Sunday, February 10, 2008

Hey, Democrats... behave like it's a democracy!

"Superdelgates, Back Off" ran today's Sunday NY Times editorial headline, with the abstract: "Democratic Party leaders should let voters pick their nominee". Now there's a radical notion. Author Tad Devine goes on to explain a bit of the history behind the superdelegate thing. They were created to provide the margin of victory to the candidate who won the most support from primary and caucus voters, not to throw the match. With the delegate count predicted to be so very close, the news today is that these super-delgates are being full court pressed by both Clinton and Obama's troops to declare support for her or him even before all the democrats across the country have voted or caucused. If these super-delegated political insiders actually tip the balance and over-ride the popular vote, they will be doing to the democratic voters what the Supreme Court did to the nation after Al Gore was elected president. Democrats will be pissed! I will be pissed! And an awful lot of pissed disenfranchised democrats may stay home on November 4th. I would be tempted, but would probably cool down by November. My 18 year old daughter, on the other hand, is already pissed at the caucus set up which doesn't allow a Hawaii kid attending a Mainland college (or teaching in Hungary) to vote in the primary. If she hears that a few establishment democrats chose the nominee, she, and many young folks like her, may just stay home in droves and we could be stuck with President McCain, the 100 year war, and the creation of thousands of great new jobs at McDonalds.

What happens when you join the capitalist machine

What follows is a disclaimer for the ads that appear on the right upper corner of this blog... or at least the ads that were there when this entry was posted... they change from moment to moment.

What happens when you join the capitalist machine is you get ads for denigrating sexist schlock items like the (goddess help us) "Hillary Nutcracker". I put Google ads on my site, just to experiment with how it works. I don't expect that either Google or I will make any money from these ads...like, my visitor numbers are in the low hundreds, not thousands. I've mostly been amused to see what their search engine yenta matches up with my writing topics: ads for Hawaii vacations, attorneys, life insurance, college loans, even drug rehab programs. But the moment I posted something about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I got two Hillary ads, one for her official website and the other, which we shall not dignify by menioning again (said in one's best Katherine Hepburn quaver). Sheesh, guess I've sold out and gone to join the circus.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Hillary

Because I greatly admire Hillary, and because you cannot watch this town hall meeting without being impressed by her discussion of the issues and solutions...check out this video replaying right now on her site...

http://townhall.hillaryclinton.com/
(cut and paste this into yr browser till I figure out how to make the link live...)

And then, as a reminder of the deep sexism that Hillary's candidacy elicits, read Robin Morgan's essay Goodbye To All That (#2) - February 2, 2008

http://www.womensmediacenter.com/
(same as above...)

Sunday, February 3, 2008

'Yes We Can' Barack Obama Music Video

Do we dare to hope once again for real progressive change, an enlightened leader, and a winner...in Barack Obama?

Beautifully done YouTube video reportedly made independently of the campaign—by Bob Dylan's son, director Jesse Dylan, and musician will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.



Yes,We Can!