No Dukakis Tank Issue This Time

He's a natural.

Back and Better Than Ever

All of our excuses have run out. The wedding was beautiful and the legislature is out of session. I guess that means its time to get back to the blogging thing.

I think SebMan is thinking of ways to make the blog bigger and better and more interesting to the masses. I'm going to start blogging about one of my new-ish interests--bread baking. Perhaps inspired by all of the many food blogs out there, I want people to realize that home baking bread might take a little time and effort, but the end result is so much better than anything you can find at a supermarket. Because of my 9-5 (or 6), I can really only bake on the weekend. But my goal is to bake a new kind of bread each week and to write about it.

And there will, of course, be plenty of political analysis as November draws nearer.

Amen!!

As a recovering Catholic, this headline and byline in the N&O this morning brought a grin to my face:
Catholic Teens Feel Guilt's Tug Weaken; Study finds shame losing its traction

According to a new study by UNC social scientists, Catholic teens feel no more guilty than their Protestant counterparts when it comes to lying, cheating on exams, and the like. The author of the article suggests this could be due to increased integration of Catholics, and a decreased enrollment in Catholic schools.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that having teens with a less of a conscience in our society us a good thing. But as a child that had "Catholic guilt" even when I wasn't going to Mass that often, I think that guilt and shame should not be the primary emotion guiding people, young or old. Rather, it should be love of goodwill toward ourselves and others. Just another example of society progressing. Will the Church also?

Random notes

Is Ron Paul running for President of Second Life?

Small Town will never sound the same to Hillary Clinton again.

Hey look it's a guy in a church, praising Louis Farrakhan, but funny how Hillary doesn't condemn Ed Rendell's being that guy. Isn't it?

Just felt the need to repost this from Lean Forward

Memorial Day will be coming soon, and I'll probably be too busy to write then, H-girl and I getting married, so I'm re-posting this from my days as a bachelor blogger. Mainly, because it still bring tears to my eyes, I can only thank God that I was given the impulse to write such a thing:

Honor, and 58 years

For the last several months, I've been trying to put into words my emotions upon learning of another soldier's death in Iraq. But each time, I could not find clarity and elegance enough to meet the challenge of expressing my condolences and sorrow. Unfortunately, now the dying is continuing, and I have had time to reflect and though maybe this is not clear or elegant, I hope it is not too late.

My grandfather, Henry McKellar, won the Silver Star in World War II. One of the highest honors in our military, Henry received it as a medic, killed in the line of fire while trying to save the life of another soldier. And it is an honor to be his grandson, an honor to know how far his commitment to this country would take him.

I was lucky to have a grandmother who could bring him to life for me through her stories and her obvious love for him. As a result, I do feel like I know him, even though he died nearly 30 years before I was born.

Still, war, a decision made from above, whether just or not, takes a life with such immediacy and throws it's living victims into an abandoned new world of uncertainty. The cold, hard reality is that at one moment, Henry was braving fire to save a fallen comrade, and the next he was stricken by death's grip. In that moment, according to the social construct of "war", my grandfather entered the world of "honor" and "courage." But to us, grandaddy just left this world. He never held his wife or daughter again, he never reached down to take the hand of one his grandsons, nor did he set foot on his native soil of South Carolina.

And in his death's wake, were left my grandmother and my mother - then 3 years old. The sum total of the devastation that Henry's death caused my family can be summed up simply...58 years.

That's how many years my grandmother lived without the love of her life, that's how long she had to mourn. How long my mother had to live with a family no longer whole. Not a day went by that either didn't think about him. Both have given me much to love, but the truth is, I never knew the women they might have been, just as I never knew the man my grandfather would have been. "Honor", frankly, is a grossly inadequate substitute for the possibility of life's future. And the lost love that remains after a loved-one dies early, while strong, sears the heart as much as warms it.

My grandmother had the courage to live the life she had, she taught school for 30 years, she raised a very strong mother in her own right, she found ways to make the lives of others brighter by baking cookies, growing flowers, and demonstrating her wealthy appettite for living. But grammommy lived to her last day tragically apart from the life she had hoped to lead with Henry.

There are monuments to the war dead in almost every town in America, such is war's reach. It spreads, certainly not evenly, but thoroughly across the land. These monuments and salutes to the honor and courage of the fallen which are offered up, as they ought to be, as a salve to the bitter sting of short lives and tragic deaths.

