I think that supporters of both Morales and the opposition in that country are overplaying their ideological hands, or at least the rhetoric of both sides are showing their age.

Also, this has been a month of change:

• Tsvangirai has negotiated his way into a coalition government with Mugabe.
• Mbeki’s resigning in South Africa.
• Olmert is resigning and is being replaced as leader of his party by his foreign minister
• Toonami has been axed by Cartoon Network.

And on that last note, I wanted to add this:

When Toonami first premiered in 1997, anime wasn’t as ubiquitous in the US as it is now. You already knew about Voltron, Robotech, , Speed Racer, Astro Boy, stuff that had existed for a long time; plus, Sci-Fi channel also showed English-dubbed anime series earlier in the 90’s. But it was one of the first to bring it to such a massive youth audience at such opportune time slots: weekday daytime, weekday nighttime/latenight, weekend morning, weekend afternoon, weekend nighttime/latenight. At its heyday (2000/2001, I believe), Toonami practically had everything that was action-oriented under its wing.

It was also in 2001 that Cartoon Network launched Adult Swim (which premiered Cowboy Bebop that same year). Today, Adult Swim has usurped Toonami’s role as the premier anime block for the network, with Toonami relegated increasingly into the background throughout the 2000s, until its cancellation on September 20. This transition of anime premieres from a primarily children’s/teen’s perspective (Toonami) to a primarily adult perspective (Adult Swim) may reflect many things:

• The maturation of the Western anime fandom, and its general tastes, within the decade
• The development of anime from just "kids’ stuff" to cinematic-grade high art
• The increasing ubqiuity of anime and pseudo-anime on the animation blocks of competing networks
• The availability of the Internet, as anime is usually distributed long before it is dubbed and premiered on US television (of course, Adult Swim’s website has had a forum board for years, while Toonami’s few Internet-based presences included the Flash (Shockwave?) games that were shown on the website and the more recent Jetstream streaming service)
• The thinning of the creative thinkers at Williams Street/Cartoon Network/Turner Broadcasting/Time Warner.

Many factors came into play, I’m sure, in the gradual shifting of anime from Toonami, a block on CN that didn’t evolve as much as it could, to Adult Swim, a block that is given its own focus as a separate channel by Nielsen Ratings. How this will pan out in the coming few years will be an interesting thing to see.

And I like how Tom, the long-time host of the Toonami block voiced by Steven Jay Blum, gave a not-too-subtle nod of ironic consideration to the last spoken word of Spike Spiegel, the lead character of the first anime series to premiere on Adult Swim – Cowboy Bebop, which Blum also voiced in the English dub: "Bang".