The boss wondered why one of his most valued employees had not phoned in sick one day. Having an urgent problem with one of the main computers, he dialed the employee's home phone number and was greeted with a child's whisper. "Hello?"
"Is your daddy home?" he asked.
"Yes," whispered the small voice.
"May I talk with him?"
The child whispered, "No."
Surprised and wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, "Is your Mommy there?"
"Yes."
"May I talk with her?"
Again the small voice whispered, "No."
Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked, "Is anybody else there?"
"Yes," whispered the child, "policeman."
Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee's home, the boss asked, "May I speak with the policeman?"
"No, he's busy", whispered the child.
"Busy doing what?"
"Talking to Daddy and Mommy and the Fireman," came the whispered answer.
Growing more worried as he heard a loud noise in the background through the earpiece on the phone, the boss asked, "What is that noise?"
"A helicopter" answered the whispering voice.
"What is going on there?" demanded the boss, now truly apprehensive.
Again, whispering, the child answered, "The search team just landed a helicopter."
Alarmed, concerned and a little frustrated the boss asked, "What are they searching for?"
Still whispering, the young voice replied with a muffled giggle...
"ME."
Friday, May 23, 2008
Tale Of The Leaking Levee - NOLA
From NOLA.com:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city's flood defenses.
Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.
....
Among other things, they repaired the wall by driving interlocking sheets of steel 60 feet into the ground, compared with about 17 feet before the storm. The sheet metal is supposed to prevent canal water from seeping under the levee through the wet, toothpaste-like soil that lies beneath the city, which was built on reclaimed swamp and filled-in marsh.
Over the past few months, however, the corps found evidence that canal water is seeping through the joints in the sheet metal and then rising to the surface on the other side of the levee, forming puddles and other wet spots.
Bear with me, peeps, while we get into some really technical stuff. No, I am not an engineer. I have no expertise whatsoever in levee design or construction. However, I do have a brain that is, on occasion, functional. We went to Lakeview about a year ago to see the repairs which had been made to fill the gaps in the levees. The repaired portions that closed the breaches were reinforced and built better and stronger than the original levee. However, right alongside the reinforced levee sections were the same old levees of the type that failed. It did cross my mind that what the US Corps of Engineers had done didn't make sense and that the older unreinforced levee sections (which were inadequate during Katrina) right next to the new stronger sections could possibly be weakened by the new construction. Is it possible that no engineer working on the project had this same thought? Perhaps. Or perhaps, if they did, they did not give voice to those thoughts.
The joints! It's the joints! The joints that hold the old and the new sections together leak. They don't hold the water back even when there is no hurricane. There is water on the side that the levees are supposed to keep dry, the part where the houses are.
Next month hurricane season begins, but people of New Orleans, do not worry. Everything is under control.
Donald Jolissaint, chief of the corps' technical support branch in New Orleans, denied the problem at the 17th Street Canal is serious.
"I personally do not at all believe that this little wet spot is anything that is going to cause a breach or a failure of any kind," he said. A newly installed floodgate could be used to cut off the flow of water into the canal and reduce pressure on the levee, he said.
What's a little wet spot? It's not an indication of possible future trouble or anything. But, just in case....
Nevertheless, the corps is concerned enough that for weeks, workers have been analyzing the wet spots and digging a 160-foot-long, 10-foot-deep trench to zero in on the source. "We're doing everything we can to chase this down," Jolissaint said.
Read the comments following the article, and you will see that folks in NOLA don't have a lot of confidence in the Corps.
H/T to Scout at First Draft for calling the article to my attention.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city's flood defenses.
Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.
....
Among other things, they repaired the wall by driving interlocking sheets of steel 60 feet into the ground, compared with about 17 feet before the storm. The sheet metal is supposed to prevent canal water from seeping under the levee through the wet, toothpaste-like soil that lies beneath the city, which was built on reclaimed swamp and filled-in marsh.
Over the past few months, however, the corps found evidence that canal water is seeping through the joints in the sheet metal and then rising to the surface on the other side of the levee, forming puddles and other wet spots.
