The New Jersey Devil

And to think I once rolled my eyes when Lonnie posted pages full of video.

Wilco The Song

Debuted and retired on The Colbert Report, 10/30/08

Happy Allison's Least Favorite Holiday

Though the sugar skulls for el dia de los muertos are kinda cool.

I'm totally serious, dude.

"Seriously. "

It's my verbal tic of the moment. Along with the throw-back of "totally" and the perennially popular, "dude." Seriously. As in, "I am not kidding," as in, "Can you believe that?" as in "What the hell is he/she/it thinking?!" as in, "I am completely sincere," as in "Dude, I totally spend too much time around high school kids. "

Seriously.

It's getting quite a work-out this week as I keep wading into conversations that would otherwise leave me speechless.

"Obama scares you? Seriously?" The straightforward question.

The power of inflection: "She said no one is that perfect and it makes her uncomfortable."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."

The buffer against the literal exploding of my head:

"You seriously are telling me that you take the word of a website that refers to him as a 'damned, sneaky bastard,' as unvarnished, straightforward, truth?" SERIOUSLY?!

Those are four damn useful syllables.

I am totally not kidding.

Dude.

Land of Lincoln

Five minutes East of my house lies the fairly wide-open prairie: the edge of the cornfield that separates us from Chicago, bisected by I-55. From that angle I seem to live in the country, but that's not my reality. I never think of it until I'm bracing myself to face the tedium and begin some long-ass drive. Life faces West around here, to the neighborhoods, to the downtown, to the maze of big box stores, to the river and city beyond. Still, this bank of the Mississippi does have its advantages, even if it is, techncially,the right. Among them I count the sight of seeming octogenarians, retired farmer-types in jeans and button-shirts, proudly wearing brand new Obama caps.

Or, think about it this way

the polls

Last time, I missed the turn.

The long drive that outlines the edge of the property isn't marked, isn't lit, or barely, or except by the light of the moon. After a handful of visits spread across five years, it's familiar, but not quite enough, or not at that hour of the morning. So last time, I missed the turn.

But I doubled back and pulled in, following behind the tail lights of one pick-up truck or another down to the cramped parking lot, glad to have trouble finding a space. I'm here for the community, the random collection of probably-strangers; I'm here to join the line of laborers and commuters that need to get to work near dawn-- but only after voting.

Last time, there was a hopeful buzz. Despite the dark, despite the chill, despite the traffic growing heavier. It felt as if we were doing something. Good thing for the moment we couldn't have known. This time, I hope and pray it's different even as I look forward to it being exactly the same. Small talk with apparent neighbors. A few minutes of diligent marking. A glance at the counter. A smile and a sticker. Anticipation and satisfaction all at once. And this time, please baby Jesus, change.

This week I've been making a few calls for Obama; tonight I reminded folks--really old folks, mostly-- they could vote early. I could have, too, but I didn't, not wanting to miss it. I know that's silly. But heck, when one is 89 missing it might have a much different meaning. And as the time before last showed, in Florida, we need to use every strategery.

Creative campaigning

I wouldn't find this nearly as amusing if I hadn't already voted.

"Don't think for a minute that power concedes." -- Barack Obama

Obama's closing argument, tonight in Canton, Ohio:

In this election, we cannot afford the same political games and tactics that are being used to pit us against one another and make us afraid of one another. The stakes are too high to divide us by class and region and background; by who we are or what we believe.

Because despite what our opponents may claim, there are no real or fake parts of this country. There is no city or town that is more pro-America than anywhere else – we are one nation, all of us proud, all of us patriots. There are patriots who supported this war in Iraq and patriots who opposed it; patriots who believe in Democratic policies and those who believe in Republican policies. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.

It won’t be easy, Ohio. It won’t be quick. But you and I know that it is time to come together and change this country. Some of you may be cynical and fed up with politics. A lot of you may be disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what has been asked of Americans throughout our history.

