"polite Democrats and fighting Republicans"

Good observation from Andrew Tanenbaum, "The Votemaster" at Electoral-vote.com.

The traditional media seem to have picked up on two themes for the convention so far. First, for some of Clinton's diehards supporters, the primary is not over yet and they say they won't support Obama. It is more than a bit ironic that some of the most ardent feminists say they will support John McCain (who they oppose on virtually every issue--especially abortion) rather than Barack Obama (with whom they agree on virtually every issue). The other theme is that the Democrats are letting McCain off easy. Long-time Clinton insider James Carville has been all over TV saying that the Democrats have let slip a golden opportunity to pummel McCain. Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) compared Obama to Adlai Stevenson, another cerebral Illinoisian, saying that both of them liked to give long thoughtful answers to complex questions, when soundbites would be more effective. Sen. Chuck Schumer(D-NY) said the Democrats should throw more rabbit punches. Indeed, the keynote speaker, Mark Warner, emphasized bipartisanship and working with the Republicans to solve the country's problems. Of course, Warner is running for the Senate in a fairly red state, so he has his own reasons for making nice to the Republicans, but it is still odd for a keynote speaker not to throw any red meat to the party's activists.

In contrast, the McCain campaign was in full-bore attack mode. Not a word about bipartisanship. It was running ads attacking Obama as too young to lead and bellowing that he is too weak to be commander in chief. To a considerable extent, this looks like a rerun of 2004, with polite Democrats and fighting Republicans. When asked, the voters say over and over that they can't stomach these negative ads, but as Lee Atwater discovered a long time ago, they are immensely effective. Some of the convention speakers last night mocked the fact that McCain couldn't remember how many houses he had, but the suggestion was that he had too many houses. If the shoe had been on the other foot with an elderly Democrat vs. a young Republican, the Republicans would have harped on the memory loss aspect (if he can't even remember how many houses he has, how can he remember what happened in the last cabinet meeting?). Democrats don't like that kind of personal attack. It is just not in their blood.

Keeping the last two days of the DNC convention in focus, it should be noted that regardless of who the nominees are, as a party Democrats are more seriously fragmented than Republicans. Historically, this is not news. The history of American party politics seems to be the wealthy and powerful (and those who admire them) versus everyone else.

Obviously, not all Republicans are rich and powerful in the same way that not all who fought for the South in the Civil War (the Recent Unpleasantness or War Between the States, as we in the South like to say) were slaveholders. It's not called the "Southern Strategy" for nothing. Bedfellows. Politics. You know the drill.

So preparing for an election is a bit more time-consuming for Democrats. They have to make sure everyone is wearing shoes and has their socks pulled up, that personal hygiene is not going to be a problem and that all the people out in front have enough teeth to flash a toothpaste smile.

Underscoring that party quality, Daniel Nexon makes a good point.

Clinton gave a great speech. Lots of commentators say that it hurt the Republicans.

But they're wrong; this was a tactical victory, not a strategic one.

The Republicans won the last two days... the meta narrative was about Democratic unity, and not about the Democrats agenda or their critiques of McCain.

Obama on Niebuhr

Fifteen months ago I found out that Barack Obama was not only familiar with Reinhold Niebuhr but held him in high esteem. I blogged about it the time with a few remarks of my own. I'm leaving it archived where it now is, but here is a link if anyone is interested. I'm vain enough to think what I said is worth revisiting.

Well-read politicians are not remarkable. Reading and talking is what they do. It is the main part of their job description. But most politicians read and study to salt away information to advance a political agenda. They not only have to know what they like, they also have to know all the details of ideas they oppose in order to defeat or compromise them in the political arena.

Few read for introspection. Introspection is an alien impulse for most leaders. In their formative years, of course, all have to figure out what they believe about this or than in order to get their sea legs on the ship of leadership. Most biographies of great leaders catalog their intellectual underpinnings as they began a rise to the top.