However, we should not let our honoring cause us to leave unrecognized the sacrifice left behind. Leaders of every war have sought to bolster support for this carnage, by reminding us to pay homage to the fallen. However, the fallen are only part of war's lost.

The rest are symbolized, not by body counts, nor by monuments. Instead, they are living in a world that has been so completely, utterly and profoundly changed - a new struggling growth from a barren field of possibilities immolated by the stinging heat of loss.

In 58 years of mourning, my grandmother honored her husband, her love, and she did it with pride and grace.

But, make no mistake, it was a sentence. With each death abroad, comes imprisonment at home. Children never know their parents, parents never see their grandchildren, and the spouse faces the cruelest fate of war - making life work now that the person they had intended to make it with has been taken by decisions out of their control.

Media Grab thinks he was way off, but Leaning Forward, whoah!

This guy (at about 1:07 in) looks pretty bad now. Then again, I can appreciate, it happens.

But occasionally, at least, Lean Forward was pretty funny.

What does Mr. Creepy do when he wakes up and see's Hillary Clinton?

If you've seen Mr. Creepy, perhaps after having a birthday celebration here, and he doesn't look the same as he used to, if he looks like he's seen his own death. This may have something to do with it.

Funniest thing we've seen in a while

At least that's my opinion. Sebby Man can be hard on Media Grab on and off-line occasionally, but Media Grab is tight, with this. S-man understands going negative. Sometimes you got to pee where you got to pee.

Sebby Snacks (following Sebby's puking up a whole bunch of that nasty ABC debate)

Sebby really has got to stop eating Big Media, it never goes down well.

1. Bi-Partisanship, that ever venerated ideal, died a long-predicted death this week, when Joe Lieberman made clear in no uncertain terms that he was really a Republican, so all of his "serious" and "responsible" bi-partisanship work with Republicans really stems from the fact that he is one. Of course, there's a chance that when the elections over and he needs to figure out a new way to get the camera on him, Joe (by then kicked out by a Democratic Senate caucus that doesn't need him) as a Republican will remember all the other issues besides the worst-foreign-policy-decision-in-the-nation's-history on which he actually agrees with the Democrats. Then Joe will be a bi-partisan Republican. That's what happens when you're political leanings go whichever way the camera turns.
   
2. Leaving now, will only lead to chaos and defeat, better to stay and win victory.
   
3. If you want to see the best band in America, tell me why this isn't where you should be May 13?
4. Forgetting Main Street Deli may now begin.
5. Campaign Finance Reform NOW!
   

Sebby Snacks (or previously known as "What SebMan is thinking)

1. Isn't the best way to describe the Administration's position on Iraq and troop withdraw the "Tiger/Bear by the ears" analogy ["Good thing is we've got the insurgents by the ears, bad news is we can't let them go"]. Maybe it's just me, I'm not a spokesperson for the "worst president in the history of the country." but it would seem like that's more straight forward than what we have right now.
   
   
2. To those among the Carolina "faithful" who feel Roy betrayed his Heels when he cheered Kansas to a National Title on Monday. Does this make you feel like a pathetic loser:
   
   

   That’s how he acted in 1993, when his Jayhawks lost to Dean Smith’s Tar Heels in the national semifinals. “Let’s stay in New Orleans and watch Coach Smith win another one,” he told Baldwin.

   That’s exactly what the pair did, with Williams feverishly waving a blue-and-white pom-pom from his seat in the Superdome. On the way out of the arena after Carolina’s win over Michigan, he stopped to buy a t-shirt for Scott and Kimberly–neither of whom had yet attended UNC–that read, “I was there in New Orleans,” along with the victorious Tar Heel score.

   “I’m pretty consistent,” he says. “My team lost to Carolina in 1993 and I stayed and supported Carolina. My team lost to Kansas in 2008 and I stayed and supported Kansas. I am who I am. I’m thankful that I am surrounded by people who understand how I am and support me no matter what, because I realize not everyone in the world falls into that category.”

