The New York Times reports that 400 dams were damaged in the Sichuan earthquake. One dam upriver from Dujiangyan, one of the hardest-hit cities, has "dangerous cracks."

DailyKos diarists continue to break stories days ahead of mainstream news outlets. Today's New York Times is a case in point, with stories about food riots and Iceland's economic collapse. It is the final paragraph of the NYT story on food riots that broke this mother's heart, and prompts this diary.

Not long ago I wrote a diary, Is life on earth falling apart (or is it just me)?. Since then, we seem to have continued on an ever-accelerating track toward political, economic, and environmental disaster.

This diary presents a kind of "pre-requiem" for America and for life on Earth, both in the form of lists. Despite the grim title and content, however, I am surprised to find that I am optimistic about having to confront the Chinese proverb-curse, "May you live in interesting times." ("Interesting" is the very least one can say about life these days.)

After writing my recent diary, "Is life on Earth falling apart (or is it just me)?", I spent some time following the links people provided in their comments. One site linked to yet another -- a sort of "survivalist" site that recommended assessing what one could use for food in one's immediate environment.

I know exactly what the most plentiful, easily-available source of food is where I live right now, and it is not something that makes me smile.

Kagro X's hilarious frontpage coverage yesterday of reporters assigned to cover the Clinton campaign in Austin being relegated to using a men's room as their press headquarters inspired me to waste a diary take on the persona of intrepid reporter Belle LaTrine, a stringer working on rotation for Reuters (in other words, a "roto-Reuter"). Here is her report.

Time speeds up as one gets older. When I was 10, the next passing year represented 1/10 of my life. Now each year is 1/50-plus... you see what I mean. I am closer than ever to an end-game that comes ever more swiftly. Has the shortening of years skewed my perspective about the seemingly exponential increase in intractable problems facing humanity? Or are things really going from bad to worse, and if so, can the downward spiral be stopped? Reversed?

I'm all for charisma, I'm all for excellent oratory (especially after 7+ years of bumbling incoherence), and I'm all for youthful energy (even as I see my own retreating). But what I'm really for is a president who will boldly push forward initiatives and ideas and programs that will answer the many crises created or greatly abetted by years of BushCo malfeasance. In short, as admirable as JFK was, we need a new FDR.

"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." Hello out there: this is not an "either-or" proposition.

There are two basic kinds of war monuments here in France. The most ubiquitous and easy to find are those commemorating the fallen of World War I -- "the war to end all wars." There is at least one in every town and every hamlet, no matter how small, and all bear impossibly long lists of names of those who died "for the glory of France."

There are other monuments, often just plaques, affixed to what seem to be random walls and fences and buildings, scattered here and there in cities and suburbs: these are from World War II, and they commemorate a specific act at a specific moment in time that occurred on that very spot: members of the Resistance executed by the Nazis, for example.

What kind of monument will be built in Iraq?

I often spar with conservative commentators responding to editorials and letters to the editor in the Salt Lake Tribune (my choice of newspaper reflects the lingering after-effects of my Mormon upbringing; no surprise here). Just yesterday I had a long exchange with an individual who believes withdrawing from Iraq will be a tragic mistake -- that we must stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to provide stability, etc., etc.

Most Kossacks already know most of the arguments one can (and I did) use to counter this line of reasoning. But later (essentially too much later to be a viable part of the thread), as I thought more about Iraq, I wished that I had brought up the following point, which I think is crucial to the future dynamic we will inevitably see in Iraq and (god forbid!) elsewhere:

I ask this question seriously: Is a Clinton-Obama ticket (or Obama-Clinton ticket) possible? feasible? desirable? Come the convention, will the primary season wounds inflicted be too deep to overcome?

From my quite isolated vantage point across the Atlantic, I see two strong candidates who together appeal to an astonishingly broad demographic, and I am hardly alone in hoping for unity (and the earlier the better).  

I also see the Republicans in the wings sharpening their racist, sexist, and "compassionately conservative" knives.

Yesterday I posted a diary in which I predicted that active Mormon voters in California would carry the state for Mitt, he being the "white horse" candidate and all (you'll have to read yesterday's diary to understand the reference).

I was wrong. And as I promised in my "tip jar," I am hereby posting a retraction of my foolish prediction.

According to the official church website, there are 750,000+ Mormons in California, a fair number of whom are voters. Of those Mormon voters, the vast majority will be voting for and canvassing for Mitt Romney. So don't be surprised when Mitt carries California at the end of the day. It's all part of his Destiny (from a Mormon point of view).

I have not participated in the Candidate Diary Wars, and only in my last diary did I indicate my preference for John Edwards, who is no longer an active contender.

But as an American citizen, an ex-pat who is currently a legal resident of France, I have at least one very specific concern which I hope will be addressed -- no, that must be fixed -- by the new Democratic president, whoever she or he may be: rolling back the extra-Constitutional powers granted to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Would that this problem were fixed long before Inauguration Day 2009!

With our usual efficiency, my husband and I woke up one morning a few weeks back and said to each other, "When's the primary election in Massachusetts?" As luck would have it, we still had another 48 hours to get an official postmark on our written requests for our absentee ballots, and in theory, the ballots would show up in time for us to vote and get them mailed back in time for Super Tuesday, February 5th.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere following a successful 16-day mission. Later investigation determined that a hole had been punched into one of the wings by a piece of insulation that had fallen off from the external fuel tank during lift-off.

Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. the Mormon Church) died a few hours ago in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of 97. Hinckley had served as the head of the church for 12 years. Prior to becoming president, he had served as a counselor under several previous church presidents, effectively running the church as these leaders became incapacitated due to age or illness. He was known for his skill in handling the media.

The current Candidate Diary Wars bring to mind my experience during the 2004 election year while employed as the principal of a tiny, private American school housed in a French public school. Our ~50 students (representing about 30-35 families) were about two-thirds American ex-pats; the rest were from about eight other anglophone countries.

Normally, election years present excellent opportunities for history, poly sci & civics teachers to foster research and debate among their students. So bitterly rancorous and divided was the situation in our tiny school, however, that I did something I never thought I would ever have to do: I forbad political discussion in our classrooms and in the school (and host school) generally. "Why" is below the fold.