Happy New Year

For a lot of people, numbers are important. I'm not just talking about numbers in general, but those even sorts of numbers. Tenth anniversary, Twenty-fifth reunion, first annual ... junk like that. Usually, it has something to do with a celebration. Whatever the reason, the twelfth, third or forty-second anniversaries aren't as important. Turn 40 years old, and people start hanging black crosses on your desk. At 41, you're a forgotten man.

That's what makes it so odd that our president is just not figuring out that the war in Iraq is kind of a big deal, and maybe he needs to re-think his approach. One headline said, "Time to reflect as death toll reaches 3,000". Another told us that U.S. Peace Groups have begun to rally now that the toll has reached that milestone number.

"We must bear witness to this tragic milestone, even though many people are already beginning their celebrations of the new year," the group United for Peace and Justice said on its Web site.

A tragic milestone? Sure. A milestone is defined as a "significant event in your life". That it is, but what makes it more significant than death #2,874 or death #1,540? Some even number that our brain tells us is significant, when what it really is, is just as tragic as the first or twelfth death. Death is death, and wrong is wrong, numbers notwithstanding.
Tell the parents of the 1,326th soldier that died over there that his or her death was not a milestone compared to the 3,000th. It's just a number, folks. Even or odd, it's a number.
Just as we have not progressed far enough as a society to have abandoned the silly ideas of superstition, we have not advanced far enough to realize that something that is wrong now was wrong then, regardless of what the people at Fox News or their Washington bureau, the White House tell us.

Apparently, our president is just now waking up to the fact that the number is of some milestone proportion, while he continues to be a millstone around the neck of progress in this country.
Here's a milestone number for you: 749 days until we relieve ourselves of this living, breathing encumberance to progress that sits in his office at the Fox News Washington bureau.

God rest the 3,000 who have died over there, and God bless the 134,000 who are there now. May they celebrate New Year's 2008 here at home, where they belong.