At the time I was writing his chances of winning the nomination looked poor. It's now in the bag, which is another reason I'm leaving the original post in place. I urge newcomers to the Obama phenomenon to take a look.

London Times -- "Sex and the Olympic city"

Higgins has a great line in My Fair Lady's "Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?"

He's complaining that every other country in the world seems to know their native language better than the English know their own mother tongue.

"In France," he says, "every Frenchman knows his language from A to Zed..."

Then comes that great parenthetical line: "(The French don't care what they DO, actually, as long as they PRONOUNCE it correctly....)"

Okay, then, we now have a fine piece of recreational reading from London, written in the most delightful English prose, about the subtext of the Olympic games which everyone thinks about but no one mentions. From the drift of Matthew Syed's report it isn't just the French who do it. He's been reporting on the Olympics since Barcelona and come to the conclusion that it's the whole world.

Barcelona was, for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport. There were the gorgeous hostesses - there to assist the athletes - in their bright yellow shirts and black skirts; there were the indigenous lovelies who came to watch the competitions. And then there were the female athletes - literally thousands of them - strutting, shimmying, sashaying and jogging around the village, clad in Lycra and exposing yard upon yard of shiny, toned, rippling and unimaginably exotic flesh. Women from all the countries of the world: muscular, virile, athletic and oozing oestrogen. I spent so much time in a state of lust that I could have passed out. Indeed, for all I knew I did pass out - in a place like that how was one to tell the difference between dreamland and reality?

[snip]

Ah yes, the swimmers. For some reason the International Olympic Committee insists on bunching the swimming events towards the beginning of the Games with the inevitable consequence that the aquatics folk get going earlier - sexually I mean - than everyone else. So much so that, at the outset of the Sydney Olympics, Jonathan Edwards, a Christian and triple jumper extraordinaire, caused a ripple by telling them publicly to keep a lid on it. Edwards was simply concerned about getting woken up by creaking floorboards, but given his biblical credentials, it became a story about morality. Not that his intervention made a blind bit of difference. There is a famous story from Seoul in 1988 that there were so many used condoms on the roof terrace of the British team's residential block the night after the swimming concluded that the British Olympic Association sent out an edict banning outdoor sex. Here in Beijing, organisers have realised that such prohibitions are about as useful as banning breathing and have, instead, handed out thousands of free condoms to the athletes. If you can't stop 'em, at least make it safe.

I don't want to spoil it for you. Go to the link and have your fill.
And thanks to Abbas and Asad at 3Quarks for the heads-up.

Michael J. Totten -- "The Truth About Russia in Georgia"

The story is too complicated to parse.
I put together a few remarks and the link at a previous post, Conversation with a Georgian "man on the street"

George Orwell is Blogging

Guess who's blogging?

George Orwell, of all people. His diary is being released one day at a time, online, seventy years later.

Thanks to Crawford Kilian for the heads up.

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.

Orwell’s ‘domestic’ diaries begin on 9th August 1938/2008; his ‘political’ diaries (which are further categorised as ‘Morocco’, ‘Pre-war’ and ‘Wartime’) begin on 7th September 1938/2008.

This man's writing is a rich repository of history. This is from today's entry:

Gipsies beginning to arrive for the hop-picking. As soon as they have pitched their caravans the chickens are let loose & apparently can be depended on not to stray. The strips of tin for cloth-pegs are cut of biscuit boxes. Three people were on the job, one shaping the sticks, one cutting out the tin & another nailing it on. I should say one person doing all these jobs (also splitting the pegs after nailing) could make 10-15 pegs an hour.

But that's only the tip of an iceberg. That link at "hop-picking" tells the reader more about hops and hop-picking than he ever imagined...

