The Other Election

Japan has them, too. There was one today. Here, though, the elected representatives elect one of their own to be the prime minister. We the People have to live with their choice, but if the chosen one doesn't keep us happy, we don't have to keep him for four (or eight) long years. Nice!

My favorite US columnist, Thomas L. Friedman of the NY Times, has this to say about political leadership in the US:

"If I were to draw a picture of America today, it would be of the space shuttle taking off. There is all this thrust coming from below [private enterprise]. But the booster rocket — Washington — is cracked and leaking energy, and the pilots in the cockpit are fighting over the flight plan. So we can’t achieve escape velocity to enter the next orbit — the next great industrial revolution, which is going to be E.T., energy technology."

Let's hope E.T.--not the movie critter but Energy Technology--moves up many more notches on the world's scale of priorities.