"Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial powers of government, had oppressed during thirteen years so many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to his master in personal strength and personal abilities." -Edward Gibbon on the death of Commodus

On a day of such relief to see the callow scion strangled in his bath retire to his Dallas mansion, it's easy to get carried away, but this passage would much exaggerate the credit due so many millions of subjects and with it the grandeur of George W. Bush.

Not my country? Nobody who remembers the dark pleasure of those post-September 11 days -- the voluptuous joy of unsheathing the sword without qualm or restraint, the relief of casting off tiresome pieties and giving rein -- can say that without reservation.

George W. Bush was not our Commodus. He was our Smerdyakov.

"You stood before me last time and understood it all, and you understand it now."
"All I understand is that you are mad."
"Aren't you tired of it? Here we are face to face; what's the use of going on keeping up a farce to each other? Are you still trying to throw it all on me, to my face? You murdered him; you are the real murderer, I was only your instrument, your faithful servant, and it was following your words I did it."
"Did it? Why, did you murder him?" Ivan turned cold.
Something seemed to give way in his brain, and he shuddered all over with a cold shiver. Then Smerdyakov himself looked at him wonderingly; probably the genuineness of Ivan's horror struck him.
"You don't mean to say you really did not know?" he faltered mistrustfully, looking with a forced smile into his eyes. Ivan still gazed at him, and seemed unable to speak.

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I didn't have the opportunity to post these photos of children watching Victory Day parades in Chelyabinsk, Russia, when they were current back on May 9. Now that I've shaken the dust of the road off, a long weekend (stateside) with a martial theme seems like a good enough excuse to me. Someday, this generation will come to you and ask, "what was the 'summer driving season'?"

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Last Thursday, workers and immigrants made a unified call for social justice in honor of May Day. By refusing to work, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union shut down all 29 West Coast ports to call for an end to the war in Iraq. And throughout the day, anti-war and pro-immigrant marches broke out all over San Francisco. Later that day, I took my video camera out to the Castro, San Francisco's gay neighborhood, to ask people how they felt about these issues, and to challenge the Human Rights Campaign for its recent endorsement of pro-war Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is running against anti-war and LGBT ally Tom Allen.

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Like most of the blogoverse, I've consented to the unsatisfying and barely compensated practice of selling myself to Google Adsense on my hobby blog, which I should add is pointedly non-partisan. I hardly monitor religiously the stuff Google pitches my paltry readership, but you get the occasional one that makes you scratch your head and flip back to the entry to figure out how it made the match. Other times, there's less mystery than an episode of Columbo. Like when you post about an execution in Iran, and you get ...

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No need to wait for the war to brush up on the background of American-Iranian relations. DIA users Just Foreign Policy is on a nationwide tour complete with this spanking-new high-quality YouTube documentary: They're out on the west coast as I write this -- catch them near you sometime soon ... and/or Donate to Just Foreign Policy or write your rep in support of diplomatic, not military, engagement with Iran.

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Earlier this month, the DIA blog quietly turned two, making this this our third Blog Day. I find I'm not able to write this with quite the gusto of years past, and indeed I'm in an overall bit of a blogging -- well, let's say "fallow" rather than "lull", shall we? Look, the Internet doesn't exactly need another post bemoaning overall powerlessness in the face of some truly awful stuff, so I won't write that post.* But without wallowing in the awful particulars, it's kind of a drag to muster true enthusiasm for the art of building Facebook groups for interchangeable office-seekers in the current climate. No? Well, I never claimed to have the strongest stomach. In such times, though, everyone needs a few gin joints full of amity and sorrows, still hanging out on some fringe of suddenly-choice real estate where the margins would be better if they just sold to Hooters like the joint across the way. Here's the company with whom I'm drowning my troubles these days:

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Among the coalition launching ImpeachCheney.org today are several DIA users including Brave New Films, whose video this is. H/t A Tiny Revolution, who asks, "In all of American history, has there ever been a government official who deserved impeachment more than Dick Cheney?"

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