"I may be eligible for two Purple Hearts, but with 10 months left to go I'm not looking for three," Whisenant said jokingly.

They don't have to be out to get you to get you.

My own hunch is that these voters do not like a massive increase in government spending, a huge jump in public debt, and a post-war policy in Iraq that seemed blindsided by reality. But here's my other belief, and it's about Abu Ghraib. The images from that prison shamed America in deep and inchoate ways. Traditional conservative patriots in particular were appalled. The awful truth is that this president presided over one of the most damaging blows to American prestige and self-understanding in recent history. He may not have been directly responsible; but it was on his watch. And he ensured that no one high up in his administration took the fall for the horror. I think traditional patriots were saddened, shocked and horrified by the abuse and, to a lesser extent, the Bush administration's self-protective response to it.

Wal-Mart may be a danger to competitors or even to retail clerks' unions. But it's hard to imagine the retailer damaging an entire state.

Yet that's the claim of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which last week listed Vermont among the nation's 11 most endangered historic places. The threat, the National Trust's news release said, is "an invasion of behemoth stores that could destroy much of what makes Vermont Vermont."

Preservationists should stick to saving historic buildings and neighborhoods from the bulldozer and wrecking ball. When they try to keep one company out of an entire state, they're really fomenting class warfare.

The common notion of cruising is "totally inconsistent," with what really occurs, he said.

McNeely said the cruising he sees goes far beyond high school kids heading up and down Highway 100 on a Saturday night.

"You have the loud, loud music going. People getting in and out of cars. People riding down the street hanging out of the sunroofs, hanging out the windows," McNeely said.

And it's often lewd, he said, with cruisers stopping to urinate in yards, and young women flashing their breasts from passing cars.

"It's likely they'll be topless as well as bottomless with a thong on," McNeely said.

Looking out at the words rushing out of my keys
Looking back at the commas gone by like so many speakers' fees
In ninety-one I was sophomore in English 101
I don't know what my point is now, I'm just running on

Running on - running on sentence
Running on - running fine
Running on - running outta thoughts
But I'm writing more lines

Gotta fluff what can when you're paid for each word
Trying not to cut your check by up to two thirds
By twenty-nine, I was pundit one and I called the Web my own
I don't know when those clause ran into the clause I'm on

Running on - running on sentence
Running on - running fine
Running on - running outta thoughts
But I'm writing more lines

Everything I know, everything I type
People keep on reading my low tripe
I don't know about anything but me
I can go all night, that'll be all write
If I can get me a book deal before I leave

Looking out at the words rushing out of my keys
I don't know how to tell you all just how badly this verb feels
I look around for editors I used to turn to shut me up
Looking into their cubes I see them running too

Running on - running on sentence
Running on - running fine
Running on - running outta thoughts
But I'm writing more lines

Buddy you really stet me
You know the way I wrote was fine
I'd love to stop it now but I'm writing more lines
You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
running outta thoughts but I'm writing more lines

I'm reporting live from <highway> and <highway> where several acres' of petroleum storage facilities sit unguarded behind a chain link fence. This morning, witnesses saw an SUV parkerd by the side of the road taking pictures. Inside the SUV, a dark-complected man with dark hair and a woman sped off at a suspiciously high rate of speed when approached. Authorities are investigating.

But that's the difference between then and now: the loss of proportion. They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren't a victim culture. They had a lot of crummy decisions and bureaucratic screwups worth re-examining, but they weren't a nation that prioritized retroactive pseudo-legalistic self-flagellating vaudeville over all else. They had hellish setbacks but they didn't lose sight of the forest in order to obsess week after week on one tiny twig of one weedy little tree.