   
   
   
3. Really, the folks that got mad over Roy's donning a decal really, really, really don't understand Carolina basketball. I'd be mad at the team for spotting Kansas 28 points, taking 24 of them back and then running out of gas, but then you see this sort of crap, (not the post, but the comments) and you think, hell, the team "May or may not have played with the energy they should have, but they completely outclassed these fools."
   
   
4. Hey look, the last politician in Washington to realize there's a mortgage foreclosure crisis has done it! And he's the Republican nominee! Gosh, you know, it's a little agressive, but maybe the lending industry could use a little investigation. Ya Think! It's like this wasn't caused by a bunch of lying borrowers and was really caused by the people who should have all the financial knowledge to nip "deceptive borrowing" in the bud.

Ahh, the apathy of 1996 - it's all coming back to me now

At some point I'll write more about why I've chosen to support Obama, and also the hurdles which for my vote Hillary had to overcome, and which instead she dug a trench beneath. For most of this time, my internal critique of Clintonism has been focused on how I felt around 2000, in the autumn of Clinton 1. At that time I was an alienated Democrat looking seriously at third party politics (at least until I heard Ralph Nader's justification for voting against Gore). But that was once the rightward drift of the Clinton years had driven me to act politically. This Mark Schmitt column (on the "now you don't see him, now she takes his advice" Hillary guru Mark Penn) reminds me how before I got mad about Clinton's triangulation, his first term made politics seem so useless and unappealing:

Clinton's bond with Penn, we're told, goes back to the 1995 to 96 period, when Dick Morris brought in Penn to help with President Clinton's reelection effort. While it was a success for the Clinton family, it was a dreary low point for the nation's politics: Voter turnout dipped below 50 percent for the only time ever in a presidential year, young people were completely disengaged, campaign finance scandals arose in part because politics was so uninspiring that no one would give except in exchange for favors, and the ambitions of the early Clinton years were abandoned for safe, symbolic gestures appealing to the middle-class swing voters -- "soccer moms" -- in a few swing states.

Ah, yes, that's were my goal to be a political science major went. True, I voted in 1996, but there was really nothing cool at all about politics when I was in college and no passion. I had come to college in 1992, passionate and very political, first seen a Democratic victory in Clinton's triumph of the old and very shortly thereafter ...I got nothing in me calling me to join in. Looking back now, what a moribund state of affairs that was. And what a different world it is today.

The Great State of Houston

SebMan and I were in Houston this weekend for the wonderful wedding reception of a wonderful friend.

Although I grew up in Texas, I lived on the North Side, aka Dallas-Fort Worth. I didn't get down to Houston much. Since most of my college friends live there now, I have gotten the chance to learn all kinds of things about it that I would never have known.

Two such examples:

the beer can house

the liquor store / gourmet food megamart Specs.

Aaaaand, I saw many-a Obama yard sign. I love North Cackalacky, but I might have considered Houston a living destination had these things been pointed out to me previously.

How Long Does April Fools Day last?

I had to check the date on this story a couple of times because it certainly seems like a April Fool's joke.

Well, its interesting, I guess.

Maybe he thinks we're supposed to know Rock stars by their umm, ..mid-sections?

The Senator From Days of Yore and Men of Honor (Senator from DOYAMOH) has a new presidential ad out about how before McCain was the Most Honest Man Washington's Ever Known he was inspired by the Bestest Ever Episcopal Prep School Teacher. The ad reads like a Peggy Noonan Reagan tribute, which is appropriate,, given McCain's similare age and the the fact that he's more than happy to stick with Reagan's economic policies in the midst of their most collosal failure yet.

But what's truly bizarre about the ad, is that, to set out it's theme of "heroes", the ad runs images of several examples of heroic categories - Ted Williams (athletes) , Teddy Roosevelt (presidents), and I believe Thomas Edison (inventors) ....and Headless Guitar Player as the "rockstars"?

Where to begin? First off, are rock stars really so venerated that they illuminate what we would want in a President? I realize that politicians love to innapropriately adopt songs or lyrics as their themes (i.e. the State of New Jersey adopting Born to Run as it's themesong thus becoming the "Baby this town rips the bone from your back" State; Reagan running in 1984 playing Bruce Springsteens anti-War "Born in the USA" - what not Allentown by Billy Joel?) . But is there really a rock star we'd actually trust to lead the country, not even as President but as a mere cabinet head? A middling talented one-hit wonder; a studio genius, maybe. But which department would you trust Dave Matthews or Bono to?

