Good Week

If you’ve ever seen ‘The Seven Samurai’, Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece (although a little slow for most modern tastes, brought up on Sesame Street and accustomed to explosions every couple of minutes in their movies) you’ll remember the somber ending when the elder samurai tells his acolyte “alas, once again we survive” (you see what he really wanted all along was an heroic death). Well, it looks like our democracy will survive again. Accosted by negativity, bolstered by hyperbole, misguided by half truths and yet, we have decided who will be the leading politicians of the next couple of years anyway. Luckily for all of us, we can change our minds every couple of years. The beauty of our democracy is that the founding fathers understood what stupid, boorish and easily lead people would follow them. They kept it fairly simple and kept the political power spread out among an elected legislature, the anointed judiciary and the powerful executive. Having just survived the rule of hereditary kings, they were anxious to keep the powerful executive from exercising too much power. Read more