The process is extremely simple. The vines, long climbing plants with the hops clustering on them in bunches like grapes, are trained up poles or over wires; all the picker has to do is to tear them down and strip the hops into a bin, keeping them as clean as possible from leaves. The spiny stems cut the palms of one’s hands to pieces, and in the early morning, before the cuts have reopened, it is painful work; one has trouble too with the plant-lice which infest the hops and crawl down one’s neck, but beyond that there are no annoyances. One can talk and smoke as one works, and on hot days there is no pleasanter place than the shady lanes of hops, with their bitter scent – an unutterably refreshing scent, like a wind blowing from oceans of cool beer. It would be almost ideal if one could earn a living at it.

Unfortunately, the rate of payment is so low that it is quite impossible for a picker to earn a pound a week, or even, in a wet year like 1931, fifteen shillings[1]. Hop-picking is done on the piece-work system, the pickers being paid at so much a bushel. At the farm where I worked this year, as at most farms in Kent, the tally was six bushels to the shilling – that is, we were paid twopence for each bushel we picked. Now, a good vine yields about half a bushel of hops, and a good picker can strip a vine in ten or fifteen minutes; it follows that an expert picker might, given perfect conditions, earn thirty shillings in a sixty-hour week. But, for a number of reasons, these perfect conditions do not exist. To begin with, hops vary enormously in quality. On some vines they are as large as small pears, on others no bigger than hazel nuts; the bad vines take as long to strip as the good ones – longer, as a rule, for their lower shoots are more tangled – and often five of them will not yield a bushel. Again, there are frequent delays in the work, either in changing from field to field, or on account of rain; an hour or two is wasted in this manner every day, and the pickers are paid no compensation for lost time. And, lastly, the greatest cause of loss, there is unfair measurement. The hops are measured in bushel baskets of standard size, but it must be remembered that hops are not like apples or potatoes, of which one can say that a bushel is a bushel and there is an end of it. They are soft things as compressible as sponges, and it is quite easy for the measurer to crush a bushel of them into a quart if he chooses.

And that, friend, is only part of what he has to say about hops. Reading these pages is like walking through the bric-a-brak filled shop of relics from a bygone era, and picking up a stereopticon and getting caught in a big pile of viewing cards. Makes you not want to stop, but you know you have more pressing stuff to do today.

Thanks, Craw, I think...

The Jill Carroll Narrative Continues

When Jill Carroll's byline re-appeared six weeks ago there was no way to predict that a key figure in her kidnapping would be apprehended last week. My rambling post at the time is now drawing a rash of hits from Google searches for "Jill Carroll."
This is from the London Times...

The alleged mastermind behind the kidnapping in Baghdad of American journalist Jill Carroll in 2006 has been arrested along with a second, senior al-Qaeda suspect, the US military said last night.

Associates of Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri are also thought to have been involved in the kidnap and murder of Margaret Hassan, the aid worker seized by insurgents in west Baghdad in October 2004, and the kidnap of Norman Kember, the British peace campaigner.
[...]
Coalition forces captured Shujayri, known as Abu Uthman, on August 11. The US military described him as reportedly being the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader of Baghdad’s eastern Rusafa district.

"He is believed to be the planner behind the kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll," a statement said.

Ms Carroll, 30, who worked for the Christian Science Monitor in Baghdad, was taken hostage at gunpoint on January 7, 2006. Her interpreter was shot dead. She was released almost three months later.

Links here to the back story...
Jill Carroll is back at work
Israel: Peacemaker teams assaulted by settlers

Tom Fox -- Christian martyr

Settler attacks, domestic violence and tears

Christian Peacemaker Team's Kidnapping: Who Did It?

Old Testament Reading from Today's Lectionary

Exodus 1:8 ff

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, "Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. "Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land."

