The first step is always the hardest. I've been looking for the news item to get started with, and immediately encountered the typical editor's problem: what is the most important news of any given day? What's the story of the week, the month? Euro crisis? Occupy Wall Street? Neonazi terrorists in Germany? The latest antics of any or all candidates for the Republican presidential nomination? The two major Italian parties' pre-school kids behaviour as they decline to sit down and talk with each other even in a situation where their country is about to collapse? The prospective failure of Obama's super-committee?
So I've decided to commence on a more general and also personal note. What I find most disturbing in current political debates in the US is the frightening absence of civility. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing, nothing wrong with diametrical opposition, nothing wrong with passionate debate and heated argument, but the vilification, maliciousness and defamation currently displayed in the public discourse alarm me. How on earth is anyone supposed to solve the problem when there's so much screaming and wailing and bawling going on that it's almost impossible to hear one's own thoughts, let alone someone else's?
I am aware that a blog will make very little difference in this arena of ideologically blindsided loudmouths - maybe even no difference at all. But, hey, you may not win the lottery - but you most certainly won't unless you buy a ticket. (shol)