"Given the events of the past two decades, it sure looks like China won the Cold War"

I can't remember who said that, but I would say, given the trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives wasted, the result, that the United States has achieved basically ZERO global advantage geopolitically, makes me realize that I have to agree.

Here on my computer at the college, I've asked numerous times to have Adobe Photoshop installed, seeing as we are part of the art department and manipulating images might be one of the activities we would like to do. But after five years, I've pretty much given up on that request. Besides, it turns out I can get what I want more or less done with the primitive Microsoft Paint (and I do miss the original 1980s MacPaint). Since my standards of graphic design are mediocre at best, this image suffices.

I slapped together this image yesterday with no actual theme in mind aside from a reference (about that in a minute), but since I wasted a half hour on it, I figure I'll try an wrap an essay around it. I rather like my work. Here it is!

"Don't Look in That Rear View Mirror!"

So, the reference is a quote an interview of Andrew Bacevich, author of the recent Washington Rules, who - paraphrased - said "Americans refuse to look at the smoking wreckage in our rear view mirror".

Americans do have a huge problem with history. We suffer our delusions, and keep moving forward in anticipation that someday we might get it right. The problem is, if you don't examine your past mistakes, you don't learn nothin', and, given our entire history as a nation, we won't learn nothin'. We will just happily whistle a tune as our big square wobbly head nods from side to side and we step heavily on the gas to put as much distance between us and our follies dismal failures as we can. And turn up that AM radio as loud as it will go (irony, AM radio is dying), so that we don't have to hear the screams and wailing of all the people we have helped.