I ask you to believe – not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.

I know this change is possible. Because I have seen it over the last twenty-one months. Because in this campaign, I have had the privilege to witness what is best in America.

I’ve seen it in lines of voters that stretched around schools and churches; in the young people who cast their ballot for the first time, and those not so young folks who got involved again after a very long time. I’ve seen it in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see their friends lose their jobs; in the neighbors who take a stranger in when the floodwaters rise; in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb. I’ve seen it in the faces of the men and women I’ve met at countless rallies and town halls across the country, men and women who speak of their struggles but also of their hopes and dreams.

I still remember the email that a woman named Robyn sent me after I met her in Ft. Lauderdale. Sometime after our event, her son nearly went into cardiac arrest, and was diagnosed with a heart condition that could only be treated with a procedure that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Her insurance company refused to pay, and their family just didn’t have that kind of money.

In her email, Robyn wrote, "I ask only this of you – on the days where you feel so tired you can’t think of uttering another word to the people, think of us. When those who oppose you have you down, reach deep and fight back harder."

Ohio, that’s what hope is – that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting around the bend; that insists there are better days ahead. If we’re willing to work for it. If we’re willing to shed our fears and our doubts. If we’re willing to reach deep down inside ourselves when we’re tired and come back fighting harder.

Hope! That’s what kept some of our parents and grandparents going when times were tough. What led them to say, "Maybe I can’t go to college, but if I save a little bit each week my child can; maybe I can’t have my own business but if I work really hard my child can open one of her own." It’s what led immigrants from distant lands to come to these shores against great odds and carve a new life for their families in America; what led those who couldn’t vote to march and organize and stand for freedom; that led them to cry out, "It may look dark tonight, but if I hold on to hope, tomorrow will be brighter."

That’s what this election is about. That is the choice we face right now.

Don’t believe for a second this election is over. Don’t think for a minute that power concedes. We have to work like our future depends on it in this last week, because it does.

In one week, we can choose an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs and fuels prosperity from the bottom-up.

In one week, we can choose to invest in health care for our families, and education for our kids, and renewable energy for our future.

In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history.

That’s what’s at stake. That’s what we’re fighting for. And if in this last week, you will knock on some doors for me, and make some calls for me, and talk to your neighbors, and convince your friends; if you will stand with me, and fight with me, and give me your vote, then I promise you this – we will not just win Ohio, we will not just win this election, but together, we will change this country and we will change the world. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.

Crazy talk

I was shocked, nearly fell off my chair even, to read these words: "there is no rule barring felons from serving in Congress." Go figure.

a private talk

"You're here."

"I am."

"I'm glad."

"Me, too."

"You look all right." A nodding once-over.

"Everything's normal today."

"I'm keeping an eye, just between you and me."

"I know. It's okay. Thank you."

A chance meeting before school in the bustling commons. Our paths not quite crossing, but almost. We smile small, quiet smiles as our eyes meet and hold. We say it all without uttering a word. Nobody else is the wiser.

Sure I make fun of my brother for taking pictures of food. But sometimes you just gotta.

Meet our new KC friends

Oh, my. har.

Ok, NOW you can click this link. Right now!

Click everywhere you can on that page, and for baby Jesus' sake make sure the sound is on.

What Kansas City has taught us. Or, It's Deja MO All Over Again

Kansas City is indeed on the border. The border between Washington and Texas.

A Residence Inn is a Residence Inn is a Residence Inn. But what happened to the Alamo view?

Bread pudding is to KC as doughnuts are to Seattle.

There's no full like barbecue full.

Lamb ribs. Seriously.

Coffee-flavored beer has it all over coffee.

Peace and tranquility can be found sleeping in the middle of the street.

Nothing is more exciting than Pottery Barn Kids.

$68 can buy a Hall(mark) ornament that you actually want.

Everything isn't bigger in Texas.

You say shuttlecock. We say cockrocket. We laugh a lot more than you.

