Day 18

Extremely rainy morning, most of which was given over to staying out of the elements. I dropped into the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress when the rain caught me as I was walking toward downtown, It is easy to spend time here amid the grandeur of late Victorian American extravagance. It is interesting to compare the obvious sense of self-importance that went into this grand presentation with the reality of our current situation - a nation dependent on foreign sources of energy, foreign financing for our bond sales, foreign support for our various self-serving policies in the world. Our vulnerability has never been so obvious - both to us and to others. I think it may be time to quit pretending that we are somehow exceptional and that other countries have to follow our lead. We are fast approaching a day of reckoning for which we are ill prepared.

With this kind of pessimistic attitude in place it is significant that my movie choice for the day was "The Baader Meinhof Complex" at E Street, a long and pretty dark portrait of the West German members of the Red Army Faction during the hectic political turmoil of the 70's - ending with their deaths which either were or were not suicides depending on how one interprets the story.