Unhappy and mean

This local urban street art feels appropriate to this summer of discontent and general meanness. Knowing the neighborhood, I do not doubt that people do sometimes involuntarily sleep in that doorway.

Meanwhile our overlords in Washington play politics with the U.S. economy. Some Republicans are willing to crash the whole thing for short term political gain. Our purported Democratic defenders of government for the general welfare seem mesmerized by the prospect of appearing statesmanlike by giving away the fruit of a century of people's struggle for social equity.

Like the idiotic wars of choice of the '00s, this crazed and self-defeating behavior seems incomprehensible to a mere citizen. Perhaps a people who have enjoyed the security of living for half a century in a unchallenged world-dominating power are driven slightly mad when that power ebbs.

Madness in the powerful is dangerous to us and to the world. It's a mean season.