[With a final chapter 34 and an Epilogue to go, The Jade Steps is nearing completion.  So it's worth re-emphasizing again that The Jade Steps is a true story.  Every principal event described actually happened, every named person really lived and had that name.  It all happened almost 500 years ago, but it still remains the cause of the civil war within Mexico's soul.  Mexico will never rise out of the Third World until this spiritual wound is healed.  That is the purpose of this book.]   The Jade Steps Chapter Thirty-Three:  Reaping The Whirlwind   "Doña Marina! Doña Marina!"  Someone was screaming at her, shaking her violently.  It was Doña Luisa.  Dazed from fainting, Malinali stared at the woman in confusion.  "You must not stay here! The Aztecs are attacking!"  She heard the words with no understanding.  She felt herself being pulled roughly to her feet and pushed into a run.  They reached a set of trees.  She looked around in bewilderment.  There was this incredible noise, but it seemed so far away. She looked in the direction of the noise and saw the Tacuba causeway.  It was filled with screaming Aztec warriors swinging their macuahuitl obsidian-edged wooden swords and racing towards Pedro de Alvarado and his men.  Somehow the sight of it seemed as distant as the noise.  Suddenly, like the wave of a storm, the full sight and the sound of the battle crashed upon her.  She heard claps of thunder, but the sky was clear.  Then she saw the brigantines in the lake on either side of the causeway, firing their canons into the Aztec mass.  She recognized the captain of one of the ships, Juan Jaramillo, the officer who had protected her during La Noche Triste. She saw Pedro de Alvarado lead his horsemen into a charge straight into the Aztecs, as the musketmen and crossbowmen formed positions on the edges of the causeway to fire into them.  So many Aztec warriors had filled the causeway in their fury and rage to get at the Spaniards that they couldn't move.  They just became targets for the cannons and muskets and arrows and the hooves of war horses.  They died in the hundreds, and still more hundreds, until they gave up the assault, retreating back into the city shouting insults and taunts that they had killed... Then the terrible sight that had caused her to faint appeared before her eyes, the bloody head of Cortez bouncing and rolling in the dust, and she screamed in horror.  Doña Luisa embraced her and she clung to the Tlaxcalan princess, sobbing uncontrollably for "My Captain, my Captain..."  She finally let go, and, whispering her thanks, she walked alone along the shoreline to stare vacantly out upon the waters of Lake Texcoco.

What is it with little guys with egos as big as their billionaire bank accounts who think they can get elected President of the United States as a third party independent? Beats me.  But while it was horrifically destructive the last time - in 1992 - it may be marvelous today.  Right now, I'm rootin' for Bloomie. Ross Perot was five-foot-six.  Michael Bloomberg is maybe a half-inch taller.  We owe the Clinton Presidency to Perot - the 19% of the vote he gained was mostly a protest against George H. W. Bush.  If Perot had not run, Clinton would have lost.  Thanks, Ross. Now Little Mikey thinks it's his turn to come to America's rescue.  I can see the ad now, Bloomie strolling along a sun-kissed beach, looking straight into the camera, and saying: "Hi, America!  I know what you're suffering from, causing you so much frustration and anxiety.  You're a victim of Electile Dysfunction - the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year.  You want a cure for this terrible malady, America?  Well, you're looking at it - me, Mike Bloomberg for President."

The Washington Post, flagship of the liberal elite in our nation's capital, ran the most marvelously revealing story this week (1/15).  In typical heart-tugging WaPo style, Emergency Care Waits Found To Be On Rise described the growing nationwide "deadly" crisis of hyper-crowded hospital emergency rooms. After providing examples and stats showing how much longer it takes to see a physician in an emergency room, the article listed the causes of this "frightening trend."  Guess what they don't mention.   The idiom "elephant in the room" refers to ignoring something overwhelmingly obvious, pretending it doesn't exist.  Liberals take this one step further - they really don't see the elephant, they willfully blind themselves to the elephant's existence, in this case taking up most of the space in the emergency room of most of the hospitals in the country. Any of you who have been in an ER recently know exactly what I am talking about:  they are overflowing with illegal aliens speaking a torrent of Spanish demanding free medical care. It's another example of why the issue of illegal immigration is such an Achilles Heel for Democrats in November.

Last Sunday (1/13), the New York Times published a 7,000-word investigative report (it started on the front page under a three column hed above the fold, and filled more than two full pages inside) that is a testament to what can be accomplished by journalists who lack brains or integrity, but who possess an agenda. The theme of the story, headlined "Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles," is that veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, scarred by the horrors they experienced, have launched a murder spree upon returning to the United States. Apparently Ms. Sontag and Ms. Alvarez did a search of the Nexis database of newspaper articles and found 121 stories of murders committed by veterans since the war on terror began. They then described some of those murders in lugubrious and exhaustive detail. Ms. Sontag and Ms. Alvarez apparently have learned what little they "know" about the military from Rambo movies, and never learned much about statistics.  Their story doesn't just grossly exaggerate and sensationalize a problem, it fabricates one that mostly doesn't exist.  It's the sloppiest, most biased story I've ever seen in journalism.

Which presidential contenders would be best for the economy and which ones worse? Unfortunately, much of the campaign has revolved around a series of largely meaningless sound bites and words like "change." Some candidates find they can get away with policy prescriptions totally disconnected from their stated goals and empty platitudes, because many in the press demand nothing more, even in the "debates." I suspect that there are millions of other such voters who haven't a clue about various candidates' positions, let alone understand the actual implications of their declared policies.  So let's discuss them, one by one, and see if that helps us answer the question.

Sen. John Kerry always seems to be a day late and a dollar short. Today (1/10), Sen. Kerry traveled to South Carolina to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president: "Who better to turn a new page in American politics?" Sen. Kerry said at a rally with Sen. Obama at the College of Charleston.  "We are electing judgment and character, not years on this earth." There is nothing wrong with the choice of Sen. Obama to endorse, or (for Democrats) the reasons Sen. Kerry gave for endorsing him, which included Sen. Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq "from the beginning."  But the timing was weird. Then again, John Kerry always seems weird.

If you Google "Obama" and "assassination" you will get 384,000 hits. All over the world, the media is speculating on the possibility.  Typical is the January 8 (the day of the New Hampshire primary) headline in one of Australia's major newspapers, The Australian: Obama Must Be Wary of the Assassin's Gun. The "news angle" of thousands of such stories is the same.  The first line of The Australian story is:  "Barrack Obama is crazy brave.  His victory in Iowa puts him in the crosshairs of many a gun-toting racist for whom the thought of a black president is an abomination." It's the drumbeat theme echoing around the globe:  evil racist-fascist right-wing war-mongering child-eating nazi conservatives will always destroy America's hopes of being a peaceful humanitarian nation. After all, it was just such a fascist-nazi right-winger that murdered JFK and killed Camelot, right?  What's that?  Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist?  Oh... Please ignore that impossibly embarrassing fact.  Especially since it brings up the real question that no liberal dares to think, much less ask: Will Hillary find an Oswald of her own to take out Obama?