It's all good.

It's all good.

Random thoughts, because I don't have the attention span to flesh any of them out....

Barack Obama is gonna be Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter (or something else...). Richard Reeves sees his inner Reagan.

Anyone upset with Ralph Nader running again should see An Unreasonable Man. Frankly, I like the 'idea guys' (Ron Paul, Nader, Kucinich) - the ones with no chance to win but who try to get a platform for ideas on the outer edge of the bell curve.

I can live with McCain. The whole 100 year war and 'fear of radical Islam' notwithstanding. I think he gets that torture is torture - he's aware of the importance of democracy as a moral argument. He's worked with his colleagues across the aisle.

It is going to be so unbelievably great when GW goes home.

Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes

In my college days I was quite the sap for Sandra Boynton's greeting cards. One that continues to reverberate is a birthday card. There are a handful of people who would recognize the phrase if (when) I use it. Now you're one more.

We read her ABC book to the girls when they were little. A, for Aardvark Admiring, B for Beavers Ballooning. Lilah looking up at me with a big grin when we'd get to Gopher's Grinning is one of those 'oh, that's why being a parent can be so incredibly cool' memories.

All triggered, ironically, by Paul Krugman's blog.

Mitt Romney, I hardly knew ye.

I hadn't been paying attention to Mitt Romney. John Stewart has, and all I can say is, I'm glad Romney's gone. Oh, well, I could say one other thing. Harper's weekly mailing pointed out that Romney's wins in Super Tuesday were limited to states where he owned a home.

Dick Cavett Blogs

I think I mentioned that Dick Cavett blogs?
Now, if the prominent newsman on screen will obey my email asking him to stop pronouncing “pundit” as “pundant,” I will, in my column, give him full credit. Or as he would say, “credant.”

Going Tribal

An interesting thing about the presidential election this year is that the candidates aren't all old white guys. (You probably noticed that, clever folk that you are.)

For the first time we're reading about the implications of candidates drawing from 'their' tribe or losing votes from those not in their tribe.  Will the women stick with Hillary?  As the wife of our first black president, will African Americans stick with her? Or switch to one of their 'own'. Are Latinos antipathetic towards blacks and as such more inclined to vote Clinton over Obama now that Richardson is gone?
Interesting times.

Obama '08

With Edwards out of the race, I'm supporting Barack Obama for president.

It's interesting to me that the dynamics of what qualifies as experience for our Republican friends are so much different now. In 2000 the Republicans embraced a man who had 'run' a baseball team and had been a governor for 5 years. A man who had hardly been out of the country. Somehow that made him qualified to be president.

The people who talk about qualifications, like they're on the interview committee for a senior position at the plant, miss the point. It's not how we vote. (For good or bad). If we did, George Bush (the first) would have beaten Clinton and Al Gore would have beaten George Bush (oh wait, he did. sigh.)

On the Republican side, I hope McCain beats Romney. I like McCain's stand on immigration, for one, and his recent pandering to the religious right pales in comparison to Romney's complete upside down conversion from his actions as Massachuset's governer.

Obama has demonstrated his ability to invigorate an otherwise apathetic electorate. He has laid out policy goals that I have no problem supporting. He promises change within what statasticians wouuld identify as normal, unlike, say Denis Kucinich or Ron Paul who are entertaining, but outside the bell curve.

It seems to me that Obama really is "America." White mother, Black, African, father. Briefly raised in a predominantly Muslim country. He has to understand our diversity. And consequently he isn't going to fear it as others do.

Obama may inspire crowds all day long, but if he can't get legislation through Congress, his impact will be modest. It wasn't Caroline Kennedy's dad who got the Civil Rights Act through Congress, it was Lyndon Johnson, the former Senate Majority Leader.  Between now and November I want to find out who Obama's Rumsfeld and Cheney will be.

Sister Update

The sister's cancer is responding to treatment. We got Petscan results today and she's still carrying around the Big C, but the tumors are smaller and fewer in count. The chemo is trashing her blood counts (we're tracking white and red blood cells and platelets.) She gets booster shots, intended to increase one of the cell types, which makes her bones ache. The bones ache because they're pissed off at the mixed chemical signals they're getting. Shut down, speed up. yeesh.

Anyway, she's had a good week. She was supposed to have another chemo tomorrow (21 day cycle) but the doc is postponing it for a week to let her bone marrow start carrying it's share of the load. So, she gets another week to recover.

The other thing that happened was an application for a disabled parking placard and short-term disability.

Here's my new cause. If you've got cancer and it's bad enough that you can't work, everything you need ought to be free. The sister has a $125 co-pay for prescribed meds intended to give her an appetite. Because you don't really feel like eating in the middle of all this. $125 for a pill (it's liquid, actually) to make her hungry. For crying out loud. I'm volunteering to chip in an extra $50 a year so cancer patients don't have to worry about finances on top of everything else.