The Electric Light Parade is a lot longer than we thought. Either that or Cinderella's happily ever after has fallen on really hard times.

A Halloween Story

Fear has profoundly changed us
By LEONARD PITTS JR.

Meanwhile, back at the War on Terror . . .

You remember the War on Terror, don't you? It was in all the papers. Back before presidential politics sucked the air from the room and your 401(k) shrank till it was worth maybe dinner and a movie, it was considered quite the important news story. Abu Ghraib? Extraordinary renditions? Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here? Surely you recall.

I only ask because of a news story that broke last week to a yawn of media disinterest. The Washington Post reported on two secret White House memos explicitly endorsing the use of waterboarding -- simulated drowning -- on so-called high-value terrorism suspects. This is, says The Post, the first time the still-classified memos have been disclosed. They were written in response to requests from then-CIA Director George Tenet, who worried his agents might be hung out to dry if the practice were discovered and the people or their representatives demanded someone's head.

According to The Post, the White House issued written authorizations in 2003 and 2004. Yet in 2006, President Bush told the nation, ``The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it -- and I will not authorize it.''

Which was, of course, a lie.

You'd think the latest proof of that lie -- yet another smoking gun to stack with all the others -- would merit attention. But a computer search Thursday turned up only seven newspaper stories mentioning the memos. Searches of the CNN and FOX news websites also came up dry, though the story did appear on MSNBC's site.

If you think my point is that the media missed an important story, it isn't. No, the point is that normal is not where we thought it would be.


You remember how it was just after Sept. 11, 2001, right? Some of us vowed we would never enter a skyscraper again. Some of us didn't want to leave our houses again. The minutiae of popular culture became staggeringly unimportant. Humorists like David Letterman and my colleague, Dave Barry, wondered if they could ever return to the business of laughter.

We were scared dry. And some of us said: Get used to it. This was the new normal.

But skyscrapers did not close from lack of use. We did not become a nation of agoraphobics. We did not lose our interest in singers and movie stars. Letterman and Barry went back to work.

Fear, which had cut through us like a hot poker, became instead a low-grade fever, ambient noise, wallpaper, something you feel without feeling, hear without hearing, see without seeing.

Then you look up one day and realize how profoundly that fear has changed your world. People are imprisoned without charges or access to attorneys, and it's routine. People are surveilled, their reading habits studied, their telephone usage logged, and it's commonplace. People, including children, end up on a secret list of those who are not allowed to fly, nobody will tell you why, there is no appeal, and it's ordinary. We swallow lies like candy, nod sagely at babblespeak, and it's unexceptional.

Torture is inflicted with White House approval, the president lies about it and it's just another Tuesday.

Once upon a time, Americans were fond of looking upon backward nations, upon places where law was whatever the king said it was, and noting with pride that we do things differently in our country. But that was a day long ago and a country long gone.

If we miss the one or mourn the other, you'd never know it to look at us. We live through what feels evermore like a Joe McCarthy fever dream. We feel without feeling, hear without hearing, see without seeing and do not protest what we have become.

Because this is normal now.

The Real Plumbers of Ohio

By Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman

Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America’s divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the “silent majority,” the regular guys — white guys, it went without saying — who didn’t like the social changes taking place.

It was a winning formula. And the great thing was that the new packaging didn’t require any change in the product’s actual contents — in fact, the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever.

John McCain’s strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it.

Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the “pro-America” parts of the country — yep, we’re all traitors here in central New Jersey. Meanwhile we’ve got Mr. McCain making Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber — who had confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, alleging that the Democratic candidate would raise his taxes — the centerpiece of his attack on Mr. Obama’s economic proposals.

And when it turned out that the right’s new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Mr. Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man?

But what’s really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general?

First of all, they aren’t making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930.

Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 — but the average Ohio plumber’s income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000.

Third, Ohio plumbers have been having growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2007 only 45 percent of companies with fewer than 10 employees offered health benefits, down from 57 percent in 2000.

