What We Have

So much good fodder out there this week for blogging, what with Cheney running his mouth about how awesome torture has been for the US at the same time as an actual interrogator testifies before the Congressional torture committee--from behind an elegant screen, no less!--that torture doesn't actually work and made a previously compliant Abu Zabaydah clam up tighter than Cheney's puckered titanium asshole, and Obama wanting to release more abuse 'n' mayhem photos before deciding that maybe that wouldn't be such a hot idea after all, and evidence that Nancy Pelosi actually did know about the torture program until Cheney flapped jowls about that as well and indicated that the briefing in question maybe wasn't all that informative after all, and Dan Choi--who leads an infantry platoon and speaks Arabic and very much likes serving in Iraq--getting Don't Ask Don't Telled out of the National Guard in the same week that a guy on his third tour who very much does not like being in the Army kills five other soldiers in a counseling center in Baghdad.

So much to say, and every commenter out there has already said it, so I better by God jump on board and chime in, but...

A vignette: Many years ago, left to my own devices, I turned to gardening and fancied the idea of tomatoes. I dutifully started seeds in an egg carton on the windowsill, delighted in the tiny sprouts, and--certain that prime gardening time was zooming by and leaving me in the dust--planted them in a backyard plot way too early. They were dead within three days. I spent the next several weeks muttering and raking around the aloes, occasionally spraying the hose in the general direction of the fence, and then one day I walked out and happened to glance at an abandoned and semi-forgotten clay pot that had been shoved up against the wood. A vagrant seed had taken up residence sometime when I wasn't paying attention, when I was distracted by the umpteen doomed little seedlings I was hell-bent on making work. And now it had turned into a very perky, foot-tall tomato plant that was doing just fine on its own. Hiya, it said. What's a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?

Anyway. Forced writing is about as pleasant to read as forced gardening is to eat, that is, pretty dry and gritty and unpleasantly crispy. As soon as something bubbles up on its own, you'll see it here first.