News of the day

I didn't like the news today. Woke up late, so the day was off to a bad start, and then my beloved NPR did everything in its power to bring me down further.
1. story about the Senate passing the bill which, in essence, destroys the Geneva Convention (if we don't follow it, how can we expect anyone else to?), makes a mockery of the constitutionally established balance of powers in government (the executive can do whatever it wants!), and ruins the long established writ of habeas corpus. Give up the body, indeed.
2. the change in a federal tax law that makes fractional giving more difficult and less attractive to donors. This is the practice whereby a donor gives a gift to a museum (usually of art) in the future, but keeps it hanging in their living room until, well, they die or get sick of it or whatever. I am oversimplifying, and we at MHS do not benefit from this form of giving much, but still, this change is silly, shortsighted, and pointlessly mean, and will serve to discourage people from donating to what, in the end, is the public good.
3. the review of Niall Ferguson's new book, which seems to argue that the West is currently in a downward death spiral. Ferguson, as an author, is deliberately and historical provocative, but my fear is that he is largely right. (Really though? Really? I argued earlier today when discussing this with a co-worker that perhaps the times we're in, and in which his book is written, is just a crabby blip in the trajectory of history, not really the beginning of the new Dark Ages. I don't know though...I really don't. We can still save ourselves, right? Or am I just the world's biggest pollyanna?)
As the day progressed, the universe sought to right the balance, by:
a. allowing for a brand-spanking new Virigina Quarterly Review to arrive in my mailbox, with a special fiction bonus issue! Oh, the joy!
b. Patrick brought in a lovely donation for the incredibly important Huggins Diary. Yah!
c. I got to come home at the end of the day.