Peggy Johnson Crocker's Choice

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," reporting from the front lines of a nation gone to the dogs ... when it should be going to the gods.

Yesterday's Philaelphia Inquirer reports the death of Cpl. Carl W. Johnson II of Philadelphia, victim of a bomb blast in Iraq. Cpl. Johnson was a graduate of Simon Gratz High School in the city. He played football. He was nice-looking and friendly.

Carl Johnson was the only son of Peggy Johnson Crocker. (No relation to this Johnson). This is what Cpl. Johnson's mother told the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"I didn't want him to go in the service. But I figured either the streets are going to absorb him or Uncle Sam was going to absorb him. So I stood behind him."

Ah, what a Sophie's Choice this African American mother faced! The streets of Philly (more than 300 gunshot deaths already this year), or the streets of Baghdad.

Americans, are you proud of this?

Let us not overlook the fact that it is possible to buy one gun every day in Pennsylvania. In a year you can have 365 guns in your family room. If I'd been in this mother's shoes, I think I'd have found active combat a safer option as well.

Except sometimes it isn't. Roll the dice. Your child's life hangs in the balance.

How can Republicans call themselves the party of "family values?" If Republicans really valued families, they'd be doing all they could to find ways to educate and assure employment to fine young people in the cities, in the country ... wherever there are families who (Rapture be damned) are really Left Behind.

A mother and her son should have more options than death and death. If you disagree, you must be a "right to life" Republican.

Blow winds, blow. Blow away these troubled times.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS