Independents Unite!.......and Sticks

Well, it's been too long since I've commented. Let me start by reflecting on the end of John Edwards' campaign. I've said it before but there is a lot I like abou that guy. One important point to me is that he began his campaign in New Orleans, the site of the worst natural disaster in American History. he ended it there. No other candidate campaigned as often in New Orleans. He madee fighting poverty the signautre plank of his platform. While we might all disagree on the various modes of waging this fight, I think one would have to admit it's a noble cause. No other candidate lead the fight for the down trodden and I suppose the political expediency of that notion is self-evident. So, I bid a salute to Senator Edwards for being principled and for being focused on who and what the rest of us aren't.

I thought about Edwards and Katrina and all the victims a couple of weeks ago whilst we attended the Endymion ball in the Superdome. The Superdome was a spectacle of light and alcohol and music and wonder, but I had to think about all those poor souls who weathered the storm and crapped on the floors and slept in the chairs and the few that died there. But don't worry, I wasn't Debbie Downer at the ol' ball, I quickly righted myself and remembered that that structure saved so many people's lives. If it wasn't for that home of the Saints, those people would have drown in their attics or been swept into a canal. It's a terrific structure mostly for parties, but when you call on it in a time of need it can save a mass of humanity. Thanks Superdome.

Well, Barack Obama is on a tear tonight having won the Potomac Primaries as they are dubbed. Don't count out Senator Clinton. She's like that one eyed Russian on "Lost". You've got to watch her because just when you think she's been shot dead with a spear gun she'll get up and swim out of the underground radar jamming station and blow you up. She's dangerous. I really hope we have an Obama/McCain match up. It would be a shinning moment for us Indepdents. They are both very attractive to indepedents. The other day in the paper was a list of 12 or 14 reasons why the ultra consveratives don't like McCain and after reading those I was ready to vote for him. The thing I like about Obama other than the message of change that is oh so important (see quote below) is what he will do to the politics of race. What people fail to understand is that the race baiting, race pandering days of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will be gone. The Clintons have pandered and sucked up and stirred up issues of race and been more divisive than the KKK and if obama gets elected there will be a clean break from those racial politics of the past. From what I know of Federal Jurisprudence, Affirmative Action as we know it is dead, racial preferences can't be used in all those places where they had in the past. That leaves the race baiting politics of Jesse Jackson types as being one of the greatest impediments to true racial equality (you know like in the Declaration of Independence?). Obama's election would neutralize that sort of bullshit. But, that's sort of a secondary reason to root for Obama, a really good, concise expression of the hope of Obama's campaign comes from my friend Julie's brother, Richmond's blog. Richmond writes:

I don't agree with him on the war in Iraq, but I think his options are going to be more limited there than he imagines, for better or worse. But on the environment, on technology, on poverty, homeland security, immigration-- and a host of other issues, I think he has the right idea. I don't think he's the Second Coming; I don't think he's some political Messiah. I don't doubt that he will screw up, and that people will point it out-- whether on the campaign trail or in office. I do think, however, that he's capable of making us proud of our president again. I think his intentions are good, his mind is sharp, and his ability to motivate a hugely disparate group of people is nothing short of uncanny. Any candidate who can march under the utterly earnest banners of "change" and "hope" and not have me smirking ironically-- instead has me nodding-- is on to something. After viewing the carousel of tired old retreads mouthing the same old platitudes and taking the same cheapshot rabbit punches at each other, I think it's time to give someone very new and different a shot. Campaign reform? He's taken no money from lobbyists or PACs. None. Experience? Sen. Obama has more time as an elected official than Sen. Clinton has-- and she touts her experience as a selling point. (That is, unless you count her time as a presidential wife as actual experience?)The presidency isn't a hereditary office in this country-- not yet. I think it's time to remind certain elements of that. For me, Obama is a choice that shows a little faith in the better angels of our nature. As a candidate, as an official, he might make us want to be a little better than we are, rather than telling us that what we are is the greatest thing ever-- and shut up (or, and here's $50!).

I think Richmond got it right.

Ha, I just saw Al Sharpton on TV. Do you know the story of his hair? As a young man he idolized James Brown and said that if ever got to meet him he would style his hair like Brown's. He met him and now look at his hair. As funny as that story is, I wonder how many of you remember the story of Tawna Brawley? Sharpton's involvment was criminal, incendiary, despciable and vial and all in the name of race. He should be in prison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley

Okay, I have nothing to mention on the issue of Historic Preservation.

What else can I talk about to illustrate the multi dimensional aspects of my life. Well, I finished digging up all the spirea and azaleas in the side yard. When we moved and did work on the house we fenced the side yard to become what is in reality a backyard since this house has no backyard. There were lots of old azaleas and a termendous spirea in the side yard. While lovely, that's not where I wanted them for the back/side yard is to be a beautiful grass lawn interrupted only by a swing set or play house for the kids. So, I dug these things up now in the dead of winter and used them fill in some gaps on the front and around the siede of the fence. I am very happy to report that it appears they are going survive intact and perhaps even bloom. I'm so happy about this for several reasons, A) I hate to kill an attractive, mature plant B) I'm saving hundreds of dollars at the nursery and C) It just sort fits in with my maniac need to re-use things.

Andrew is getting big and fun. His eyes are so blue, they're really a spectacle.

Camille is just a wonder. She love sticks, which touches my heart. As my wife can tell you I own several sticks, some of them decades old. The other night, Camille dug out a stick that was in my bedside table drawer (Why it was in there, I don't know). When I was five or six I picked up a stick from the hedge between my grandmother's and her neighbor, the Kempers. Mr. Kemper had trimmed the hedge and this one particular stick about ten inches long was left on the ground after he was done. I really took a shine to it and played with it all afternoon. I took it home and my dad whittled it into a knife of sorts. A pointed top, a handle, my name carved along with some diamonds, a sun and a moon. She found it and started running with it and I stopped her and sat her down and we looked at my stick and I showed her the sun and the moon carved into it and told her it was mine. She totally got it, she knew it was a good stick. It must be genetic. If I had a picture of the stick I would put it here.