Trophy VP

Maybe, but thanks to Ed, the photo that was here isn't anymore. Apologies to all. This lady has quite enough problems without me perpetuating hoaxes against her.

Those old a-political blues

"There aren't enough people stupid enough to re-elect that son of a bitch," I said in 2004.
Well, maybe there were . . . and maybe there weren't, depending upon whether the count was honest and accurate or not. I'll give us the benefit of the doubt, since it appears the neocons owned the voting machines.
There do, however, seem to be enough idiots to elect John McCain; though the Clintons' final acceptance of how things are going may have helped the Obama-Biden ticket immensely. Bill's speech last night may have been enough to get the trolls scrambling to make sure they still control enough voting machines and have decimated enough voter rosters to allow their hero, Captain Jet Exhaust, to prevail by a, uh, hair.
If he does, I'll just crawl into my hole with my guitar and kick my political junk habit for good. I could use the time.
I'd like to feel all warm and fuzzy about Bill and Hillary (no problem with Chelsea -- but that's a different story, not the least of which is Limbaugh's mortification), and about Joe, and all that we're-all-family feeling going on in Denver.
But there are other things going on in Denver. Grateful telecoms are wining and dining Blue Dog traitors, cops are herding protesters into "free speech zones," where they can say anything they want to say -- as long as they can't be heard. As a blogger pointed out recently, "I thought America was supposed to be a free speech zone."
And of all the lovely speeches going on inside, only one rang out with total truth from beginning to end -- the one delivered by Dennis Kucinich.

No, my vote in November won't mean as much as it could have before (among other betrayals)Obama voted for FISA. It will mean, I assume, that I am not an idiot. Other than that, it is merely my umbrella against a potential shit storm.

Just to be clear . . .

I was an Elvis fan before most of you were born.
I stopped being an Elvis fan before most of you were born.
When he was brand new, he was real -- a true king of rock, a founding father. I damn near worshipped him.
That didn't last long. Within what seemed like minutes, he suddenly became the Colonel's whore -- mired in mindless commercial pig crap. Tragically, that's where he left it.
So the quotations under Wisdom of the King are kinda tongue-in-cheek.
They are also courtesy of Garrison Keillor.

Life is good

Is there anything more charming than a baby raccoon?
Three baby raccoons.
Clumsy and comical among the branches, kitten-like and, indeed, smaller than full-grown cats, they are already practiced in the art of theft.
Like their parents, they are unintentionally destructive in their endless quest for anything and everything edible.
But when they run out of steam, as they seem often to do, they curl up wherever they are (the gutter at the edge of the roof, for example) and drift into coon dreamland.
I'd swear I lullabied them the other night . . .
I certainly and instantly forgave them their many trespasses.

One more step

The Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives, soon to be followed by the Democratic leadership in the Senate, has now qualified itself to occupy space next to the neo-conservative movement on the trash heap of history. The new FISA "compromise" is an unspeakable travesty which carries us one more step down the dark path to fascism. When I ask myself how people we sent to Congress in 2006 could even consider amnesty for telecoms, I very stupidly keep forgetting that they are bought and paid for by (among other commercial monsters) telecoms.
Well, thank God for Obama!
Not!
After coming out seemingly strongly against amnesty, he caved, too.
We are what we are, I suppose -- and thus apparently we will remain. Perhaps we'll muddle through one way or another once again.
But there is an end to muddling as surely as there is an end to oil.

Voting Day

On the day that North Carolina did the Right Thing, I arose only slightly earlier than usual. I had intended to get up early enough to make it to the polling place just as it opened; but I missed that by a good hour -- and I had a good half-hour walk to get there.
I loaded my canvas Unshelved shoulder bag with water, an apple, Deighton's London Match to read while waiting in line (record anger and disgust-fueled voter turn-out expected!), Stones and My Morning Jacket to entertain me on the walk. Setting off down the Greenway, I was greatly appreciative of the loveliness of the morning in spite of the pollen count. Tree pollen has a way of making one feel as though he has ventured out of the ship without his space helmet. Other than that, the day was filled with promise.
There is something . . . bracing . . . spiritual . . . quaint, maybe even patriotic, and certainly reflectively meditative, about walking down a tree-lined path next to a wonderfully photogenic creek to get to your voting place.
O America!
Yeah. I was on my way to exercise my God-given right to actually participate in the governing process of this great nation. It didn't even matter that my vote is usually cancelled out by my mother-in-law's vote: it's the principle of the thing, you know. Who knows . . . perhaps the outrage engendered by the last eight years will work towards having my vote actually counted this time. Maybe the person who gets the most votes will win! What a dizzying prospect.
My voting place is a Christian school. It's bigger than some colleges I have known. The Lamb, it is well known, prospers in Charlotte. Making my way through acres of parked late-model SUVs, idly counting the many fish symbols displayed there, it occurred to me that the line was going to be quite long indeed -- and most likely very Republican.
I was wrong about that. I don't know where all those SUV owners were. Classes were cancelled for Election Day, and though the poll workers vastly outnumbered the voters present at the time; there were barely a dozen people in the polling place.
The sweet little old lady registrar ran her index finger down the list several times.
"Uh-oh."
"Excuse me?"
"There seems to be a problem . . ."
She looked around anxiously for some sort of assistance from someone real, imagined, or from on high. Here we go, I seethed to myself. It's really happening. They know I'm a Democrat. They're out to get me. Everything I read and heard is the ghastly, evil truth . . .
"Oh, there it is!"
It didn't take long, was very simple (yes, an idiot could do it), and you could see the paper ballot being generated by your button choices. But I was wary. I checked everything twice.
Later -- much later -- I watched Ma Clinton celebrating her apparent two-point Indiana triumph as though she had been vindicated once and for all -- and found myself once again fantasizing about Chelsea.
Here and there bits and pieces seen through political-junkie hangover haze on America's morning "news" dump: Reverend Wright, Hillary's need to pull this thing out and heal the Democratic party, Reverend Wright, race isn't an issue, Reverend Wright, Bill worked his heart out, Reverend Wright, race is an issue, race, Wright, white, Thank God for McCain who is serious, honorable and white . . .
And so it goes.