Good Morning, America

Here's hoping you all have a happy Dia de los Muertos! Now, if you're being traditional about the celebration, you should have set out your offrendas last night with the favorite foods of your dead relatives, and optional candy skulls. Being as best I can tell a few thousand miles from the nearest Latino community, I settled for cooking what might be described as a kosher approximation of my grandmother's fideo.

But if you really want to get on the good side of the spirits, I can think of a few tens of thousands of dead folks who'd probably like to see America fire the screw-ups who got them killed.

Incidentally, I was curious to know when was the last time a presidental election fell on All Souls' Day. Turns out to be that post-Vietnam, post-Watergate election that was a disaster for the Republican party, 1976. Take that however you will, but since I don't see another Regan coming down the GOP's pike anytime soon, I choose to be encouraged. And, while we're at this silly game, the time before that corresponds to Truman's 1948 suprise victory over Dewey, which proved early and conclusively that public opinion polling is, in fact, a black art.

To those who were concerned, incidentally: yesterday's suicide bombing was in Tel Aviv, and the only direct impact on Rehovot is that the place is crawling with soldiers now. Which affected me only insofar as I opted to skip being searched on my way into the Institute campus by cutting through my dorm. The consensus so far appears to be that there is absolutely nothing remarkable about the event, despite the seemingly loaded timing.

And now, the western hemisphere is starting to wake up; time to jack in. This should be interesting.