The Great Schlep

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

Colin Powell is the only cabinet official from the disastrously bad Bush II administration who survived with his reputation (mostly) in tact. It would have helped if he had spoken out about the BS he knew was happening in BusCheney world, but as a military man, it is not likely he would have done so while still serving in his role as Secretary of State. Once out of office he has kept mum about the shit he knew. Some would call that honorable. I'm inclined to call it cowardice, but that's how I roll. Powell is the Military man's Military man. Stoic is the word that probably best describes Powell's calm, patient, silent role since he left office. But for Colin Powell to endorse Barack Obama is stunning. It has removed from my mind any lingering taint from serving in BusCheney World, and it is a big back-handed slap to the face of John McCain. And any lingering distaste I had for Powell not resigning prior to delivering his famously bullshit speech at the United Nations has almost evaporated with his endorsement of Barack Obama for President.

A New Secret Club Is Brewing Up A Blog

Well, let the writing commence! Many of us are working on fiction or something resembling fiction. I once again propose that we start a writer's group. All you need is a work in progress. I have not cleared this with Dcup, but she was the one who designed the gorgeous secret blog called "Deadly Women Write". There are still stories there in progress, but now there are other stories needing a place to be worked on where ones fellow writers can make suggestions and actually be each others copy editors. It is incredibly helpful and has inspired a collection of Judith Blue stories from moi. Anyway, if you're interested and working on a short story or novel, let me know so we can get this going. So far, I'd say this blog will include Diva Jood who it's rumored is working on a story. Dcup has a couple up her sleeve. Randal has a novel brewing. Beach has several stories, so do I, maybe Naj and NJRR. If you want to be included in this new project leave a comment.

Elitism

My Dear Liquid Illusion, Thank You

I have been given two awards by the very lovely blogger known as Liquid Illusion. One is called the UBER AMAZING BLOG!!! Woo Woo! Darling, you are too sweet. I love you, too. And the other is the I Love Your Blog award . And I really really do.

And with all gifts they must be shared to be enjoyed. So to these five bloggers I bestow these awards on you:

Dcup, the one the only woman with a tinfoil bra and a picture to prove it.
Randal, because he's so sweet and snarky. Yummm.
Beach, who has the writer's soul. I dare you to start twittering.
Diva, because she is the Diva, and I want to be her Big Chief Justice.
Florence Joe, Oh Sorry, Freida Bee, because, well, you know. If you don't you should.

McCain and His Long Association with Unrepentant Terrorist G. Gordon Liddy

Leave it to the Huffington Post to cover the stories no one else is covering. My question is why aren't the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or MSNBC covering this story?

Joe the Plumber Wasn't Vetted

Any high school student could have done the research on Joe the Plumber. But certainly any enterprising journalist can do that work without leaving bed. Joe is a figment of his own and John McCain's imaginations and now he is on the radar of a lot of people that might have been overlooking the trouble that Joe the Plumber is in. He owes back taxes. He doesn't have a license. He is a subcontractor??? Doesn't that require some kind of licensing? He doesn't make much more than $40,000. a year and his boss, the guy whose business Joe wants to buy, doesn't make $200,000. a year, making them both winners in the Obama tax plan.

This shows exactly why John McCain isn't fit to lead. He makes stupid decisions without more than the impulse of the momentary mood. Yeah, that sounds good lets go with that. Let's build the narrative of the last debate all about Joe the Plumber, that'll be a winner for me. I'll get him with that line, "And you said, we need to spread the wealth around." I hadn't heard Barack ever say that, but I'm thinking, "good idea, lets." I'm betting so is Joe the Plumber.

Old Apples

Coma of cold storage
Against the sweetening
Orchard--white petals
Wet, dirt, shoots, dingy bees--
Last years apples
Comestible (just)
Faded Ted Williamses
Kept crisp at thirty-two
Point nine degrees
Because we change
Always, restless wonders
Into the graspable
If superfluous item
To eat or to wear
Thus explaining
Among much else
Why the average vernal apple-eater
Is so quick to hate
A happy woman who likes to fuck.

---Beau Friedlander

Debate Notes

The Great White Hope is a grumpy old man, lurching and erratic. McCain blusters, sputters "Fanny Freddy Mac is the reason for this crises" That's right old man, blame the poor and minorities for all that ails the economy, you simple old fart.

