Better Not to Look

Citibank in the tank? Oy.

In the immortal words of Bette Davis, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a BUMPY ride."

But a little check in the silver lining column: Hillary Clinton as the nation's top diplomat? Can anyone now deny that President-elect Obama is capable of maintaining a comfortable egostical remove in governance? It'll be very interesting to see how the 44th adminstration unfurls.
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St. Louis in November

A Place where you can still get a three-course dinner for less than $20.00, including appetizer. This red state has an up-side.
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Mr. President

This last week has passed in a lovely haze of blue. Hail to the chief.

Yes, our nation's troubles are vast. Seemingly insurmountable, in fact. Will a President Obama solve them all? Or even most of them? Probably not. But it doesn't really matter at this particular moment. We have hope, and that's something we haven't had in a very long time. We are about to go through something devastating, but If we are lucky we will come through it a different nation, with different priorities. What better president to lead in a time of radical change than Barack Obama?
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State of Mind

In the parking lot of Gelson's market is a great ostentatious cow of a Lexus SUV with a bumber sticker that says "Vote NObama! McCain-Palin '08," and I truly wonder what a seemingly educated West Coast voter sees in that ticket. Anyone who reads a paper must realize by now that, in his 26 years in government, McCain has been anything but an effective custodian of even rich people's money. He could hardly be considered a visionary: witness his VP choice. He's clearly no Rennaissance man.

So what does the Lexus driver see in him? I conclude this: the Lexus driver is afraid... And probably not of a black president. I think that, for some people, a narrow range of expectations is something like a comfort. It is somehow safer for Lexus driver to stick with, if not failure, then a limited spectrum of possible success. This is McCain. Great change- represented by Obama-, even if it's positive, is nevertheless a negation of that which you've always known, and it's painful to accept for some people. A house built on a bad foundation is still a roof and four walls.


I think Lexus driver needs Obama more than most.
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30 Minutes of Barack Obama

Last night's 30 minute campaign broadcast from the Obama campaign was brilliant.

John McCain was never mentioned. Instead, the ad featured the stories of those struggling to make it in Bush's economy. Real people with obviousy real problems. Each vignette was followed with Obama listing the specific steps he will take to alleviate the troubles of those featured and others like them. The message was effective: There are too many important things to talk about to waste time on jabs at the opponent. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that this is a strategy that will appeal to inexplicably undecided voters who have indicated in the polls of the last several weeks that they consider negative campaigning a distraction.

At the end, I was left wondering what McCain would look like on air for thirty minutes, and I could not imagine wàtching him talking to and empathisizing with the common man, nor do I think he would be able to refrain from his Bill Ayers/ he's a socialist/ he's un-American diatribe that seems to constitute the sum total of his presidential vision. We need better than that. We deserve better than that.

Palin in Effigy

Today, a West Hollywood man hung in effigy a mannequin made up to look like Sarah Palin. Apparently, it was part of his Halloween decorations.

Really? I think a walking, talking, breathing Sarah Palin is much scarier.
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Let's Get Real

I will not concede that the voters of this nation ultimately believe that John McCain is the man to lead us into a world of new and daunting challenges.

I will not concede that this election will be won by John McCain, a man who has appealed to the very worst of human frailties (fear of the different, lack of vision, narrow-mindedness), rather than the best in us, in order to win.

I refuse to believe that Americans will choose to live within the tight knot of anger, pessimism, and disdain that sits at the heart of John McCain's philosophy.

I believe, rather, that America will see that Barack Obama, the man who has inspired a surge of optimism in those who have long been disenfranchised, and who, with great intelligence and dignity, has demonstrated what an American president should be, will stand at a podium and accept the nation's mandate for positive change.

And I mean it.

But dear GOD I need this election to be over. I can't take the anxiety.

The Things That Pull Us Through

Fullerton, Ca.

This is a cornerstone of the community. Who cares about the plural form when they have Dietrich coffee? If you are lucky to have a local place like this that serves coffee in those jumbo pump thermases and you serve yourself, here's the perfect recipe: 1 part cinnamon flavored, 1 part decaf french roast, 2 parts regular french roast. It goes perfectly with an everything bagel.

I could not make It through the work day without this stop on my commute.
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The Pieta

I took this picture of Michelangelo's georgeous sculpture of the Madonna and the crucified Christ that resides at The Vatican when I was there in the summer of 2007. I love this sculpture because it depicts a mother's mortal sorrow. Unlike other versions, Mary's eyes are upon her dead son, not turned up to God in piety. Mary is mourning a human loss rather than, as is usual with this subject matter in art, celebrating the return of the son of God to his father's right hand. This is why she is the patron saint of all mothers.
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The Most Beautiful Building on Earth

St. Peter's Basilica. Breathtaking.

June, 2007

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It All Began When...

Eve

There was a great beauty by the Tree,

Less sense, I fear, and wit;

She showed herself a harlotry,

And did as she thought fit.

The knees uncrossed in Paradise

Were fatal to our kind--

O that the Boss had given her

More brain and less behind!

If she had not opened up

To Adam her man, and made

Men, there would have been no

Strife, and sparring with spade;

And all our pilling woes

Stopped at the very Spring--

Innocent as the rose

Then, each rejoicing Spring.

by Arthur J. Bull

Bull's misogynistic irreverence is conscious in this poem. He laments that Eve ever "knew" Adam (in the biblical sense, pun intended) and begat children, for without that original procreative episode, there would be no man and, therefore, no manmade suffering visited upon mankind. Like Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, for example.

Before Global Warming Ruins it...

New York City in a snow storm. Today, I found this picture on my hard drive--I had taken it last February from the window of my hotel room. I'm a California man, and I remember being struck by how dreamlike and virginal the city looked. The falling snow muffled sound, but the new snow touching old as it landed made this really beautiful whisper. It reminded me of this passage from my favorite (great American) novel:

"Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world."

incidentally...

To whomever is monitoring the internet for signs of dissention: that bit at the end of my last entry is a reference to horror films of the 1930's. You know. The villagers decide they've had enough of being terrorized and organize to scare the monster out of the woods....

Nightmares

I woke up at one o'clock in the morning thinking what if that old man wins? What if playing dirty does the job? Again?
Even mainstream pundits now discuss the stealing of the 2000 and 2004 elections as if it were a given (where were you then?), so we know all about defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory. But this election is somehow different even from the tragedy in two acts that constitutes the new millenium thus far in American politics. In this election, a line has been drawn in the sand, and for many, an Obama loss at this stage--a commanding lead in the polls, the electrifying enthusiasm of people of color and young voters, the searing intellect, the ability to remain calm in the face of bigotted filth slingers-- will be nothing but clear evidence of institutionalized racism. Out of the closet; end of denial.
And what then? How does our country survive that?
If this election goes to a myopic, fear-bating, right-wing pandering old crank, I can tell you this: This forty-something middle class white guy from the suburbs might join the villagers in chasing someone up a windmill.