I just have to wonder. You know, government has essentially become a TV show. What, with real-time cable news and commentary--not forgetting the whores on both sides of the congressional isle, ready 24/7 to sit for an interview--to entertain us, local news, and of course, the broadcast extravaganzas like last night's State of the Union, the political conventions, the debates, etc... Now, I've always loved the detective shows, where responsible and deliberate people use their minds and ability to sort out reality: to nab real doers of harm. But then you have shows like Cops, and you get a mix. Some of the subjects are dangerous, and indeed, need to be taken down (don't think for a second I care who takes them down: any 90-year-old grandmother has every bit the moral authority of any cop--cops are just professionals to a task). Others are just annoyances and the cops only make everything more annoying. Other times, often even, they stick their noses into things that simply aren't their business. I guess they missed that lesson from mom. And then you have SWAT, the very acronym of which has come to represent, for me, something perverse, when it used to represent...