View from the Mountain: Forty degrees and fog

You can always count on mountain weather changing. This time of year, my morning before work clothes include everything from a sweat shirt and jeans to shorts and tee shirt. We were setting record high temperatures last week, and this week we've gone back to some pretty cool temperatures.

With outside temperatures hovering around forty degrees Fahrenheit, we're lucky to have a separate heating system for our sunroom where we eat most of our meals. It didn't take me long to turn on the heat this morning.

As I was catching up on my reading last night, I ran across an article, "Pink Is the New Red," by Richard Morin in yesterday's Washington Post. It had this interesting passage.

Closer to home, Bush easily carried Virginia, by eight percentage points, two years ago. But a Post survey two weeks before last November's gubernatorial election found that Bush's job approval rating among likely voters in the commonwealth had fallen to 44 percent, while 55 percent disapproved of his performance.

I'm assuming that those numbers might be even more dramatic at this point. However, the set of numbers that stunned me were these.

Of course some states are still dependably Republican. But even these are not quite as red as they were a few years ago. For example, Utah residents showered Bush with 72 percent of their votes in 2004, his biggest win that year. But the latest statewide poll by the Desert Morning News/KSL-TV suggests that 61 percent approve of the job Bush is doing as president...

That's actually pretty wild. Then of course, if the HBO show, "Big Love," which we've stumbled across a couple of times, is any indication, Utah is a little different than the rest of the country. It's still hard to believe there's a state where over 60% of the people approve of the direction the administration is taking the country.

There was some good advice for the US in Canada's Toronto Star this morning. The editorial, "Iran's reckless course," had this to say.

Yet bleak as this picture is, it is too early to write off Iran's 68 million people, and bring on military action.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper should urge the Security Council to signal its resolve by April 28, the deadline it set for Tehran to suspend its military nuclear program. The UN should consider sanctions, including a travel ban on Iran's leaders, the freezing of the regime's assets and more trade restrictions. Iranians must understand that their policy has hurt their nation's interests.

At the same time, Bush should offer direct talks with Iran to ease tension.

Many Iranians would welcome a U.S. pledge not to press for regime change or to attack, if Iran agrees to shelve its military nuclear program, and to stop preaching Israel's destruction and embracing terror.

I keep telling myself that surely this time we've learned that military action isn't an easy fix. Unfortunately, I haven't see any signs that the current administration has picked up on any lessons that should have been learned by our little adventure in Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. Too bad the Romans aren't still around, they might have some advice for us about foreign occupations.

There was also an inspiring story in the Toronto Star, "T.O. woman finally gets justice in Cambodia." I'm amazed after reading the article that she was able to stay the course and win some justice.

Hannah had reason to celebrate when she left Cambodia in September 2004: the 25-year-old Toronto woman had made legal history by winning a conviction against a Cambodian military policeman who raped her at gunpoint at a beach resort south of Phnom Penh.

Unfortunately Hannah (not her real name) found out that the rapist was going to appeal the case. She managed to find the courage, expertise, and resources to go back, face her rapist once again, and see him sentenced to jail.

The leaves on the Virginia Creeper vines in the picture to the left are growing so fast that you can almost hear them at night. The Creeper vines add an almost jungle like quality to the forest behind our house. I know grape vines can kill a tree, but I've seen Creeper vines and trees survive together for a long time so I generally leave them alone.

There's high hope we might actually get our phones and Internet connectivity at our new downtown Roanoke office for Webmail.us today. Our sales team is looking forward to the chance to work together in our space, and demonstrate the effectiveness of being together as a team. Over the years, I've become convinced that workers in a team environment are more productive than workers who for one reason or another end up being home based. You can get a lot done from a home office, but really connecting with other people is a very good thing, and it is hard to do out of home offices. I should know since I've been working out of one for years.

There's one last article that I enjoyed this morning. The article, "First Family Shakeup," was in this morning's Washington Post. It's a spoof of President Bush deciding to replace his twins in his administration.

Anyway, the Josh-for-Andy swap didn't play quite as big as we hoped. Now, I'm getting killed with this general-a-day drumbeat on Rummy. So Uncle Don and Uncle Dick came up with this idea of replacing you two.

Naturally, Mommy and I were pretty reluctant, at first. But Uncle Don and Uncle Dick can be awfully persuasive -- especially when Uncle Dick's packing heat.

Your Gammy agrees. "Lose the twins," she said. "My 41 ditched Sununu." And you know there's no arguing with the Silver Fox once she's got her mind made up. She asked me to tell you it's nothing personal -- and for Pete's sake stop showing all that cleavage.

I won't spoil the punch line, since everyone could use a laugh during these days of nuclear saber rattling.