TIME TRAVEL

Time has been a blur since we arrived home on Thursday evening--in part because of the eight-hour difference between here and London, in part because of the re-orientation needed to get my feet back on the ground.  I have two projects left uncompleted earlier this month, the new book, "Slow Looking," and the reconstructed website.  They need my attention, and I have not yet been able to focus clearly on either one of them.  Then there's the usual clutter of business accumulated in my absence and, too, most importantly, catching up with family...

Luka is headed over a little later with morning with his mom.  It will be a joy to see him again.  Sarah tells us he has changed enormously in just the three weeks we have been gone, and three weeks is certainly a long time in the life of a not-yet one-year-old.  His birthday comes up not this Sunday, but next, just a couple of days before election day.

Speaking of which--and to add to the confusion in my head--I find it hard to square the apparent resurgence of Romney's candidacy with his performance in the two last debates, let alone with news of outrageous comments by himself, his surrogates and his fellow-Republicans in the past few days.  It's hard, particularly, to understand how he can attract the support of women, whose health and economic welfare he blithely passes over.  Now his blatant appeal to the worst of racial prejudice and exploitation of class resentments is enough to disqualify him from the job he seeks.  Despite all this, there are polls that indicate that he's gaining ground.  Can they be believed?

It's enough to drive a person crazy.  In Europe, by the way, according to our purely personal and anecdotal polling, they almost universally believe that Americans have gone nuts.  From their perspective--and, I understand from the results of a recent survey, from the perspective of 20 nations out of 21 included--the presidential contest over here should not even be close.  Which is what I think.  Do we really want to put this country's fate in the hands of a man who has surrendered to every far right-wing demand, who refuses to distance himself from some of their most outlandish (and insulting) beliefs and explicit intentions, who will quite clearly do or say anything, no matter how irrational or contradictory, to seize office--even as he refuses to tell us how he will use it?

What century are we in, for God's sake?  No wonder I wake up and find myself confused.