What's Going On With Poland?

The first thing is, you do not put the whole top layers of your government, plus your top military leaders, plus your leading cultural figures, all on one airplane. Everybody knows that.

And now comes the second really bizarre thing: using the excuse of the cloud of volcanic ash covering most of Europe and making flying impossible, European leaders have cancelled their plans to attend the funeral of Poland's President and First Lady, which was yesterday in Krakow.

Hey, Angela Merkel, ever hear of a train? Or a car? Krakow is only a few hours by road or rail from Berlin. Not that far from other European capitals, either.

The whole thing is weird. Or maybe it just has to do with difficulty making new security arrangements so hastily for the traveling heads of state.

But if Poland's new government should now make any radical departures from the old, then I think it would be time for us to begin to suspect there's more to these events than meets the public eye.



P.S. We, by contrast, really cannot get to England or Greece just now. Fortunately, when I tried to book a flight several weeks ago, Demetrios said no, he wasn't ready. So we haven't bought our tickets yet. We will go as soon as that volcanic ash cloud permits!

Meanwhile, we're having new carpeting installed upstairs sometime in the coming week. Guess what color most of it is? Red! As in very bright red. Think something between fire engine red and cherry red. Most of our house is white (and two of the bedrooms are to be carpeted in white) so this red will really perk it up! We decided to go for romance this time instead of practicali It's very cheap carpeting, though, so if we decide we don't like it, we won't have lost much.