ROMNEY" DON'T GIVE UP YOUR DAY JOB.

Mitt Romney, the candidate who believes that no one need know his secrets of the past or his plans for the presidency of the United States in the next four years, went to Europe to dazzle voters and Europeans with his foreign policy expertise.  Instead of foreign policy expertise, he is showing remarkable ability for putting his foot in in his mouth, being offensive and untrustworthy (as in speaking of his invitations to MI6.  It would seem that the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist and all were so sure they could buy the presidency for him to be their puppet, that they didn't count on the fact that he might lose the election all by himself.

On his first day in England, he managed to  get himself in BBC News with a headline:  London Mayor Hits Out at Romney. London Mayor Boris Johnson chides Republican Mitt Romney for suggesting London is not ready for the Olympics, a day before the opening ceremony.To read this article, click here

Mark Mardell, also a BBC journalist has written another article everyone should read to get a flavor of the amusement the English are feeling about Obama's competitor..Fortunately  for Romney, he is not running in England.  To read this article, click here

Unless you have been following the tour, that fell flat the first day, by being glued to cable, you might have missed a preview of how nonresidential Romney is showing himself to be.

HOW IS 'CLOSURE' DEFINED AND EXPERIENCED?

Mark Mardell of BBC asks whether the death of Osama bin Laden will allow the US to find closure about 9/11.  There can be closure on only one thing, that being Osama bin Laden's death.  Google defines closure as: 

• closing: approaching a particular destination; a coming closer; a narrowing of a gap; "the ship's rapid rate of closing gave them little time to avoid a collision"
• a rule for limiting or ending debate in a deliberative body
• a Gestalt principle of organization holding that there is an innate tendency to perceive incomplete objects as complete and to close or fill gaps and to perceive asymmetric stimuli as symmetric
• settlement: something settled or resolved; the outcome of decision making; "they finally reached a settlement with the union"; "they never did achieve a final resolution of their differences"; "he needed to grieve before he could achieve a sense of closure"
• blockage: an obstruction in a pipe or tube; "we had to call a plumber to clear out the blockage in the drainpipe"
• blockage: the act of blocking
• terminate debate by calling for a vote; "debate was closured"; "cloture the discussion"
• termination of operations; "they regretted the closure of the day care center"

Once again, my pet peeve with media strikes, is with this attempt to do another 'one-size-fits-all'.  First, the question will the US find closure.  The US is made up of government and now hundreds of millions of citizens with varying value systems and priorities..  Would it not seem logical that closure will depend on the individual experience each person has of the event?

Finding evidence that Osama was planning another attack in the US; hearing that while the head of the snake was amputated, the body lives on; it doesn't seem particularly likely that 'closure' would be felt similarly by all.  The only shared feeling by the majority seems to feel that some sort of justice was served with this death.  That is NOT closure other than the very. narrow act of death to bin Laden.  We are not talking about the kind of forgiveness Pope John gave to his attempted murderer.  We are talking about the continuing pain from never knowing a parent, living for years with a grieving parent, mourning one's spouse or child, as compared to the people who lost a business and had to start their lives from scratch but now might have gained success and new financial security.  If you let your head play for a bit with the possibilities you can see that the word closure is meaningless. For most, 9/11 will never be forgotten nor 'resolved'.

Furthermore, killing bin Laden does not put an end to terrorism or Al-Qaeda.  There might never be closure to the fear that somewhere, sometime, terror will strike again.