The Bakersfield Californian story gives a litany of criminals who are illegal aliens reason enough to enforce our laws against those who hire illegal aliens. Enough of a story to remind us that criminals action beget criminal action. It is cheaper to STOP hiring illegal aliens, STOP benefits for them and to ENFORCE trespassing laws. LINK

A 2006 study by Edwin S. Rubenstein, a former contributing editor for Forbes, commissioned by the National Policy Institute last year stated that, "Illegal aliens cost the American taxpayer $25 billion more than they pay in taxes." Titled "The Economics of Immigration Enforcement", the study concluded that they cost U.S. citizens an estimated $81 billion per year. “Amnesty would make things worse,” stated the study, "by adding another $44 billion to government spending for services." Something is very wrong when, given just these few facts, there are members in Congress seriously considering the granting of amnesty—no matter how they mask the true intent of the legislation—and that the President of the United States is one of its leading advocates. The tyranny of numbers is that they cannot be ignored. The U.S. faces a new torrent of illegal aliens; seeking to absorb them despite ample evidence we are endangering and burdening current native-born and naturalized citizens. The proposed legislation is a demographic time bomb. LINK

So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.

‘The chief manager of our store knew what was going on,” said Pavel, a Czech who was deported almost immediately and later talked to the New York Times. "He knew that we were illegal." Pavel's story appears typical for the Eastern Europeans: Recruiters at home promised good jobs in America only to deliver them into the hands of subcontractors, who allegedly violated overtime, Social Security and worker's compensation laws. If nothing else, the Wal-Mart raids let us know that illegal immigration isn't all about Mexican and Central American border jumpers.

Listen to one cleaning subcontractor, Stanislaw Kostek, who admitted to the Times that he had hired illegal immigrants to work at about a dozen Wal-Marts: "It's a degrading job; very few people want to do it even though the salary is at least $2 above the minimum wage. ... But there are (immigrant) workers who want to do the job." LINK

The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously; and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.

The hand harvesting of fruit and vegetable crops in the United States is a labor-intensive operation that accounts for about 50 percent of total production costs. The number of crops and percentage of crop acreage that are mechanically harvested today have increased somewhat since the late 1970s. Most of these crops are used for processing. However, at least 20 to 25 percent of the U.S. vegetable acreage and 40 to 45 percent of the U.S. fruit acreage is totally dependent on hand harvesting. LINK

As for construction, the report suggests there was about a 13,000 drop in employment in that sector in May, about a 0.2 percent decline. That's about half the drop seen in construction employment in the April reading.

"It would seem that builders are keeping these workers on, even though construction has taken a hit," said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, which compiles the ADP report, although he cautioned, "I wouldn't be surprised to see more declines in the coming months."

Still, experts in the field suggest several reasons for the strength in construction employment despite the housing downturn.

Some of it is due to the shift of workers to non-residential construction jobs, some of it is due to employers not wanting to let go of skilled craftsmen in case the homebuilding market picks up.

And part of it may be due to the large use of immigrant labor in the construction industry. If contractors and subcontractors were not reporting off-the-book employees to the government during the housing boom, their absence now won't be missed in the figures. LINK

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah;and he said, "When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."

Pregnant Third World women have discovered that the only thing they have to do is cross the U.S.--Mexico border. The Fourteenth Amendment is their ticket.... Coyotes dealing in human traffic are paid $1,500.00 to $25,000.00 per person to shuttle pregnant illegal aliens across our southern border. Our politicians and elites wink at this blatant law breaking and do nothing. The colonization of our country continues with the cooperation of our government. That means your senator and representative aid this illegal baby invasion. None dare call it treason. Most Americans mistakenly trust their politicians to do the right thing. Congressional members from every state betray that trust daily. Anchor Babies - Born In The USA

But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them."

Decades of scientific research have posited low income and lack of access to early prenatal care are the biggest predictors of unhealthy births. But when it comes to immigrant Latinas, a surprising and mysterious phenomenon kicks in: Although they get less prenatal care and are more likely to be living in poverty, studies show first-generation Latinas--especially those from Mexico--have healthy babies. Having fewer low birthweight and pre-term babies (those born before 37 weeks) means lower infant mortality. Nationally, the rate of infant deaths per 1,000 live births for Latinas is 5.6, compared to 5.7 for whites and 13.5 for African Americans.
The "Mexican Paradox"

So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive."