And bear in mind that all these data pertain to 2007 — which was as good as it got in recent years. Now that the “Bush boom,” such as it was, is over, we can see that it achieved a dismal distinction: for the first time on record, an economic expansion failed to raise most Americans’ incomes above their previous peak.

Since then, of course, things have gone rapidly downhill, as millions of working Americans have lost their jobs and their homes. And all indicators suggest that things will get much worse in the months and years ahead.

So what does all this say about the candidates? Who’s really standing up for Ohio’s plumbers?

Mr. McCain claims that Mr. Obama’s policies would lead to economic disaster. But President Bush’s policies have already led to disaster — and whatever he may say, Mr. McCain proposes continuing Mr. Bush’s policies in all essential respects, and he shares Mr. Bush’s anti-government, anti-regulation philosophy.

What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama? Well, Mr. Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets — and the second-highest bracket for a head of household starts at an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year.

Maybe there are plumbers out there who earn that much, or who would end up suffering from Mr. Obama’s proposed modest increases in taxes on dividends and capital gains — America is a big country, and there’s probably a high-income plumber with a huge stock market portfolio out there somewhere. But the typical plumber would pay lower, not higher, taxes under an Obama administration, and would have a much better chance of getting health insurance.

I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit.

But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans.

Wow.

We stood on the sidewalk and watched. And the people just kept coming. And coming. And coming. "This line does have an end, right?" said some guy as he headed past. We would have smiled at him, but we already were. We knew we were part of something amazing. (And we were glad to be at least a little ahead.)

Retirees with beauty-shop hair stood with tough-looking workers who stood with college kids who stood with polo-and-khakis-yuppies who stood with old guys in ball caps who stood with couples of all combinations who stood with thousands and thousands of families in a line that stretched for at least a mile's worth of blocks until we all poured through the abandoned security gates to the sloping lawn under the arch. My, "Wow," was not a solo, and I can't be alone in saying it was like nothing I've ever experienced. Oh, I've been in that crowd in that spot, for a concert or a fireworks view, but the attitude was entirely different. It was peaceful anticipation and by God, it was hope. It was seeing the phenomenon for ourselves. Feeling the possibility. It was a great day, a great memory for a girl and her mom. Now here's hoping all those folks go VOTE.

Ha!

Like mother

"Who do you think did it?" asks my daughter in the middle of my parking lot rant.

"Some. . . REPUBLICAN!" I sputter, refraining from repeating the other descriptors that are going through my mind. She is, after all, impressionable. Proof of that perhaps being her eagerness to spend half a Saturday with her mother and sixty-thousand others listening to the next president under the Arch.

But in the meantime, I'm ticked, and I can't stop gesturing at the circle of dust left behind where some. . . REPUBLICAN . . . stole the Obama magnet off my car.

I try to focus and finish loading the groceries.

"Don't worry," says my helper. "I'll give you a pillow to punch when we get home . . .and," she giggles, "I'll put John McCain's picture on it." I'm surprised only that she didn't say Palin.

A joke

No, not the joke of the Republican ticket-- this one is harmless. And it makes me laugh every time. In person, I'm a fairly terrible joke-teller, so I figured I'd write it down, why not:

You are on a fast-paced horse. There is a giraffe beside you and an angry lion behind you. What do you do?



You get your drunk ass off the carousel.

I love Keith

at the funeral home

"It's not like I have a choice," she says, staring off into the future. She's done what she had to do, and she'll keep doing it. For her father, for her sister. For her mother, lying still in the next room. She looks younger than nineteen. She looks like the kid she'll never be again, except no kid should be that weary. No mother should pass from life at the age of not-quite-forty-two. It's not that others don't have it worse, not that it won't be as right as it can be in the end. It's not that anyone said life would be fair; we just wish it would be, anyway.

