It's called a changeover. I felt it a little bit yesterday when I woke up. I was slightly hungover. Something was a little bit wrong--or maybe just different. And while the overall picture had not changed at all (it certainly didn't get any warmer around here), subtle differences had happened. Democrats who still had their Gore/Lieberman signs in their yard--waiting for the final vote count, I'm sure--took them down in resignation. It was official. Another Bush was in charge.

I think there will be a resurgence of cowboy hat wearing. This is sad for me. You see, my second ten years were spent in a small town right on the border between New Mexico and Texas. There were three ways you could play it. You could be a farmer's kid in FFA (these were not a large portion of the populace) and wear jeans and boots with high and tight haircuts. You could be a fake cowboy, get resonators on your doolie's muffler (a doolie is a big truck with four back wheels) and wear a black cowboy hat (black equals bad boy). Or you could be like the rest of us, constantly trying to deny that we lived in the country. I spent most of my junior high and high school life staying away from those fake cowboys who talked and acted like they were fascists with a country western agenda. I may have been a glam band poseur with long(ish) hair, but at least I wasn't a fake cowboy.

This is the sense I get from the new Bush president. He would have been just like those guys in school, and that bothers me. It brings up all the strange feelings of uneasiness from that time. And in that way, I feel like we're slipping into an age where it might be permissible for hard-headed assholes to taunt people they don't like with words like "faggot, nigger, spic." Because that's what compassionate conservatism is all about. I'll be sympathetic to your face, but I can call you whatever I want when I turn around. So I worry about the example the new president will set for all the dumb ass pricks in the world.

There is something good about all of this. I get to make fun of the president for once, instead of apologizing or rationalizing. Of course the trade off is that Bush is going to do exactly what I was afraid he would do (and what ultimately led me to vote for Gore at the last moment), he's going to suspend all of the executive orders about the environment former President Clinton signed in the last few days of his office. He's going to give federal land (well, the feds will own it, but they'll let private energy companies to rape it for profit) to all of his oil and gas buddies so that the rest of the country can look like most of Texas: a hard crusty dusty land no one would want to live on if they didn't have to.

The only real official thing Bush has done so far (forgive me if I don't always put president in front of his name) is to declare today (Sunday) a day of prayer and thanksgiving. So I'll finish today following the new Prez's direction.