Bear with me, peeps, while we get into some really technical stuff. No, I am not an engineer. I have no expertise whatsoever in levee design or construction. However, I do have a brain that is, on occasion, functional. We went to Lakeview about a year ago to see the repairs which had been made to fill the gaps in the levees. The repaired portions that closed the breaches were reinforced and built better and stronger than the original levee. However, right alongside the reinforced levee sections were the same old levees of the type that failed. It did cross my mind that what the US Corps of Engineers had done didn't make sense and that the older unreinforced levee sections (which were inadequate during Katrina) right next to the new stronger sections could possibly be weakened by the new construction. Is it possible that no engineer working on the project had this same thought? Perhaps. Or perhaps, if they did, they did not give voice to those thoughts.
The joints! It's the joints! The joints that hold the old and the new sections together leak. They don't hold the water back even when there is no hurricane. There is water on the side that the levees are supposed to keep dry, the part where the houses are.
Next month hurricane season begins, but people of New Orleans, do not worry. Everything is under control.
Donald Jolissaint, chief of the corps' technical support branch in New Orleans, denied the problem at the 17th Street Canal is serious.
"I personally do not at all believe that this little wet spot is anything that is going to cause a breach or a failure of any kind," he said. A newly installed floodgate could be used to cut off the flow of water into the canal and reduce pressure on the levee, he said.
What's a little wet spot? It's not an indication of possible future trouble or anything. But, just in case....
Nevertheless, the corps is concerned enough that for weeks, workers have been analyzing the wet spots and digging a 160-foot-long, 10-foot-deep trench to zero in on the source. "We're doing everything we can to chase this down," Jolissaint said.
Read the comments following the article, and you will see that folks in NOLA don't have a lot of confidence in the Corps.
H/T to Scout at First Draft for calling the article to my attention.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Leave It To Mary Clara....
Mary Clara has left a new comment on your post "To Blog Or Not To Blog - Part 2":
Mimi, I read your 'to blog or not to blog part 1' post late last night -- too late to prop myself up and comment -- and then grabbed yesterday's mail to look at as I soaked in the tub before bed. What should I find in the Scientific American (June issue) but an article by Jessica Wapner, 'The Healthy Type: The therapeutic value of blogging becomes a focus of study.' It's on p. 32 of the magazine but also online at Scientific American.
It is a short article worth reading in full. But I would like to comment about why blogging of the kind you do (which I love to participate in) may be found to be 'therapeutic'. I find it a great outlet myself to post comments on other people's blogs regarding matters both serious and silly. Why? Among other things, blogging RESTORES TO US OUR VOICE AS CITIZENS of our nation and of the world, and as members of the Church. We are living in a time when so much of what happens to our country, the world community and ourselves is being controlled by big institutions and mediated by propaganda. Blogging undermines that. It enables us to find each other regardless of geographic distance and speak out against the crimes and the lies, imagine alternatives, and organize actions (including prayer which is a powerful kind of action).
It goes without saying that selfishly I hope you will continue, but not at the cost of your own well-being. I haven't had time to read all of yesterday's comments yet but will just encourage you, if you do carry on, to put this on a schedule that allows for your life to be balanced. Maybe treat it like a job that you do a certain number of hours per week, at a particular time of day, and stay within those boundaries. The blogging should nourish your soul and keep your spirits up, not wear you down or wear you out.
Whatever you decide we'll stay connected, dear Mimi.
Yes, Mary Clara and everyone, we will stay connected.
Here's an excerpt from the article to pique your curiosity:
Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.
Mimi, I read your 'to blog or not to blog part 1' post late last night -- too late to prop myself up and comment -- and then grabbed yesterday's mail to look at as I soaked in the tub before bed. What should I find in the Scientific American (June issue) but an article by Jessica Wapner, 'The Healthy Type: The therapeutic value of blogging becomes a focus of study.' It's on p. 32 of the magazine but also online at Scientific American.
