A Californian's Lament

Hasta La Vista, California / With Schwarzenegger as guv, CA prepares to devolve into a thick-necked, inarticulate joke: "This is what's about to happen. We are on the verge of electing a new governor of the largest and most powerful state in the nation, the one with the fifth largest economy in the world and the most frighteningly intricate political infrastructure and infinitely complex and delicate network of water/energy/environment/immigrant/agriculture issues in existence, just one year after electing the last one.

And we are, apparently, if the polls are correct -- and you should right this minute pray they're not -- about to hand the reins of this massive state over to a wildly mediocre semiarticulate muscle-bound power-hungry famously sexist actor with zero political experience and zero real-world awareness and zero communication of anything resembling detailed public policy, except for what much-loathed former guv Pete Wilson and his caveful of leering Bushites is feeding him.

Oh, what an absurd and dangerous hell we have wrought. "