"It's the American Dream to be rich?!?!"

"You want to spread the wealth around!" It's about time, I'd say--spread it around a little.

"JOE THE PLUMBER told me this story." Who the fuck is Joe the Plumber? How much does he make, HOW MUCH DOES HE PAY IN TAXES? what does he pay his workers, are they legal or illegal? Does Joe provide health insurance? How many employees does Joe the Plumber have?

Maybe great wealth is like organic fertilizer and needs to be spread around, just a thought.

"Nuclear Power plants, Nuclear power, Nuclear power, 45 Nuclear power plants!!!"

FORTY FIVE!!! Whoa old man, Not in my neighborhood! Does anybody remember THREE MILE ISLAND???? Do you want the nuclear waste buried in your back yard? I don't want it in mine. The French are trying to bury it in Utah and we don't want their waste, how about you?

"Drill, Drill, Drill off shore now!" And in the next breath he says he wants a "SPENDING FREEZE?" ARE YOU CRAZY?

I WILL...! I CAN FIX....! I HAVE THE EXPERIENCE...! I DISAGREED...! I, I, I, ME, ME, ME," I'm waiting for the chest thumping and the Tarzan jungle yell.

"JOHN LEWIS SAID MEAN, SCURRILOUS THINGS ABOUT ME AND MY GIRL! MAKE HIM TAKE IT BACK!"
Oh shut up. John Lewis said the tone of your rallies reminds him of the bad old days of race hatred.

IT'S NOT FAIR, HE'S GOT MORE MONEY THAT I DO TO RUN NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN ADS!
Oh shut up you old fart! You're starting to make me physically ill, I may puke soon.

"JOE THE PLUMBER, JOE THE PLUMBER, JOE THE PLUMBER!" Will Joe the Plumber please step forward?

"SARAH MY PARTNER, SARAH MY PARTNER, SARAH MY PARTNER!" Oh shut up, and get a room you two.

"DRILL OFF SHORE," "I AM A FREE TRADER!" "WE SHOULD BE HELPING COLUMBIA!!" HE HASN'T TRAVELED TO COLUMBIA" HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND! I UNDERSTAND!"

"Well John, I do understand... How about free trade with Peru, a country that treats their workers fairly?"

"WELL, WILLIAM AYERS! AYERS! AYERS.!

Here's where the evening got interesting. Obama runs through his "relationship with Ayres once again. Does anyone remember the Primary? It was investigated and vetted and explained into obsurdity, but Obama calmly lays it out again. The Annenbergs, who are REPUBLICANS!!! and most of the rest of the Board of Director's of the foundation are big name REPUBLICANS!!!
Then he sucker punches the old white man, and named his advisers and probably some of his cabinet--Buffet, Vogel, Biden, Leugar, General Jim Jones. Take that you stupid grumpy old man!

And on the issue of Choice, John McCain makes light of the idea that the life of the woman is important, not that big a deal, unimportant???!!! Oh no he didn't!!! You old bastard, it should be the most important aspect of a woman's right to make her own decisions in consultation with her doctor regarding her reproductive decisions. Keep the government's prurient eyes off my friends daughter's uterus! No one is going to force any woman to get an abortion. If a woman chooses to lose her own life so that her baby can be born, that's her business. But if my friend's daughter chooses to be childless, and she gets pregnant no matter why or how, it's her legal right to terminate that pregnancy. It does not effect you. It isn't your business. No, you can't look at her most intimate parts like a horny gynecologist and declare that the life of the zygote is sacred, and the pregnant woman is merely its disposable house.

Can we just round up all the angry old white racist paternalistic bastards and send them to Colombia? It could be the new Florida.

Ghost gives me T.S. Eliot. Not With a Whimper But A Bang.

Ghost you are a lovely presence. Thank you for this: T.S. Eliot by Marlon Brando. It could also be Joe the Plumber. Am I the only one who sees the resemblance? Besides you Randal.

William Blake

After falling madly in love with TS Elliot, my second poetic infatuation was William Blake. The first of his poems I read was The Tyger, which found me in an adolescent search for God. I wrestled with Blake like the Angel of Death in my quest for God and never lost my love of Blake, but gave up on God long, long, long ago. Now The Tyger seems like a vaguely menacing nursery rhyme.