The U.S. military has provided legal immigrants a fast track to citizenship, and they are taking advantage of it in record numbers, even if it means facing the risk of death or injury in Iraq or Afghanistan. Interest surged after President Bush signed an executive order in July 2002 allowing immigrants with green cards to become citizens as soon as they are sworn in, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Since then, more than 25,000 immigrant members of the armed services have become U.S. citizens and another 40,000 are eligible to request naturalization, USCIS said in a statement.
Military Shortcut to U.S. Citizenship

Biden for President Debate Clips

IN HIS WORDS...

Susan Eisenhower likes Obama

Some of us are old enough to remember Dwight Eisenhower's quaint little tagline "I like Ike."
A few still wince when they hear reference to his warnings about the "military-industrial complex."
It's been a real dilemma for the war-mongers to have a decorated commander from World War Two who was elected president in the wake of his heroism start talking like a liberal when he was finally out of range of political blackmail.

Comes now Susan Eisenhower, Ike's grand-daughter, who is leaving the Grand Old Party to declare herself an Independent.
Why?

This is why...

I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama. I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate “seed corn.” And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove–style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?

This week, I changed my registration from Republican to independent. The two political parties as they exist today, and the partisanship that they foster, reflect the many fights of the cold war, the Vietnam era, the post–cold war and the 9/11 periods. Today we are in a different place altogether, where our security as a nation is challenged not just from abroad but also close to home. The energy, health-care and financial crises threaten our national prosperity and well-being, just as surely as any confrontation overseas or an attack by radical terrorists.

She has lots more to say. Go read the rest.

H/T Ron Beasley at Cernig's place

New Profile -- Young Israeli War Resisters

Via Mideast Youth, this is encouraging.

New group of High School seniors refuse to serve in the IDF !!

Author: Eva (Israel) - August 22, 2008

I’m part of the mailing list of New Profile - A Movement for the Civil-ization of Israeli Society through which I get continuous updates about many events, articles, news that are mostly not published in the mainstream media. Today I received a message of particular interest, which I want to post here in it’s full extent:

CO Udi Nir sentenced to 21 days in military prison

- Please distribute widely -

Dear Friends,

CO Udi Nir, 19, from the Tel-Aviv suburb of Hertzlia, has been sentenced yesterday (20 Aug. ) to 21 days in military prison.

Udi Nir is the first conscientious objector to be imprisoned among a new group of high school seniors, who signed a collective declaration of refusal to serve in the Israeli army of occupation. He has been called up to enlist this Monday, 18 Aug., but planned to delay his imprisonment (technically - by going AWOL) to join other signatories of the letter. This intention, however, was noted by the press (Udi appeared in a TV feature and a negative newspaper feature over the weekend). This resulted in what was arguably the quickest operation of its sort in Israel’s history. On Tuesday, one day after he has not showed up at the Induction Base, Udi Nir was arrested by civilian police (itself an unprecedented move), and was subsequently given a conditional sentence of 6 days in prison. The following day he was again tried, this time for refusing an order to enlist, and was sentenced to 21 days in prison.

A small demonstration to protest Udi’s imprisonment was organised by other members of the high school seniors group (see images below), and has received some media coverage.

From the New Profile website...

We, a group of feminist women and men, are convinced that we need not live in a soldiers' state. Today, Israel is capable of a determined peace politics. It need not be a militarized society. We are convinced that we ourselves, our children, our partners, need not go on being endlessly mobilized, need not go on living as warriors. We understand that the state of war in Israel is maintained by decisions made by our politicians - not by external forces to which we are passively subject. While taught to believe that the country is faced by threats beyond its control, we now realize that the words "national security" have often masked calculated decisions to choose military action for the achievement of political goals.