Secondly, it really undercuts the whole idea that rock stars "inspire us" as a Nation when you can't settle on one that is sufficiently non-controversial to actually show their face. Obviously, the Straight Talk Express wants you the voter to fill in the gaps here. But that sort of belies the fact that the US isn't one great homogenous world where coming to the aid of your equally privileged fellow Episcoal High School is all that is needed to show us what true greatness really is.

To some folks, that rock star is going to be John Lennon, but those folks aren't going to be voting for the War candidate. To others it will be Ronnie Van Zandt, but lord, dear lord, don't tell them you went to Episcopal High School, they are liable to throw their budweisers at you! To some it will be Keith Richards, and they'll probably be regular normal people, but that doesn't mean that Keith Richards has anything to do with Presidential Politics. To others it will be Abba, and those folks shouldn't be allowed to vote. Oh, wait, McCain is an Abba fan? Well, you know, he may actually not be eligible to run. So my point stands.

Thirdly, if this is how the Senator DOYAMOH is going to try to reach out to the "kids" as it were, well, he's not going to reach out to them by not having a preference. If he picked Ryan Adams, Bono or well, Keith Richards, (i'm guessing Kanye West is out, and Jeff Tweedy is already an Obama guy), then at least we'd know where he stood. But instead, it looks like McCain likes anonymous pictures of rock stars of the sort that 5th grade teachers put up in their classrooms. Next thing you know, McCain will be going up to 20 somethings and whispering - "I like to get free downloads on Napster too, and how bout that Hootie and the Blowfish!"

Finally, if your going to cover up the identity of rock stars because your so skittish about controversy, why on earth would you put a Boston Red Sox icon in the ad? Is the steroid issue the only thing about baseball McCain has paid attention to in the last 10 years? Does he really want to tick of the Yankee vote. And as long as he's spending the day trying to pass himself off as being "sorry" he voted against the MLK holiday why not put up Jackie Robinson's image to complete the pander?

But go ahead Dog Pounders, tell me if you can identify the musician, and please inform us if you make your guess based upon the guitar, the hands or well... I think you know what I think you might be able to identify him by.

SebMan

Are voters anti-tax conservatives who just don't know it?

More evidence that the NC GOP doesn't let voting results get in the way of their story.

The Republican gubernatorial candidates got together to debate last night. It's clear that the gameplan of the back of the pack group is to tear in to frontrunner Charlotte Mayor as a tax-raiser. You see, McCrory along with the Charlotte City Council decided that in order to bring things like light-rail and major pro sports (to the extent my beloved Bobcats count as "major") to Charlotte, he needed to actually raise money to do. So bonds were passed, hotel patrons were taxed.

By far, McCrory is the most electable Republican in the general election, and therefore, SebMan wishes the very honorable former Justice Robert Orr and the assumedly non-beagle hating State Senator Fred Smith well in their endeavor to demonstrate McCrory is really a McGovern in successful moderate mayor of the richest city in the state's clothing. But it seems the very logical contours of his opponent's arguments should lead them to seriously reconsider the effectiveness of their arguments. Smith thinks that McCrory overruled the "will of the people" in supporting the landing of the Bobcats:

"It's hypocritical to say [you] follow the will of the people when 57 percent
voted against the [Bobcats] arena and the city built it anyway," Smith shot
back.

And that would seem very powerful, but for the fact that the Bobcat deal came down in 2003 (after that 57% of voters denied an earlier referendum in 2001). Since then, McCrory has been re-elected not once, but 3 times, by no less than 56% of the vote. To get to the general he's had to win the Republican primary, and he's done so by 2 to 1 margins every time.

So, Mr. Tax has not only been elected in an fairly Democratic city (in 2005 and 2007, seven of 11 City Council seats went Democratic) but also overwhelmingly surported in Republican primaries. This reminds me of a slogan I saw on a Libertarian website awhile back that claimed "Most people are libertarians, they just don't know it yet." An element of the right is so sure that voters hate ALL taxes they seem oblivious to voters actual choices.

Sadly, I think this year, Republican primary voters will remain unfamiliar with their inner Grover Norquist and vote for the moderate. Hopefully the Democrat, Moore or Perdue, will be ready to handle a tough contest.

