Too many stories this week. We’ll have to hit as many as we can as briefly as we can. We said last week that John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court couldn’t be stopped and that still appears to be true, but it’s interesting that the Bush administration is saying, now, that some of the documents accumulated by Roberts during his employment under the Reagan presidency are secret and none of the business of Democrats in the US Senate. The Bush gang reveals, therefore, that it has something to hide about Roberts.

Looks like the administration is getting most everything it wants, with the full cooperation of the Democrats, on continuing the so-called Patriot Act indefinitely. No surprise there, but a few explosions in London and in Egypt are custom made to grease the skids for public acceptance of a permanent end to what we’ve called "freedom" in this country from the beginning. I can look at the condition of the world’s political condition from at least two different directions, but neither one leads to a conclusion with a solution.

First, we’re told that radical Islamic terrorists are walking around everywhere with bombs under their shirts, willing and anxious to die just to stick it to a few infidels. Many of us in the infidel world respond by saying, "What do you expect when the western world treats the Islamic world like livestock to be slaughtered for profit?" So maybe we in the western world could fix it all by changing our avaricious ways. That’s probably true, but it might take a few generations, even if we start today, and besides, why should anyone try to appease terrorists? In the meantime, the world is at war, sort of. War used to be a game played by certain rules. Guys with uniforms would confront each other, sort of like a football game, except with live ammunition. As time passed, the ammunition got bigger and louder, but the game was basically the same. Not anymore. Imagine a football game in which one side blocks and tackles while the other side gets to use brass knuckles and switchblade knives. War is primitive again. There is no defense against a guy with plastic explosives taped to his belly.

Another way to see it is the way the Bush gang describes it. We can fight suicide bombers by colonizing Iraq and draining it dry of oil. We can fight suicide bombers by running a bunch of soldiers into Afghanistan and claiming we just can’t seem to find that Osama guy. The Bushwhacker tells us that terrorists attack us because they hate our freedom. Therefore, we’ll have to give up a bunch of our freedom. I don’t actually believe that line of talk, but even if I did, it sounds just as much like appeasement as changing our ways. Something’s wrong with this picture. There’s sure to be another way to look at it, but someone doesn’t want us to know about it. I’m not promoting any conspiracy theories, you understand. I just don’t like the quality of the information I’m getting.

Like the nature of warfare, the nature of labor relations is going back to primitive too. The biggest labor organization in the country disintegrated in Chicago this week when two of its primary member unions opted out of the umbrella of the AFL-CIO. That doesn’t mean there are any fewer union workers in the world, but it’s a clue that "solidarity" isn’t too solid anymore. But at the same time, workers in individual companies are starting over from scratch with job actions based on their specific grievances. This may be a good trend.

The labor movement in the US has radical roots. In the 1920s and 30s, if you joined a union, wrote favorably about unions, or actually went on strike, you were a commie and you put your life and livelihood in danger. The cops represented the companies, and they didn’t try to hide it. After the labor unions became comfortably established, however, they became almost indistinguishable from the companies. The modern working person may belong to a union, but he or she sees it as just another deduction on the paycheck stub. The memory of the suffering that it took to establish those unions has been forgotten by the workers and the unions. It may just be time to rebuild from the ground up.

Try to squeeze in a couple of local things. A good crowd showed up last week at a meeting put on by the City of Grass Valley to promote the plan for what amounts to a freeway access to Highway 49 south of town. The crowd that showed up was against it. Two facts stand out. The highway is not a freeway at that location, and it’s not in the city of Grass Valley. The mere fact that this meeting took place, therefore, was based on the assumption that 49 will become a freeway, and Grass Valley will annex the area. Quite a few people showed up to tell city officials that they weren’t fooled. They know the city is doing these things so the people who are planning major residential development south of town can make plenty of money.

The town of Truckee has decided to install parking meters. That’s okay, I guess. Truckee isn’t obsessed with historical preservation like Nevada City, which has parking meters but insists on telling people how the outside of their houses must look in the interest of history. Nevada City learned long ago, however, that the meters don’t make any money. As soon as they figured that out, they stopped employing a parking enforcement officer. What the meters accomplish is keeping the in-town parking available for the tourists. The people who work there have to park somewhere else. Truckee probably has the same idea.

I read a few days ago that a bar in Grass Valley–the place formerly known as the Silver Dollar, but now called the Lucky Bar–has imposed a dress code. Think about that. The last indoor place in Grass Valley where you could light up a smoke without being tossed out on the street is now the place where they’ll toss you out if you’re not dressed well enough. The Lucky Bar doesn’t sound like the place to get lucky. I predict six months to new ownership.

Moving on to the entertainment news, Doonesbury got yanked from a few newspapers again, this time for using Dubya’s favorite nickname for Karl Rove–Turd Blossom. And the obituaries include Michigan J. Frog. WB put that guy in his grave with an announcement that the network was looking to attract a more mature audience. Hello my baby; hello my darlin’.