We are no longer willing to take part in such choices.We will not go on enabling them by obediently, uncritically supplying soldiers to the military which implements them. We will not go on being mobilized, raising children for mobilization, supporting mobilized partners, brothers, fathers, while those in charge of the country go on deploying the army easily, rather than building other solutions.
[snip]

To date, Israeli law does not acknowledge men's basic human right to conscientious objection. We regard Israeli conscription law as discriminatory and non-democratic, and call for the recognition of the basic right of every person, men included, to act in accordance with their conscience. Young women too undergo difficult, degrading interrogations by the military Exemption Committee. We urge the examination and revision of exemption procedures on grounds of conscience for women too.Acting on one's conscience is the fundamental right of every man and woman. We call for the recognition of men and women's right to express their social commitment by means of alternative civic service, conducted through a broad array of community services including work with non-governmental, voluntary organizations.

For our part, we refuse to go on raising our children to see enlistment as a supreme and overriding value. We want a fundamentally changed education system, for a truly democratic civic education, teaching the practice of peace and conflict resolution, rather than training children to enlist and accept warfare.

A study day, organized by the "New Profile Movement" on October 30, 1998, offered a first ever public forum for openly discussing these matters, to about 150 men and women, adults and youngsters. The many letters and phonecalls we have been receiving since, clearly indicate the real need for further action and discussion. If you share these opinions, help give our vital movement a public voice. Write us, call us, add your name to the growing list, along with address & phone numbers (+ fax and e-mail address, if available).

Peggy Noonan on the Saddleback Church Forum

She's critical of my man Obama, but her turn of phrase is too good to miss.

...on abortion in particular, Mr. McCain seemed old-time conservative, which is something we all understand, whether we like such a stance or not, and Mr. Obama seemed either radical or dodgy. He is "in favor . . . of limits" on late-term abortions, though some would consider those limits "inadequate." (In the past week much legal parsing on emanations of penumbras as to the viability of Roe v. Wade followed.)

As I watched I thought: How about "Let the baby live"? Don't parse it. Just "Let the baby live."

As to the question when human life begins, the answer to which is above Mr. Obama's pay grade, oh, let's go on a little tear. You know why they call it birth control? Because it's meant to stop a birth from happening nine months later. We know when life begins. Everyone who ever bought a pack of condoms knows when life begins.

To put it another way, with conception something begins. What do you think it is? A car? A 1948 Buick?

Ouch! Go read the rest.

Barackabilly

Barackabilly

A style of popular music combining the features of Barack 'n' roll and hillbilly music.

See also Barack-and-bull story

and

Waiting for the text message -- Youth Radio

The Fish -- Friday Poem from 3 Quarks Daily

Okay. So I'm a sentimental old sap.
Read this anyway.

The Fish
Elizabeth Bishop

I caught a tremendous fish

and held him beside the boat

half out of water, with my hook

fast in a corner of its mouth.

He didn't fight.

He hadn't fought at all.

He hung a grunting weight,

battered and venerable

and homely. Here and there

his brown skin hung in strips

like ancient wallpaper,

and its pattern of darker brown

was like wallpaper:

shapes like full-blown roses

stained and lost through age.

He was speckled with barnacles,

fine rosettes of lime,

and infested

with tiny white sea-lice,

and underneath two or three

rags of green weed hung down.

While his gills were breathing in

the terrible oxygen

--- the frightening gills,

fresh and crisp with blood,

that can cut so badly ---

I thought of the coarse white flesh

packed in like feathers,

the big bones and the little bones,

the dramatic reds and blacks

of his shiny entrails,

and the pink swim-bladder

like a big peony.

I looked into his eyes

which were far larger than mine

but shallower, and yellowed,

the irises backed and packed

with tarnished tinfoil

seen through the lenses

of old scratched isinglass.

