This morning I rode to the end of the bike path by the river and would have gone the couple of hundred yards on out to where the ocean crashes onto the rocks, but the Coast Guard has put a locked gate there and a "no trespassing" warning. I understand why the gate is there. The Coast Guard has instruments and signal lights out there that must be kept intact to make the entrance to Mission Bay safe for boat traffic. The rusty chain and locks matched my mood. Before heading out on my bike I had read George Will’s column in the Washington Post; and although I know what to expect from the him, his celebratory writing about the Tea Party representatives in congress depressed me. He is encouraging Republicans to hold the line and not allow tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. He says this president, whom he refuses to call by name, must not be allowed any kind of "victory" that might help him stay in office for a second term. He says they should continue to hold out and not compromise at all.

Until today I wasn’t worried. I thought the posturing would stop well short of the August Second deadline, but now I’m not so sure. It looks as if they are going to lock up the future of our country. Everybody knows that if the country defaults on its debts, even if a week later a bill is passed to give a meager extension, the nation’s economy will be thrown into even more serious chaos than we have been experiencing in the past couple of years. Evidently they believe that extending and worsening the economic situation will knock Barack Obama out of office in the next election. Wow! It’s hard to believe.

The gate at the end of the trail is bound with a rusty chain and two locks. It seemed to me this morning to be an appropriate metaphor for the situation in Washington and the right subject for my picture for today.