Iowa, where we decide who you get to vote for:
Clinton is still above 50 per cent, though barely. Bernie, the cutie version of Eugene V. Debs, is second, about 20 points behind. The other are seesawing. Including Jim Webb at 1 per cent, which is a damned shame if you ask me.
Explanation: Clinton leads because -- no matter what the evidence of her lies, crimes or near-crimes, -- the unwashed left has but one answer: "Why are you picking on this poor woman?"* Bernie is doing pretty well because even here we have a mass which believes the fairies can go to Washington and bring us back a free lunch.
In the GOP, Trump still leads but may be fading. Walker and the traditional GOPers trail him. Rand Paul, the semi-libertarian, has faded to 5 per cent or less.
Explanation: Trump struts because the general electorate loves -- and often understands only -- trash talk. Paul is down for several reasons, among them the diseased liberty movement here. It stems from sleaze bags, at least one them indicted, who helped operate his dad's race four years ago. Another reason is the general media focus on the dramatic moments (Gore in!? More secrets on Hillary's server? Joe Biden surges!).
But, in all, both fields are so packed than no poll number makes much sense as a predictor. It is usually like that six months before the caucuses; the uncertainty is elevated by the population explosion of wannabes this time around.
They're almost all at the state fair this week. And if you hope that at least half of them chomp a fatally tainted corn dog, you are guilty of unChristian thought.
---
*Credit for phrasing to BC.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 11, 2015
The noble legacy of Ferguson, Missouri.
I missed it, dang it, and the current Ferguson news keeps reminding me of my cultural loss. It happened this way:
Just 19 nights ago, terrified in my more dependable truck with Texsun camper in the box, I found myself among the fleas of the giant unwashed armpit usually known as the St. Louis, Missouri standard metropolitan statistical area. ("Fleas" is metaphorical, of course. The reference is to eight lanes of frantic 10 p.m. westbound traffic, fleaing, so to speak, the area.)
I can handle such motorized riots and have for years, in fact, when my own bad judgment leads me to the world's great Gothams. But this was a little worse because a new trans-Mississippi bridge project had hurled me into a detour under the superhighway mixmaster, down into the bowels of the city. Berlin in June of 1945, but with less charm and security. I locked the doors and blundered through the abandoned warehouses and grimy brick row houses, actually thankful that the street lights were burned out. Or turned off. Or shot out. I undoubtedly would have been more disheartened if I could actually have seen the cultural environment most famously documented by The National Lampoon report on its 1983 vacation.
I re-entered the upper world in due course, hugging the right lane when possible. Shortly I spied one of those earthy white-on-brown exit signs our government erects to guide us to special attractions. I always associate them with sylvan settings where I might see Yogi chuckling good-naturedly as he totes off his latest pilfered pik-a-nik basket.
Wrong, this time, Jim. It said , "Historic Downtown Ferguson."
I mourn having rejected the invitation. The only bright spot is that if I return to the area I can visit an even more historic Ferguson. I certainly hope I live long enough to accomplish this dream.
Aug 10, 2015
The Softer Side
A no-mow zone in the front yard for many years has become about 2,000 square feet of "evolving prairie" or something like that. This creates a lot of trees some consider junk, mainly cottonwood and willow, but I like them.
You also get some impressive wildflowers when the weather is lush. I love the kind of flowers I don't have to plant, water, weed, pick, or put in fussy-cute vases.
You also get some impressive wildflowers when the weather is lush. I love the kind of flowers I don't have to plant, water, weed, pick, or put in fussy-cute vases.
Aug 9, 2015
Trump
It's not easy to write seriously about this guy, especially if you think he is performing a useful role in American political discourse.
Limited but still worthwhile is Trump's absolute rejection of the mealy-mouth sputterings of politicians willing to risk offending no one, tiny men and women terrified of riling some identifiable group. Black people. Women. Fundie religionists. Humanists. Cat lovers. Art lovers. Gun lovers -- probably descending downward to whatever internet group exists to mock folks who eat hummus. None must have the tender hymen of virgin ears pierced.
He came into this campaign with the idea that millions are fed up with limp language of PC. His polling numbers tend to prove him correct.