THE TYGER

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

By William Blake

The First Poem I Ever Fell In Love With

The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was written when T.S. Eliot was twenty two years old.

The Last of Autumn's Flowers

This is another of Melea's landscapes. Maybe better described as a detail in a larger landscape. Early Autumn in the foothills east of Salt Lake City.

The Grand Old Party is a Fraud

After eight years of the Bush administration, the Republican Party -- to put it bluntly -- is a mess and a fraud.

There is an intellectual case to be made for the economic philosophy that the party purports to represent. I disagree with it strongly, but I respect its integrity -- in a way that this administration and the Republican leadership in Congress clearly did not.

The Republican Party said it believed in free and unfettered competition, but it picked winners and losers through a system of crony capitalism. All it takes to make my point is a name: Jack Abramoff.

The Bush tax cuts, which heavily favored the wealthy, showed that the president and his allies in Congress didn't believe in progressive taxation. I think that's outrageous, but the administration goes further and actually seems to prefer a regressive tax scheme. That's the only explanation I can think of for why hedge fund managers making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay taxes at a lower rate than their chauffeurs.

This is a small excerpt from Eugene Robinson's column in the Washington Post today. Here's another:

Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?

It's pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with "radical" or "socialist" views when a Republican administration is tossing aside "Atlas Shrugged" and speed-reading "Das Kapital.

Thanks Eugene, I needed that.

More of the Delicious Economist Paul Krugman

My favorite economist, the hunky Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman takes on BillO on BillO's own turf.

Paul Krugman Wins Nobel Prize for Economics

The world's hunkiest Economist wins the Nobel Prize. I've become a Krugman fan this year watching him on my favorite prime time news shows: Hardball, Countdown, and now The Rachel Maddow Show. I was turned off by the economists of the past, namely Allen Greenspan and Paul Bernanke, big money morons in my estimation. Thanks a lot you titans of the past for the mess we find ourselves in. Make way for handsome Paul Krugman.

Yesterday It Was Fall, Today It Is Winter

I have been taking photographs of the slow changing of the season. It is, ideally, a slow process, allowing a late season of harvests in the garden, and time to rake the leaves as they fall. But in one day it has gone from the gradual to the immediate. For weeks we had temperatures over night in the low 50's then the high 40's and last night we were supposed to barely touch 32 but not long enough to do much damage. Snow was forecast for the higher elevations, but not so much for the valleys. Yesterday was chill enough that I wore a jacket when I was gathering the plums I could reach on the lowest hanging branches. I planned to visit my neighbor's garden today to pick green tomatoes, the last of the zucchini and peppers. I'm afraid there is nothing left after the freeze last night. It was a hard freeze last night with snow in the valley. More snow is forecast today. A colder night is forecast for tonight. The only season I hate here is winter. And it has arrived. I must do some things today. I must shut off outside water. I must get swamp-coolers covered and their openings into the houses insulated and sealed. None of this is work I want to do. All this is the work that must be done when winter is breathing down your neck. Winters are harsh in the Mountain West. With our winter beginning before leaves in the valley have changed color, trees will lose limbs because of the weight of snow on leaf laden branches. If it continues this cold and snows often enough it will be impossible to rake the leaves when they do fall.

This shocking change of season has me finally in the mood to read. And it is Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine that I am curling up with.

This is my Favorite So Far

My favorite Autumn Landscape
Melea with the great eye for design

Daily Tracking Poll

This is probably the only daily tracking poll on the election worth following. I keep reposting it, but now I'm asking you to post it on your sites. (Cincinnati? Randal?--you should be proud.)

This is posted daily and updated as events unfold. The first time I saw the guy whose site this is interviewed was about a week ago on Olbermann. Since then I've seen him on Rachel Maddow. Sorry I can't remember his name. He's young and very smart and laid back and wonky. There are at least two people posting and you can comment there. I just want you to watch this for your own sanity. It will reassure you. And we could all use a look at something that lets us feel better about our fellow citizens. We just might not be as stupid as they think.

It's called five thirty eight.

Autumn is Here Now

Another of Melea's landscapes.