It is a short article worth reading in full. But I would like to comment about why blogging of the kind you do (which I love to participate in) may be found to be 'therapeutic'. I find it a great outlet myself to post comments on other people's blogs regarding matters both serious and silly. Why? Among other things, blogging RESTORES TO US OUR VOICE AS CITIZENS of our nation and of the world, and as members of the Church. We are living in a time when so much of what happens to our country, the world community and ourselves is being controlled by big institutions and mediated by propaganda. Blogging undermines that. It enables us to find each other regardless of geographic distance and speak out against the crimes and the lies, imagine alternatives, and organize actions (including prayer which is a powerful kind of action).
It goes without saying that selfishly I hope you will continue, but not at the cost of your own well-being. I haven't had time to read all of yesterday's comments yet but will just encourage you, if you do carry on, to put this on a schedule that allows for your life to be balanced. Maybe treat it like a job that you do a certain number of hours per week, at a particular time of day, and stay within those boundaries. The blogging should nourish your soul and keep your spirits up, not wear you down or wear you out.
Whatever you decide we'll stay connected, dear Mimi.
Yes, Mary Clara and everyone, we will stay connected.
Here's an excerpt from the article to pique your curiosity:
Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.
To Blog Or Not To Blog - Part 2
My friends, I was overwhelmed by the responses to my post on whether I should continue my blog. Thank you for your kind comments and suggestions. For now, I will probably continue to post, but at a lesser pace. Some of your suggestions, I will put to use. If I don't get something posted every day, I'll try to make myself believe that it's OK. See. I'm already in trouble.
Last night, one friend told me in an email to ask the real (as opposed to the virtual) people in my life what they thought of my time spent blogging. Grandpère was the only person present, so I asked him. Now he has complained about my time spent on the computer in the past, but he seems to have become used to it. (Or should I say trained?) I asked him if our lives together would be better if I quit the blog. He looked at me as though I were crazy. Well, I am, you know, but he's accustomed to that. He said, "No, it doesn't matter to me, one way or another." So much for that. We have interests in common, but we often go our separate ways in pursuit of activities we enjoy. I believe that may one of the secrets of our long marriage. Too much togetherness has always seemed sort of smothering to me.
Thanks to all of you for your lovely expressions of support and for excellent suggestions on ways to make blogging less onerous for me. Hugs and kisses all around.
Photo from Flickr.
Too Old
Sadie was sitting in the waiting room for her first appointment with a new dentist. She noticed his diploma, which bore his full name. She began thinking, and suddenly remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name from her high school class nearly 60 years ago. Could the dentist be the same man that she had a secret crush on, way back then??
Upon seeing the dentist, however, she quickly discarded any such thought. "This bald, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face is way too old to have been my classmate," she thought as he worked on her teeth. "Or could he be?"
"Do you mind if I ask you something?" the woman asked after the dentist had finished.
"No, not at all," the dentist said.
"Did you attend Morgan Park High School?"
"Yes. Yes, I did. I was on the football team," he answered, gleaming with pride.
"What year did you graduate?" the woman asked.
"In 1957. Why do you ask?"
"You were in my class!" the woman exclaimed.
The dentist looked at her closely. "Really?" he asked. "I don't recognize you. "What did you teach?"
Doug strikes again.
Upon seeing the dentist, however, she quickly discarded any such thought. "This bald, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face is way too old to have been my classmate," she thought as he worked on her teeth. "Or could he be?"
"Do you mind if I ask you something?" the woman asked after the dentist had finished.
"No, not at all," the dentist said.
"Did you attend Morgan Park High School?"
"Yes. Yes, I did. I was on the football team," he answered, gleaming with pride.
"What year did you graduate?" the woman asked.
"In 1957. Why do you ask?"
"You were in my class!" the woman exclaimed.
The dentist looked at her closely. "Really?" he asked. "I don't recognize you. "What did you teach?"
Doug strikes again.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Putting It All In Perspective
Let go of those negative thoughts.
This is something to think about when negative people are doing their best to rain on your parade. So remember this story the next time someone who knows nothing, and cares less, tries to make your life miserable.
A woman was at her hairdresser's getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband. She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:
"Rome ? Why would anyone want to go there? It's crowded and dirty. You're crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there?"
"We're taking Continental," was the reply. "We got a great rate!"
