The afternoons can still be sultry, but the evenings, nights and mornings are cool. Autumn is approaching, and while these days always bring a touch of bittersweet nostalgia, there’s an upside, too. The onset of cool weather means we in Vermont probably won’t have to deal with West Nile Virus this year; we’ll probably get another 10 months to figure out our game plan.

West Nile Virus, as you may know, is a form of encephalitis, found in Africa, Europe, parts of Asia and now the eastern United States. It cropped up in the borough of Queens last August. Health experts think our particular strain was brought here from Israel by an infected animal in 1998 or ‘99. Sixty-two New Yorkers were hospitalized last year and seven died.
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It’s nice to be right, but there are downsides. A few weeks ago, I was worrying out loud about the police departments in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, about how they would respond to activists exercising their First Amendment rights outside the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

Although police in Philadelphia generally got high marks from the media, I think the media was looking at the wrong things. True, there were no cops dressed like storm troopers swinging clubs through clouds of tear gas, but there’s more than one way to abuse your authority.
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The Republican National Convention is now less than a week away and the Democrats will start up a few weeks from now. If you hurry, there’s still time to make other plans, so you don’t have to be caught home in front of the set.

The Republicans are meeting in Philadelphia, a large city with a Democratic mayor. The Democrats are meeting in Los Angeles, a large city with a Republican mayor. Someone needs to have a talk with the advance teams.
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The New York Times says Ralph Nader has no business running for president. I’m guessing the stench of failure emanating from the Gore campaign must be getting in the nostrils of the gray lady of American journalism and is causing panic attacks. According to the Times’s editorial page, Ralph is a self-indulgent “spoiler” on a “misguided crusade” “likely to distract voters from the clear-cut choice” presented by Al Gore and George W. Bush.

And yet, some people claim there is no class warfare in America today. Here is the official organ of the establishment, telling us we must choose between the son of a senator and the son of a president, each of whom is backed by corporate millions. I expect such obvious anxiety from the Wall Street Journal, but I’d have thought the Times could present a better face, at least in public.
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