They shifted a little, but not

to return my stare.

--- It was more like the tipping

of an object toward the light.

I admired his sullen face,

the mechanism of his jaw,

and then I saw

that from his lower lip

--- if you could call it a lip ---

grim, wet, and weaponlike,

hung five old pieces of fish-line,

or four and a wire leader

with the swivel still attached,

with all their five big hooks

grown firmly in his mouth.

A green line, frayed at the end

where he broke it, two heavier lines,

and a fine black thread

still crimped from the strain and snap

when it broke and he got away.

Like medals with their ribbons

frayed and wavering,

a five-haired beard of wisdom

trailing from his aching jaw.

I stared and stared

and victory filled up

the little rented boat,

from the pool of bilge

where oil had spread a rainbow

around the rusted engine

to the bailer rusted orange,

the sun-cracked thwarts,

the oarlocks on their strings,

the gunnels --- until everything

was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!

And I let the fish go.

Obama/Clinton?

I never expected to go there.

When Barack Obama first started to run I didn't give him the chance of a snowball in hell. But as he stayed on task, winning the excited support of young people as well as disillusioned old liberals like me whose hopes have been dashed so many times over the last forty years we have callouses on our eyes, I finally allowed my self to imagine he might make it.

I even had a flash of fantasy that 2008 could be a replay of 1964, with Obama sailing into office on a avalanche of disgust with the last twenty-five or thirty years with his Republican opponent moving on to a well-earned retirement from politics altogether.

My hopes that this might be the first time in my life to see an election conducted with civility and intelligence have now gone fro weak to dim to gone altogether. The attack and counter-attack ads have just started and the conventions don't even happen until next week. We don't yet know who the vice-presidential picks will be and already the well is being poisoned by vitriol from both sides. Yes, I said both sides. The Obama camp is doing it with more finesse, but if they fail to respond in kind there will be so many nails in their coffin that the Devil himself couldn't pry it open. I expect the trend to only get worse as November gets closer. Adieu, comity... perhaps another time.

I recall hearing, back in the days of innocent idealism, watching the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, that if they would just stop quarreling and run on the same ticket together they would be a "dream team." Maybe so, I said to myself, but here's the rub: If Clinton comes out ahead she will pick Obama as her vice-presidential choice in a New York minute because she understands the way politics really works. Whatever differences they may have are pliable enough to be mended. But if Obama comes out ahead, he will never pick her because it would be a betrayal of all he stands for.

As it turns out that second scenario is playing out, and it appears that Obama is not, in fact, about to pick Clinton to be his vice-presidential running mate, for much the same reasons that I imagined. And the issue is being made worse by the PUMA Democrats. As he slips in the polls from way ahead to dead heat, as the race slips from principles to politics as usual, I have come to the conclusion that Obama would do well... no, I said that wrong... he would follow a practical and politically expedient course, to announce Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

There. I finally said it. I hate it. I don't want him to do it. But in the same way that I know a doctor will stick his finger up my backside during the course of a physical exam, I know this political expedient may be necessary for him to win this election.

I have read a lot of pros and cons, but the piece at Rom Watson's place pushed me over the edge.

Make no mistake: I am proud to support Obama, proud to have him as the nominee of my party, and whomever he chooses for VP, I will work my tail off for his election. Obama is incredibly intelligent and authentic, substantive and thoughtful. He is an orator of the highest quality, a superb organizer, and has a knack for building coalitions. While I have lately had disagreements with some of his moves towards the center, he has progressive instincts and core beliefs that have been equaled by few major American politicians in recent years. He is clearly still a work in progress – how could he not be? – but he has the potential to be a great President

My concern right now – and this should be the concern of all Democrats and progressives – is that he get the chance to be a President at all, whether a great, good, or indifferent one. I am concerned that Barack Obama will not win the election.

The writer lays out his reasons and they are compelling. I'm left with the idea that it is better to be safe than sorry.