.
There's no point in saying how terrible the American media is, how God-awfully tasteless the constant commercials for irritable bowel syndrome and erectile dysfunction and restless leg syndrome are, how bludgeoning the appeals to spend spend spend the money you don't have but still can borrow feel -- but when you first walk into an American airport after some time abroad, and face the full auditory assault of American television enfilading you from the widescreen TVs, it's clear (again) that whatever the television is saying or selling, it bears no real relation to actual life as it is lived by the vast majority of people in this world -- and you pledge, again, to stay as disconnected from that miserable electronic tether for as long you can.
And for a few days you do, until the echoes of another way of living and being start to dissipate into memory, and out of ill-formed habit you wander over to Atrios "just to see what is going on."
And there you find this:
Admiral Fallon is resigning as chief of Centcom sez CNN.
Last December, when the National Intelligence Estimate downgraded the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, it seemed as if Fallon's caution was justified. But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don't want a commander standing in their way.
Thanks for nothing, Atrios.
