My head was still on the pillow this morning when I decided I was absolutely not going to be lured by Obama. I threw the covers off with a big whew-I'm-glad-that's-over sigh of relief but as soon as I visualized McCain, I flinched. I wonder how many other people out there are just like me.
Our daughter asked us to watch a video about Ralph Nader. I kept telling her we knew about Nader, but I guess she thinks we're too old and addled to figure things out the postmodern way. Unfortunately Nader is still Nader except that it appears his ego has grown abit and while he was a superlative advocate for consumer safety, I don't think I want him setting foreign policy.
Sigh. So, considering that Bob Barr reminds me of Mr. Potter and Nader won't do, that leads me back to Mr. Flimflam and Mr. Tunnel-vision. Drats.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
It's Almost Over
The blogosphere seems a bit sleepy today! I think all of us are burned out from the constant electioneering by the media who are just reporting -- their slants.
Here we took the time off to get away into our safe backyard islands of self and family. It was a comfortable corduroy fall weekend -- just warm enough today to get outside, inside all the unraked leaves, and replace the TV and the telephones with the neighbor's barking shelties and the pond's honking ducks.
Hope all of you had a good weekend, too. It was a good 'take a long, deep breath' interlude. Tomorrow it's back to the crazy quilt stock market panic and another (thankfully the last full) week of politics before we vote. We are some kind of cool and tough people to put up with all this mess! Cross your fingers and say a prayer, maybe we're through the worst of it. At least we know the election is going to be over!!!
Um..oh, yeah, Acorn. Oh, well, I don't want another Florida and I haven't heard much of an appetite for that spectacle from anybody else, either. Maybe ... just maybe... the partisans on both sides will lower the volume and the real people of America who are overwhelmingly decent and honest will outnumber the lawyers that both sides have lined up!! And then we will have a new president elect ...and the stock market will settle down....uh...yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and Frank Capra is my hero. So let's get through next week and go to sleep after whatever decision there is on Nov. 4th. with visions of sugarplums ... and Jimmy Stewart going to Washington in our heads.
Here we took the time off to get away into our safe backyard islands of self and family. It was a comfortable corduroy fall weekend -- just warm enough today to get outside, inside all the unraked leaves, and replace the TV and the telephones with the neighbor's barking shelties and the pond's honking ducks.
Hope all of you had a good weekend, too. It was a good 'take a long, deep breath' interlude. Tomorrow it's back to the crazy quilt stock market panic and another (thankfully the last full) week of politics before we vote. We are some kind of cool and tough people to put up with all this mess! Cross your fingers and say a prayer, maybe we're through the worst of it. At least we know the election is going to be over!!!
Um..oh, yeah, Acorn. Oh, well, I don't want another Florida and I haven't heard much of an appetite for that spectacle from anybody else, either. Maybe ... just maybe... the partisans on both sides will lower the volume and the real people of America who are overwhelmingly decent and honest will outnumber the lawyers that both sides have lined up!! And then we will have a new president elect ...and the stock market will settle down....uh...yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and Frank Capra is my hero. So let's get through next week and go to sleep after whatever decision there is on Nov. 4th. with visions of sugarplums ... and Jimmy Stewart going to Washington in our heads.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Empty Portfolios and Full Pantries
So, oh woe is us! We've all been worshipping at Mammon's altar and its let us down. Stock market? We can't get any real stock there,you know, unless we think that side bets on derivatives are worth having for dessert. Time to push that chair away from the imaginary 'futures' table and return to an old staple --a loaf of bread and vintage wine; sustenance from the Lord's Supper and a pantry filled with calming grace will satisfy -- en vigor -- clarify body, heart, and spirit mind. From now on, maybe we should concentrate on saving.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Fall
I forgot last night and now the begonias out on the deck that were so pretty and luscious and red all summer -- are toppled over on themselves and quite definitely dead. It wasn't really an early freeze or even a hard one, but then begonias are fleshy.
So are people. Paper says the homeless shelters here are filled in this time-out-of-kilter year of constant surprises.
Most of us are still busy carving pumpkins and hoping for Indian summer. We path over our mallard heavy backyard ponds -- glory in our New England crimson fens peaked with burnt orange and burnished gold of turning leaf and yawning limb.
It is humiliatingly long before winter splays its hoary sleep over this normally self sufficient granite land -- a sad time for begonias and people who have already fallen.
So are people. Paper says the homeless shelters here are filled in this time-out-of-kilter year of constant surprises.
Most of us are still busy carving pumpkins and hoping for Indian summer. We path over our mallard heavy backyard ponds -- glory in our New England crimson fens peaked with burnt orange and burnished gold of turning leaf and yawning limb.
It is humiliatingly long before winter splays its hoary sleep over this normally self sufficient granite land -- a sad time for begonias and people who have already fallen.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Eyes Have It
As I was sitting here reviewing a recent telephone conversation, I think I found my answer, or at least the required question. The caller had been a polite lady from a local Obama headquarters. I had told her I am still undecided and she had asked if there was any information that would help me decide. I blurted, "Are you old enough to remember the Dukakis moment?" to which she answered, "Oh, you mean the tank?"
