I have trouble with terminology that smacks of extreme power. Why they use the term czar in our federal government troubles me greatly. We have had a drug czar and an energy czar in recent years, but the latest - war czar - brings too much comparison to a Russia that experienced a bloody revolution. I think it is an ill-advised use of a term that can be substituted with a word that befits a democracy.
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We ate our noon lunch today in the Grizzly's Restaurant in the mall, and I could see through the tables to a television set hanging in the bar area. The headline I read spoke of another explosion in Iraq. We've become so used to these repeated events that most people don't give second thought to it. Our death toll there keeps rising, and I wish someone could explain to me what good we've done.
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I'm giving my attention of late to preparing for the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora this weekend. I told Mary that I hope I don't make a fool of myself up there on that stage. To prevent that I've been doing lots of practicing. The three pieces I've written for it deal with the severe winter of 1886-87, Teddy Roosevelt's experience in North Dakota, and an auction sale. A fourth piece is by Chris LeDoux - The Bull Rider, a comic piece. LeDoux was one heck of a performer but was felled by cancer a couple of years ago.
