Dear Diary | Nov. 23, 2004, 10:00 p.m. My inbox has been buzzing with concern about how there are, like, you know, huge impassioned, rapidly growing protests going on in the Ukraine, in the cold, rain and snow, and the threat of civil war over a stolen election... while most of the U.S. population (about 80%) feels that everything was cool with the 2004 election. This I read today in The New York Times. The same article reports that half the population believes that the 2000 election was totally cool. Most people seem to be missing something obvious. Or, there are many who have an idea of how they want the world to be, and would rather live in that world than acknowledge what's going on. I think it's clear that people would rather not have civil unrest and, in exchange, give up their civil rights. You know, I'm really sick of writing about this. I remember a time when war was an occasional thing; it began and it ended. Yes, there were a lot of wars in the 20th century, but between the time Vietnam ended in 1974 and the early 80s, one was not inundated with news of war every day. However, by 1982, I was aware of the U.S. programs in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the magazines I edited in those years persisted in the best coverage we could offer at the time. Then came the Iran-Contra scandal, which revealed that the U.S. was involved in arming both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, as well as the Contra terrorists. From there, war seemed to gain momentum. There was a moment of respite when the Berlin Wall and Soviet Union faded into history, but that did not last long. The first Gulf War, which came soon after, was terrifying. I remember the night of the missiles falling on Tel Aviv, wondering whether there would be nuclear retaliation against Iraq by Israel. Under Clinton, Iraq was bombed weekly. Half a million children died from diseases associated with lack of clean water, after the U.S. bombed the water treatment facilities. Then came Sept. 11, Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't know if life has always been this way on the planet, but it's getting to be a very tired state of affairs -- and one that more and more people seem to take for granted. I, for one, don't.