Photo by Camilo, taken Dec 30, 2003

By Friday, I was tired out after a week of late nights at work, and early mornings at the gym. My alarm went off at 6.00 so that I could theoretically go to the gym before work, but I was just too tired, so gave myself a day off from working out. The night before had been easier - I'd pretty much finished up by 6.30, so I had the evening to myself. The plan had been to have dinner with Chris, but the frigid weather and a couple of inches of snow meant that he couldn't make it in from New Jersey. So I ordered room service, and watched "Freaky Friday" on the hotel movie system, all the while struggling against falling asleep (I can't sleep within two hours of eating because I wake up not breathing.)

On Thursday, my stand-off with Jeff, the database specialist, had cooled to a professional discourse where we could at least address each other by voice. I decided to write him a letter saying that I felt we ought to try to come to an understanding about our differences. I even deposited it in the basket for internal mail. But as the day wore on, he began to thaw and look me in the eye again. I hate confrontation, and I decided to swallow my pride (not an easy thing for me to do) and let the issue drop.

All in all, it's been a good week. A lot of great work accomplished, and several powerful workouts at Golds Gym on 54th Street. I lost five pounds over the course of being ill for ten days, so I'm trying to beef up a little. And now it's back to San Francisco for a brief weekend of warmer weather before flying back to New York again on Monday.

The highlight of next week will be the Iowa caucuses. I'm fascinated by electoral politics, and have been following the Democratic primary campaign for months. At first I was strongly impressed by Dean. Like many other Democrats, I felt he was the only one with the guts to criticize Bush and his cronies not only for their destructive domestic and international policy, but also for their mendacity, secrecy and paranoia.

But at the back of my mind, I was always worried that he could never get elected - although I think he'd make a terrific President. The reason I stuck with him was that I didn't see anything I could warm to in the others. None of the others seem to understand that in holding to middle-of-the-road politics as usual they were just giving the contest to the Republicans. As was demonstrated in the last Congressional elections where the Republicans easily defeated, against the odds, the wishy-washy, don't-rock-the boat Democrats.

I had great hopes for General Clark, because he could take the battle right to Bush in the heart of his perceived strong-suit, national security. But he started off his campaign with a sequence of bobbles, and didn't seem to be generating any heat. Now, though, things seem to be changing; Clark is coming on more strongly, and I'm ready to switch my support, such as it is, to his campaign. And he has one important thing in common with Dean: the willingness to take Bush on and call a spade a spade. The willingness to say that Bush does nothing for the sake of improving society, but only if it either benefits his campaign contributors and wealthy friends, or if it wins over a few more votes. The willingness to say that this self-righteous President is dragging the good name of the United States into the mud, and robbing us of our civil rights, all for a big lie - the lie that Iraq posed an imminent danger to our national security. I still can't quite understand what motivated him to go into Iraq: it was either personal - for revenge against the attempted murder of his father; or it was to frighten us enough into continuing to vote for the party we associate with military strength. Either way it was, as Gore has said, probably the single worst foreign policy decision in our history.

What really bugs me above all else is that our media lets Bush get away with murder. There is no forthright criticism of his policies, and no pointed analysis of the reasons behind them. If this guy had been a Democrat, he'd have been vilified by now, and probably impeached. So forgive me, just this once, if I rant. Not only do I have to get it off my chest, but I don't want to be part of the silent choir that is letting Bush destroy the fabric and traditions of this country.