Feeling Good About '08

Growing up in Texas, I was resigned to the fact that my Democratic (big D) vote didn't matter much in elections, because the Republicans were going to win anyway. In D.C., that bastion of blue-ness, I didn't get a meaningful vote for Governor, Senate, or any other of those important state offices, and my Presidential vote didn't matter, as the District would easily be won by a Dem.

But this morning I saw this story and realized that for the first time in a long time, my vote might actually make a difference. In the primary AND general election. What a feeling!

Straight Talk Express out of gas?

Now the distinguished Senator from Arizona--presumptive nominee for the Republicans- flip flops on his "100 years in Iraq" comment. Maybe he realized that VOTERS actually aren't in favor of the war a'tall, and don't want our brothers, fathers, cousins, etc. over there for one minute longer than necessary. Actually BEING the nominee for president, and the prospect of having to convince voters to choose him, is much different than just being the Mavrick.

When is he going to start singing a different tune instead of Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran? My guess is, when he realizes that voters aren't so much in favor of it.

What Seb Man is thinking today

A random but regular addition to BH (links option, because occasionally a beagle must howl without .

1. Who's the next member of the right-wing conspiracy Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to cozy up an make nice too (as long of course as they are willing to throw dirt at another Democrat)? (I mean, since he's so chummy with her, would seem Richard Melon Scaiffe can buy her some more friends.)
   
2. Does Texas Tech "coach" Pat Knight know for whom the bell tolls next? Will Sean Sutton now head to SF to try to help Daddy get to 800? (Or just to make beer runs?)
   
3. If Hillary does get to set up a commission of Alan Greenspan and Bob Rubin to "investigate" solutions to the mortgage foreclosure crisis, will there be a chance for them to debate which is the best caviar, so they can disagree about something?
   
4. April Fools Day - why do we need a holiday for lying? I mean we have elections, college coaches job acceptance speeches and hollywood marriages - is perfidy not celebrated enough?
   
5. North Carolina's primary involves a black man and a white woman, and in Durham the Democratic primaries are the only game in town for County Commissioner. Yup, the lord does work in mysterious ways.
   
6. Can we give a plaque to all sportswriters who decide to write about the actual game rather than the "drama" of Kansas fans facing their old Coach Roy Williams?

UPDATE - H-Girl questions whether I think elections are about lying. Well, i'd love to say no, and I think there's a good case to be made that lying doesn't "win" elections, but the pressures of losing certainly make it more likely someone is going to lie...... Wait, you think I was referring to HRC, well, I just have no idea how you got that impression!

Grab, This!

So, a while back, Hollygirl was explaining to me how the Pre-Sam Media Grab (or is it MG BS?) was ragging on Splendid Table, that it "epitomizes everything the Right despises about NPR."

Thing was, I thought there was going to be some explication or diatribe when I actually got around to the post (sorry MG, I only read you for the baby pictures.) . So, inaugurating myself (joke edited out at request of Hollygirl), I go an check out the actual post, and that's all Circosta's got to frikkin' say?

First off, "everything the Right despises about NPR" to me seemed to be epitomized more completely by "everything about NPR" than simply discussion of how best to prepare fava beans. Of course, what the right really despises about NPR is fairly compact in one sense, the conservative opposition (well, at least conservatives not name Bill Buckley) has always been that it wastes taxpayer money on programming that if it were desirable, the private market would provide it. But on that point, one wonders if the right would hold up cooking programs as emblematic of wasteful government spending. The fact is that Julia Child and Jeff Smith and America's Test Kitchen long ago were "wasting" government funds with their cooking shows before eventually the private market realized there might be some merit to the idea and suddenly you have the Food Network, Rachel Ray making Late Night Bacon. Like a lot of other government or non-profit ventures, the money aimed at perceivably unmarketable ideas eventually creates a market.

Personally, I don't find the splendid table great - it's a cooking show on radio, there are serious limits. But really, if ST needs a defense, this is one dog that's going to growl before we start giving the right talking Points to criticize non-commercial broadcasting.

Besides, their headline right now is "Bananas and Politics" surely MG can appreciate this week's show.

(oh, and thanks for the computer, MG)

Inaugural Post

Day 1 of the NCAA tourney has treated me well.