Vin Suprynowicz

As much as I love Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, the Peter Jackson movie is better in several ways, one of which is the haunting voice-over introduction, in which Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel intones, overdubbing herself so she’s heard in both English and Elvish, “The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. …”

This captures a good deal of the melancholy that has gripped those who cherish America as a land of freedom and opportunity since the recent re-election of Barack Hussein Obama and so many of his unashamed state-socialist companions.

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The divided Republican Party failed to mount much of a get-out-the-vote campaign this fall. Here in the battleground state of Nevada, National Republican forces, wary of a state party whose largest county organization — Clark — was dominated by a disgruntled Ron Paul insurgency, did an end run around the state GOP apparatus (such as it is), pouring in money to support Mitt Romney’s candidacy here through their independent “Team Nevada.”

That effort failed. TV buys were not enough.

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Thirty-some years ago, that branch of the Republican party which preaches free enterprise and a smaller, less intrusive government (I say “preach” — practice is a different thing) entered into a marriage of convenience with the Christian Right. In exchange for the evangelical Christians delivering large numbers of voters, particularly in the Midwest and South, Republican politicians on the order of this year’s failed Senate hopefuls Richard Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri would pay lip service to a socially conservative agenda which included overturning the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court abortion decision and somehow rolling back the social acceptance of open homosexuality. (I believe they may also still want to re-institute public prayer in the government schools, etc.)

This was always a cynical deal. Experienced politicians knew most of these agendas were going nowhere, politically. But if the candidate could dragoon voters by preaching that old-time religion to the parishioners of the Yokelville Baptist Church, why not?

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It’s Benghazi, stupid.

Who elected Barack Obama president, four years ago? A mass of enthusiastic if somewhat naive young black people — many of them first-time voters — and curiously enough a lot of older white voters, among them my Mom, bless her.

These two apparently disparate groups shared a high level of excitement over the prospect of electing America’s first black president, thus proving this nation had finally escaped the surly bonds of racism.

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As I was leaving for work one morning last week the recycling truck came hurtling down the street. Only one family in our immediate neighborhood, so far as I can tell, dutifully sorts their glass, plastic, and other stuff into the red, white and blue bins. The trashmen throw the contents of all three into the single gaping maw at the back of their truck.

At least they don’t lie about it: Right on the side of this big red-orange behemoth, in highly visible white letters, the truck describes itself as a “Commingling Recycling Vehicle.”

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Today’s relaxed rules for absentee balloting destroy the secrecy of the voting booth — and thus the credibility of the overall canvas.

Because the voter no longer even has to pretend he or she will be out of town or in the hospital, union shop stewards and presumably even the occasional employer can order their workers to request absentee ballots and bring them to a “work session” where they can be instructed how to fill them out, and then see their ballots gathered up by their bosses for mailing.

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Univision, the largest Spanish-language network in the U.S., aired a lengthy report on the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” Mexican gun-running operation on Sept. 30.

Gerardo Reyes and Santiago Wills offer an English-language version at http://tinyurl.com/9jdp2gh:

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Sixty desert tortoises, each equipped with a radio transmitter and trailing a small antenna, were released Sept. 21 at the southern end of the Nevada National Security Site, 60 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Researchers plan to track the critters over the next year as part of a $100,000 study ultimately aimed at increasing the animal’s numbers in the wild.

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We pour far more money per student into the public schools than our grandparents did — even corrected for inflation.

A small number of bright, hard-working kids, encouraged by parents who put an emphasis on achievement, continue to do well.

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I’m not a hop-up-and-down political champion of Mitt Romney.

As an individual, Mr. Romney is a talented and decent man. It’s interesting to note the times he’s gotten in the most trouble with our left-leaning press, all they’ve been able to “get him on” is telling the truth in an incautious manner.

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