The rented chapel is crowded but silent, the custom not quite familiar to the two blondes in the back. We are all just being there for them, quite literally. At the moment, it's all that we can do.

message

RIP. A name. A date. Tragedy reduced down to a text. If only it were really that small.

The buzz of homecoming recedes as I type out my reply, say either nothing or everything. I can't tell. I can't help but think of my mother. And being nineteen. And all that's ahead, or what might not be now, for the girl on the other end of the line.

I tell a girl who needs to know. We sit quietly.

"At least she's at peace now," says my teenage companion. I wish that and more for the daughter.

Kid gloves

I'm among the many who keep waiting for the answer. The right hook to the nose. Some fighting spirit already from Barack Obama.

I mean, really, how much Swift Boating can a presidential candidate take? Plenty, apparently, although this forthcoming response -- while lacking the intensity I crave -- tells us all we need to know about the next president of the re-United States.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1274008686/bclid1842745270/bctid1844687171

Bailout Math

or, Ma and Pa Kettle on Wall Street

listening

And now I sit holding the phone. Wondering and waiting. Debating, though there's no real question about what I can do.

Nothing.

Nothing except wait and wonder and be ready to reply. Nothing except try to find the words for the girl who is losing her mother. The weeks have passed, have become days, maybe hours. She sent a message to let me know. I tell her I'm sorry. I tell her she's strong. Shake my head and sigh at what she's been through. She tells me yesterday was her birthday.

I ask after the family she's been holding together. The conversation ends.

It will start again, I know, though maybe not with that question. It will start again when when she needs to, when she wants to. When she needs a break. Or maybe when she's gone.

Actual Mavericks

The word geek in me, who is also a lefty/liberal/progressive/Democrat, got a kick out of this.

Who You Callin’ a Maverick?
by John Schwartz
from NYTimes.com

There’s that word again: maverick. In Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican candidate, used it to describe herself and her running mate, Senator John McCain, no fewer than six times, at one point calling him “the consummate maverick.”

But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.

“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.

Sam Maverick’s grandson, Fontaine Maury Maverick, was a two-term congressman and a mayor of San Antonio who lost his mayoral re-election bid when conservatives labeled him a Communist. He served in the Roosevelt administration on the Smaller War Plants Corporation and is best known for another coinage. He came up with the term “gobbledygook” in frustration at the convoluted language of bureaucrats.

This Maverick’s son, Maury Jr., was a firebrand civil libertarian and lawyer who defended draft resisters, atheists and others scorned by society. He served in the Texas Legislature during the McCarthy era and wrote fiery columns for The San Antonio Express-News. His final column, published on Feb. 2, 2003, just after he died at 82, was an attack on the coming war in Iraq.

Terrellita Maverick, sister of Maury Jr., is a member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Considering the family’s long history of association with liberalism and progressive ideals, it should come as no surprise that Ms. Maverick insists that John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, “is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase.”

“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’ ”

“He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”

Bruce for Barack

10/4/08 in Philly

How sweet it is!

My fantasy football team is 4-0 and on a serious scoring binge with no signs of stopping. My Dodgers have all-but crushed the souls of Cubs fans and are poised to win their first playoff series since magical 1988. And someone I know, who is only the best against-all-odds story in the NFL, scored his first NFL touchdown Sunday for the Buffalo Bills as they rolled over the hapless St. Louis Hams. I wish someone would post his 22-yard run to paydirt on YouTube. For now, this will have to do.

Now if I could only diagram her sentences

Change you can't believe in

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. And tonight's batch was burnt.

I refer, of course to the $700 BILLION financial industry bailout bill -- which I will henceforth call Wall Street Welfare. It's not like they've never been hypocrites before.

I expected McCain's vote -- especially after he staged the white knight coming to save the day non-event. Obama's disappointed me. This was a chance for him to stand up and show that he won't be a business-as-usual president. That fear and deception will be replaced by hope and truth.

He should have listened to Michael Moore. More people should.