On this damp evening in San Francisco, I have just put up on my Author's Page a memoir and meditation on the first time I heard Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds."  That would have been on Sunday, October 30,  1938 -- seventy years ago, last night.  Back then, America was regarded with a mixture of admiration and indulgence.  Although we were known as impossibly romantic Cowboys, and shrewd Yankee Traders, we had saved the Allies' hash in World War I, provided any number of brash adventurers, movie stars, sports and literary figures in the two decades which followed.  But one of our endearing qualities to the World was that we appeared to have no  territorial ambitions outside the Western Hemisphere.  We called it The Monroe Doctrine, a term seldom heard after the end of World War II in 1945, certainly during the Administration of Our Martian-in-Chief, George W. Bush.

   In a few days, we shall be done with him,  in a formal sense, but he will cast a distorted shadow over the lives of most any of us in the Future.  Wherever he is -- Crawford, Texas; Kennebunkport,  Maine, or Punta del  Este, Paraguay -- people will ponder why he did the insane or greedy things he did.  In fact, possibly the only positive accomplishment of his "legacy" may be his Invasion of Mars,  ordered up for the Year 2014.

   But even then, there will  be those who find curious ulterior motives for his forgotten executive order.

   I invite you to share with me my memories and thoughts on the subject:  

          http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/the-war-worlds-nasas-spirit-scientific-triumph-bush-invades-mars

                        BOO!