Okay, so I was a brutal dictator. Big deal. I freely admit that. But at least I was able to keep the damn lights on, and most Iraqis are only now beginning to appreciate that.



Look folks, life is NEVER simple, and anyone who tells you it is, is either a liar or some self-serving self-help guru who's so full of camel crap he can't tell his tuckus from a pile of WMD's. Look at Martha Stewart: She's always telling people how they make a lovely centerpiece out of discarded Kleenexes or some such thing. So you end spending 36 hours building the stupid thing when it would have been a hell of a lot simpler to just go out and buy one.



Assuming, of course, you're the kind of person who uses centerpieces. In which case you probably also make your guests use that stack of matching coasters you have sitting on the end table. And don't EVEN get me started on doilies!!!! If your life is so empty that you sit around worrying about doilies, well, you need to get a life. And one more thing: If you're a man, and your house house has centerpieces and doilies in it, your wife has you more whipped than Ben Affleck is by J. Lo! And if you're an unmarried, single man who frets about coasters, you must be... an Episcopalian bishop.



Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that life is always full of tradeoffs. In this case, the occasional disappearing relative or loved one was the price people paid for a reliable, uninterrupted flow of electrons.

----------Bruce Plante, Chattanooga