After announcing that we would be at “orange” until the end of January, the Homeland Security folks have taken back down to “yellow”. I have to admit I’m surprised, and I wonder what drove that change.

I still get a little spooked with I hear Ridge’s department use the word “homeland” as part of their official title. Too many movies probably, but that word to me elicits images of Nazi Germany, the almost zealot reverence to the nation that was engendered in so many of its citizens, and the crimes committed in the name of that nation most foul.

I love my country, and I just don’t want to see us slip down that slope. We don’t have anyone as charismatic as Hitler to lead that charge, but it seems, at times, that we are drifting down that slope with little or no leadership, and slaloming around some of the same flags.