"Continental?" exclaimed the hairdresser, "That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight at tendants are ugly, and they're always late. So, where are you staying in Rome ?"
"We'll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome's Tiber River called Teste."
"Don't go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be something special and exclusive, but it's really a dump, the worst hotel in the city! The rooms are small, the service is terrible,and they're overpriced.
"So, whatcha' doing when you get there?"
"'We're going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope."
"That's rich," laughed the hairdresser. "You and a million other people trying to see him. He'll look the size of an ant.
"Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it."
A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome.
"It was wonderful," explained the woman, "not only were we on time in one of Continental's brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.
"And the hotel was great! They'd just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it's a jewel, the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us their owner's suite at no extra charge!"
"Well," muttered the hairdresser, "that's all well and good, but I know you didn't get to see the Pope."
"Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me.
"Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me."
"Oh, really! What'd he say?"
"He said: 'Where'd you get the shitty Hairdo?'"
Courtesy of Doug.
This is something to think about when negative people are doing their best to rain on your parade. So remember this story the next time someone who knows nothing, and cares less, tries to make your life miserable.
A woman was at her hairdresser's getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband. She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:
"Rome ? Why would anyone want to go there? It's crowded and dirty. You're crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there?"
"We're taking Continental," was the reply. "We got a great rate!"
"Continental?" exclaimed the hairdresser, "That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight at tendants are ugly, and they're always late. So, where are you staying in Rome ?"
"We'll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome's Tiber River called Teste."
"Don't go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be something special and exclusive, but it's really a dump, the worst hotel in the city! The rooms are small, the service is terrible,and they're overpriced.
"So, whatcha' doing when you get there?"
"'We're going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope."
"That's rich," laughed the hairdresser. "You and a million other people trying to see him. He'll look the size of an ant.
"Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it."
A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome.
"It was wonderful," explained the woman, "not only were we on time in one of Continental's brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.
"And the hotel was great! They'd just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it's a jewel, the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us their owner's suite at no extra charge!"
"Well," muttered the hairdresser, "that's all well and good, but I know you didn't get to see the Pope."
"Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me.
"Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me."
"Oh, really! What'd he say?"
"He said: 'Where'd you get the shitty Hairdo?'"
Courtesy of Doug.
To Blog Or Not To Blog
I've been giving serious thought to discontinuing my blog - maybe permanently, maybe temporarily. I'm not at all disappointed by my traffic. It's higher than I ever believed it would be. The problem is the time and effort it requires to do a decent job of it as opposed to what fruit the effort bears. I realize that's a difficult measurement to make.
My thinking is that many are doing a better job of blogging than I am, and an even greater number are doing equally good work. What really do I contribute to the conversation that's not already being said? I'm not one to post only occasionally. It's an every day job for me or nothing. If I took the blog to only occasional posts, the posts would come seldom to never. It seems to be an obsession or nothing for me.
I hope that you respect me enough to know that I'm not fishing for compliments about my blog or looking for bromides about soldiering on. I'm simply bouncing my thoughts off you, my readers, for better or for worse.
I've set up a separate email address on my sidebar for those who may be too shy to leave a comment. How to judge results versus time expended is what I'm trying to work out. In other words, could I better spend my time doing something else?
Of course, I'd still visit around and clutter up the comments boxes of other bloggers, so I wouldn't disappear. I wouldn't delete my blog, either, because I might change my mind.
My thinking is that many are doing a better job of blogging than I am, and an even greater number are doing equally good work. What really do I contribute to the conversation that's not already being said? I'm not one to post only occasionally. It's an every day job for me or nothing. If I took the blog to only occasional posts, the posts would come seldom to never. It seems to be an obsession or nothing for me.
I hope that you respect me enough to know that I'm not fishing for compliments about my blog or looking for bromides about soldiering on. I'm simply bouncing my thoughts off you, my readers, for better or for worse.
I've set up a separate email address on my sidebar for those who may be too shy to leave a comment. How to judge results versus time expended is what I'm trying to work out. In other words, could I better spend my time doing something else?
Of course, I'd still visit around and clutter up the comments boxes of other bloggers, so I wouldn't disappear. I wouldn't delete my blog, either, because I might change my mind.