No. Of course that was not the moment. The moment was when some reporter or other asked how Dukakis would feel about the death penalty if Kitty had been raped. It was a horrible thought, but it was unscripted and the nation saw clearly into the heart of the man who would have been president. The nation judged that heart too clinical.
It is that kind of ineffable question I need answered about Obama. He is too cool. Is that real or is it a perfect facade to protect his soul and his loved ones from the piranha media? Whichever the answer or whatever the blend of the answer, I hope someone asks him a bone marrow question that makes his eyes flash warm or cold -- before I go into the voting booth.
No. Of course that was not the moment. The moment was when some reporter or other asked how Dukakis would feel about the death penalty if Kitty had been raped. It was a horrible thought, but it was unscripted and the nation saw clearly into the heart of the man who would have been president. The nation judged that heart too clinical.
It is that kind of ineffable question I need answered about Obama. He is too cool. Is that real or is it a perfect facade to protect his soul and his loved ones from the piranha media? Whichever the answer or whatever the blend of the answer, I hope someone asks him a bone marrow question that makes his eyes flash warm or cold -- before I go into the voting booth.
A Gazillion Second Thoughts
So yesterday I had finally sort of settled on Obama but then yet another pollster called and asked thought provoking questions. I was still pondering my wishywashyness when I got an e-mail from my brother bashing Sarah Palin as Minnie Mouse. Is it just because I am female that immediately I felt protective for the poor woman who got lobbed into this totally unfair ping pong media game, or is it just that I have some deeply buried and surely somehow Freudian loyalty to the innate decency of Annette and all the erstwhile Mouseketeers? Hey there, hi there, ho there.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The People's Houses
We had a birthday dinner for my daughter the other night, a perfect time in a battleground state to take a family poll. I am relatively certain that "None of the Above" could handily win our family circle in November.
As it stands though, one person really is voting for a third party, one is voting for McCain and the rest of us are maybe/probably/unless-something-weird-happens planning to vote for Obama. I wonder what the conversational results are around all the other tables this fall.
Funny thing, most of the adults in my family like the VP choices better -- as gaff prone and controversial as they are. Maybe that's because both of them appear more human and familiar, even if sometimes in chalk-on-a-blackboard ways. I just heard that Biden has predicted within the first six months after Obama wins, there will be an international crisis the likes of the Cuban Missle one. I can just see the handlers begging Biden to go take a rest for awhile and frantically praying for laringytis to visit the sonorous one until after election day! You know, as 'duh, I shoulda' never said that in public' as he probably feels, old Joe is probably right. Of course our enemies will test an idealistic tenderfoot, green president. Do we feel safe about that? Hmm...more aptly put is how unsafe do we feel -- and just which enemies and what kind of test? None of us ever wants to see anything resembling another 9/11.
On the other hand, we are in a rather serious economic period. I do believe that McCain did finally notice ... just before he spazzed out and turned every-which-way but toward the middle-class. I think he thinks he addressed the middle-class, but coming from somebody who has that many houses, he just didn't connect. His mindset is in another world. He can't help that, but then neither can we.
My husband and I went back and forth over which candidate and which party to back as we were trying to finish building a small balcony off our dining room before winter sets in. It's a special addition because we did it together and we did it ourselves. If we had several houses, we wouldn't have one central hearth and heart and home for our memories. As for Obama, I can't see a do-it-yourself project co-existing well inside his millionaire perfect world either. No, neither candidate can really address the middle-class.... Isn't that what's at the bottom of so much of our discontent? When have we really ever elected "one of the people?" When have we ever had the opportunity?
As it stands though, one person really is voting for a third party, one is voting for McCain and the rest of us are maybe/probably/unless-something-weird-happens planning to vote for Obama. I wonder what the conversational results are around all the other tables this fall.
Funny thing, most of the adults in my family like the VP choices better -- as gaff prone and controversial as they are. Maybe that's because both of them appear more human and familiar, even if sometimes in chalk-on-a-blackboard ways. I just heard that Biden has predicted within the first six months after Obama wins, there will be an international crisis the likes of the Cuban Missle one. I can just see the handlers begging Biden to go take a rest for awhile and frantically praying for laringytis to visit the sonorous one until after election day! You know, as 'duh, I shoulda' never said that in public' as he probably feels, old Joe is probably right. Of course our enemies will test an idealistic tenderfoot, green president. Do we feel safe about that? Hmm...more aptly put is how unsafe do we feel -- and just which enemies and what kind of test? None of us ever wants to see anything resembling another 9/11.
On the other hand, we are in a rather serious economic period. I do believe that McCain did finally notice ... just before he spazzed out and turned every-which-way but toward the middle-class. I think he thinks he addressed the middle-class, but coming from somebody who has that many houses, he just didn't connect. His mindset is in another world. He can't help that, but then neither can we.
My husband and I went back and forth over which candidate and which party to back as we were trying to finish building a small balcony off our dining room before winter sets in. It's a special addition because we did it together and we did it ourselves. If we had several houses, we wouldn't have one central hearth and heart and home for our memories. As for Obama, I can't see a do-it-yourself project co-existing well inside his millionaire perfect world either. No, neither candidate can really address the middle-class.... Isn't that what's at the bottom of so much of our discontent? When have we really ever elected "one of the people?" When have we ever had the opportunity?
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