But the poor, sad egomaniac's insight stops a world away from the notion that plain speech, blunt speech, is not the same as stupid and vile speech. For instance, he could have said of John McCain:
"From what we know this guy endured pain we can't imagine under Communist torture. For six long years he was, in fact, a military hero as most people define the term. It's too bad people confuse this with the kind of wisdom we need in a political leader, balh blah blah.
That was his point, exactly, a valid argument on which Trump committed seppuku by expressing it as mockery, intentionally cruel sarcasm displaying a strong hint of envy.
Mexicans are rapists.
Nonsense, of course. But he could say, the illegal immigrant population from Latin America includes a high proportion of thugs. Even that will inflame passions, but it is a proposition which can be debated. It can be tested for truth. If found true it can be a base for policy. As Trump vomited it out, it is a flash-bang grenade tossed simply to make his 15 minutes last longer and longer and longer.
The coy reference to Ms. Kelly's vagina was probably the final cross-stroke in Trump's ritual suicide. Rag-on remarks have been around forever but, in my life experience, anyway, always taboo in any but the most testosterone laden gatherings, even in the years before our intellectual betters decided that that open debate should be forbidden except when framed in words which carry zero chance of offending some group or even some one. (That's the way it is now ...trigger warning... honest, Injun.)
A Trump with his mouth under even small control would have said something like: Ms. Kelly, I speak my mind without a lot of editing for mushy political correctness. Maybe I go to far sometimes, but I think your question reflects a stupid approach to journalism. The campaign is about huge issues, and whether or not one candidate sometimes uses words too strong for you is not one of those issues. Grow up."
The furor about stupid journalism and Kelly's alleged infantilism would have been almost as raucous, but it would bear on things we need to think about, namely stupid journalism and arrested-development teevee personalities.* It is far more important than her menstrual status. Goodness, I'll bet the nation can avoid thinking about her cycle for months on end. If it can't, what the Hell. We might as well elect The Donald because we deserve no better.
*I do not necessarily accuse Megyn of those faults
Limited but still worthwhile is Trump's absolute rejection of the mealy-mouth sputterings of politicians willing to risk offending no one, tiny men and women terrified of riling some identifiable group. Black people. Women. Fundie religionists. Humanists. Cat lovers. Art lovers. Gun lovers -- probably descending downward to whatever internet group exists to mock folks who eat hummus. None must have the tender hymen of virgin ears pierced.
He came into this campaign with the idea that millions are fed up with limp language of PC. His polling numbers tend to prove him correct.
But the poor, sad egomaniac's insight stops a world away from the notion that plain speech, blunt speech, is not the same as stupid and vile speech. For instance, he could have said of John McCain:
"From what we know this guy endured pain we can't imagine under Communist torture. For six long years he was, in fact, a military hero as most people define the term. It's too bad people confuse this with the kind of wisdom we need in a political leader, balh blah blah.
That was his point, exactly, a valid argument on which Trump committed seppuku by expressing it as mockery, intentionally cruel sarcasm displaying a strong hint of envy.
Mexicans are rapists.
Nonsense, of course. But he could say, the illegal immigrant population from Latin America includes a high proportion of thugs. Even that will inflame passions, but it is a proposition which can be debated. It can be tested for truth. If found true it can be a base for policy. As Trump vomited it out, it is a flash-bang grenade tossed simply to make his 15 minutes last longer and longer and longer.
The coy reference to Ms. Kelly's vagina was probably the final cross-stroke in Trump's ritual suicide. Rag-on remarks have been around forever but, in my life experience, anyway, always taboo in any but the most testosterone laden gatherings, even in the years before our intellectual betters decided that that open debate should be forbidden except when framed in words which carry zero chance of offending some group or even some one. (That's the way it is now ...trigger warning... honest, Injun.)
A Trump with his mouth under even small control would have said something like: Ms. Kelly, I speak my mind without a lot of editing for mushy political correctness. Maybe I go to far sometimes, but I think your question reflects a stupid approach to journalism. The campaign is about huge issues, and whether or not one candidate sometimes uses words too strong for you is not one of those issues. Grow up."
The furor about stupid journalism and Kelly's alleged infantilism would have been almost as raucous, but it would bear on things we need to think about, namely stupid journalism and arrested-development teevee personalities.* It is far more important than her menstrual status. Goodness, I'll bet the nation can avoid thinking about her cycle for months on end. If it can't, what the Hell. We might as well elect The Donald because we deserve no better.
*I do not necessarily accuse Megyn of those faults
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