"Unread Books" Meme
Like Padre Mickey, I spent a lot of time inside reading while the other kids were playing outside. Many on the list which are considered classic works of fiction, I read at a rather young age on my own.
From Paul, who got it from Padre Mickey, who got it from Caminante, and on and on, but that's as far as I'll go:
What we have below is a list of the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing users. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov (?)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad (excerpts in school)
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid (excerpts in school)
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
From Paul, who got it from Padre Mickey, who got it from Caminante, and on and on, but that's as far as I'll go:
What we have below is a list of the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing users. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov (?)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad (excerpts in school)
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid (excerpts in school)
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Obama Is The Democratic Nominee
Fran made me do it. I have been thinking about the ongoing and endless campaign for the Democratic nomination. I'm not going to pretend that there is still a contest. The contest is over. Obama, short of an unforeseen catastrophe, will be the Democratic nominee. Like Fran, neither Clinton nor Obama was my favorite. Like Fran again, I liked Dennis Kucinich best. Next, I would have wanted John Edwards or Chris Dodd before either Obama or Clinton.
BUT, and it is a very big BUT, I believe that Democrats must be careful about calling for Clinton to drop out of the race. Feelings run strong on both sides, for the supporters of Obama and for the supporters of Clinton. There are those from both camps who say they will not vote for the other Democrat. They will either stay home, or vote for the Republican, or for Ron Paul, or now for Bob Barr. A vote for Paul or Barr is as good as a vote for John McCain. That frightens me. The thought of McCain for president is as scary as the thought of giving Bush a third term.
I have my personal thoughts and feelings about Hillary Clinton's campaign, which I won't state here, but I think that the timing for her to drop out is her decision and that of her advisers. Perhaps she'll carry her campaign all the way to the convention. That is her right. Above all, Obama should continue, as he has been doing, to resist the temptation to weigh in on the matter, as should his close advisers, and perhaps his supporters could give that some thought, too.
Democrats will need the votes of the Clinton supporters in the general election to win, and the time to start to make peace is right now, whether Clinton is still in the race or not. The decision on when to end her campaign is hers, and she must be not be seen as having been pushed.
BUT, another big BUT, both Obama and Clinton should stop attacks on one another right now, this minute, this second, and concentrate their criticism on John McCain. It's vital to the future of our country!
For what it's worth.
BUT, and it is a very big BUT, I believe that Democrats must be careful about calling for Clinton to drop out of the race. Feelings run strong on both sides, for the supporters of Obama and for the supporters of Clinton. There are those from both camps who say they will not vote for the other Democrat. They will either stay home, or vote for the Republican, or for Ron Paul, or now for Bob Barr. A vote for Paul or Barr is as good as a vote for John McCain. That frightens me. The thought of McCain for president is as scary as the thought of giving Bush a third term.
I have my personal thoughts and feelings about Hillary Clinton's campaign, which I won't state here, but I think that the timing for her to drop out is her decision and that of her advisers. Perhaps she'll carry her campaign all the way to the convention. That is her right. Above all, Obama should continue, as he has been doing, to resist the temptation to weigh in on the matter, as should his close advisers, and perhaps his supporters could give that some thought, too.
Democrats will need the votes of the Clinton supporters in the general election to win, and the time to start to make peace is right now, whether Clinton is still in the race or not. The decision on when to end her campaign is hers, and she must be not be seen as having been pushed.
BUT, another big BUT, both Obama and Clinton should stop attacks on one another right now, this minute, this second, and concentrate their criticism on John McCain. It's vital to the future of our country!
For what it's worth.
Pray For Senator Ted Kennedy
From the Associated Press:
BOSTON (AP) — A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. "He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.
They said tests conducted after the seizure showed a tumor in Kennedy's left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.
The diagnosis is grim, indeed. Pray for Sen. Kennedy and his family and friends.
BOSTON (AP) — A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. "He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.
They said tests conducted after the seizure showed a tumor in Kennedy's left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.
The diagnosis is grim, indeed. Pray for Sen. Kennedy and his family and friends.
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