I got caught up on the elections tonight: NPR on the drive home, local and national TV news after supper, then Meet the Press and Washington Week. The pundits were analyzing every maneuver, every attack ad, the polls, the President's speech and Rummie's press conference. It was all taken apart to the most minute detail, and people got angry, shouted, and alternatively sounded outraged and analytical--the situation in Ohio, the new man in Tennesssee, wag, wag, wag.

I couldn't shake a feeling of deja vu about the whole scene, like I'd seen it all before. There was an air of familiarity about it all, and then it struck me. It's like watching Sports Wrap, the coaches and the players are interviewed, they roll film of the last humiliating rout of the home team, and the analysts drone on. What went wrong, what can we do? "We have to avoid turnovers", "we've got to make the big plays", "we've got to stop choking", "we've got to control the running game, the passing game, the defense, the offense". The way to victory, we are told, is to stick to the fundamentals, not make mistakes, and to exploit the opportunities that present themself. Hell, I could have told them that, and I don't even like football.

Do you ever get the feeling history is just rolling along, like an avalanche, that it's going to do what it's going to do no matter what we do or say or think? Maybe that way lies despair, maybe we can make a difference, maybe it's just a cop-out to avoid jumping into a long game that you have no hope of influencing; although you know if everyone felt that way nothing good could ever come of it. We're all surfers riding this enormous wave and it takes all our skill and experience just to stay on our board, but we also know we could fall off at any moment, and sooner or later we know we will, that is inevitable. The wave always wins.