I Won The Auction, I Think

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Wednesday October 14, 2009 · 10:07 AM PDT

2009/10/14 · 10:07

I really enjoyed bidding in the auction a couple of weeks ago, although lunch with Nate Silver did seem out of reach for me with my tight budget. Still, I was genuinely excited to be the winning bidder on the Livestrong cap signed by Lance Armstrong. Lance has been one of my personal heroes for years and I have been inspired by his example of strength and courage. I told everybody I knew (especially my students) that I had won the cap and that I would bring it in for them to see it. They were excited too. I am proud to have become a supporter of Netroots Nation and I think probably would have made a donation to the cause even without the reward of the auction items. So I feel a little guilty about raising this question, but I can't help but wonder where the cap is. The auction was here among my friends at DKOS so I know it was completely legit. But still...

123frenchwine

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Thursday August 28, 2008 · 6:51 PM PDT

2008/08/28 · 18:51

In these last few minutes before Obama speaks and accepts the nomination, I find myself thinking three new thoughts (for me). One is that Hillary should swear. I wish she had said something like "I hear that some of my supporters are going to vote for McCain. What the hell are you thinking? Let me say that again. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?" I know.I know. Fairhaired maidens throughout the South would faint dead away at the thought of a "lady" swearing. If she had said that, it would have been the headline in hundreds of American papers the next day. Swearing, vulgarity, oaths: they all have a real and ancient place in our discourse. Because there comes a time when saying "Gosh the last eight years have been bad, what with the torture, lawbreaking, lies, corruption, and toadying to big business." NO. No. Hillary swearing would have been incredibly funny, and effective.

Poll

60 votes Show Results

Should Hillary Swear?

60 votes Vote Now!

Should Hillary Swear?

No. She is wearing a pantsuit.

3 votes

No. She would be savaged by Faux News.

3 votes

Yes. But only a little.

12 votes

Yes. She should say "Fuck you" to McCain.

28 votes

I would have to wash her mouth out with soap.

3 votes

Who the hell cares.

11 votes

Clinton's Endorsement of Obama (With Poll)

123frenchwine

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Monday May 05, 2008 · 7:32 PM PDT

2008/05/05 · 19:32

After Obama clinches the nomination, Hillary will endorse him. What do you think that endorsement will be like? I have been able to imagine three scenarios for how it might happen, and I'll describe them here. I'm also sure that there are many other possibilities, some serious and some snarky, that others can add to mine. By mid-June, Hillary will have been voted for by millions of Americans, most of them Democrats, and while it is not to be presumed that all of them will follow her lead in switching allegiance to Obama, it is certain that what she says and how she says it will have a certain influence, perhaps a significant one. These three scenarios assume that either (a) She will come out swinging for Obama, using all the tactics we now think of as dirty and underhanded, (b) she will realize that the Rovian strategy did not work and will switch to echoing the themes in Obama's stump speech, or(c) She will sulk about losing in the primaries and will offer Obama only luke-warm support.

Poll

458 votes Show Results

How Will Hillary Endorse Obama?

458 votes Vote Now!

How Will Hillary Endorse Obama?

Like a fighter looking for a scrap.

49 votes

Like an ideliast who has seen the light.

41 votes

Like a sore loser.

189 votes

In some way more horrible than imagined here.

151 votes

Other. Explain in comments.

28 votes

What Is The Will of the People?

123frenchwine

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Friday May 02, 2008 · 7:31 PM PDT

2008/05/02 · 19:31

Kos and many others on this site argue that the superdelegates should not torpedo the will of the people, but I wonder why they don't instead say "the will of the majority of Democrats," which would be a little more accurate. It always leaves me wondering what those words "will of the people" mean. I am no expert in political history, so all I can do is try to think it through for myself.

For starters I know that it can't mean what it says literally. The people are all individuals, all different, not a single bloc each member of which thinks the same thing or desires the same thing. Right. But when I hear the words "the people" I am able to picture this large mass of us standing in an open field and raising our voices in unison; it feels great to picture this scene. But it is a myth, is it not? Hearing it is so much more inspiring than hearing the more banal "most of us" or the even less flattering "a bit more than half of us." So how close can we get to understanding how the phrase works and why?

123frenchwine

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Wednesday April 23, 2008 · 12:31 PM PDT

2008/04/23 · 12:31

I want to tell a couple of brief stories to help others understand what a political party machine is like. Granted, these are memories of events from when I was younger and lived in western Pennsylvania, but the mechanism is still pretty much the same. I think I can show readers who keep asking "How could those f###ing idiots have voted for Hillary when it's so obvious that it's all over?" why over a million people yesterday voted for Hillary. It's about loyalty.

If you don't know what the term "ward politics" means and if the idea of giving voters "walking around money" seems offensive to you, read on. I grew up and lived in Erie, a classic blue-collar, lunchbucket city: my dad wore a blue work shirt and carried his lunch to work five days a week at the General Electric plant where he was an inspector on the assembly line that BTW still makes the best, most efficient locomotives in the world.

123frenchwine

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Saturday April 19, 2008 · 1:46 PM PDT

2008/04/19 · 13:46

More and more these days I read comments from people who are crying. They have read accounts of others who have been to Obama rallies and heard a disabled vet thank him for running for President, or they have seen a picture of the shining faces of little kids sitting on their parent's shoulders during a rally, or they have read accounts of elderly black women who are just trying to believe that this campaign is happening in their lifetime. This great national nightmare of the last eight years has not driven out of us the memory of what we have hoped our country could be; they have just driven it deeper into our hearts where it has been waiting for someone to call it out of us. We cannot help but cry, men and women alike, to think that our dream might be coming true. In my case, I also am remembering the many, many tears we cried during the late Sixties and early Seventies, the last time our dream seemed possible

123frenchwine

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Thursday April 03, 2008 · 5:53 PM PDT

2008/04/03 · 17:53

I'd like to sound a small note of caution. Between now and November, we are going to be hearing and saying a lot about how old John McCain is. In fact we have already started to see some jokes on dKos drawn from the deep well of old person jokes, some of which have been around even longer than I have. McCain's about six years older than I am, so that means he's REALLY old. And I might even join into the fun at times. Who can help wanting to pile on to a candidate who represents a party of incompetence, corruption, failure, dishonesty..ahhh!! hold my coat someone, I'm ready for a scrap!! Whoa. What was that? Sorry. Well,as I was saying, this is just a small note of caution not to get too carried away with the old stuff. OK?

123frenchwine

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Tuesday March 18, 2008 · 8:15 AM PDT

2008/03/18 · 08:15

I have just been diagnosed as having a condition with the charming name of Trigeminal Neuralgia. Suffice it to say that I'm looking for a way to distract myself from a bit of chronic pain. Here's what I came up with.I'm going to describe something about starting cars that took me a long time to learn and then ask my readers to solve the little mystery either with their imagination or their knowledge of American automobiles. The story takes places in the summer of 1964 during a two month period between when I graduated from college and when I got married. I had a job "managing"a parking lot. The lot was right behind a large, downtown bank so most of the cars in it belonged to people who worked at that bank. They would pull in early in the morning and leave their cars, keys inside, for me to park. I had to get into the cars and figure out how to start them. I only got stumped one time.

123frenchwine

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Wednesday March 12, 2008 · 10:27 AM PDT

2008/03/12 · 10:27

Since I often get to talk to students in my university classes about race in America, I think I have a good sense of what they think it is. I tell them that I'm old enough (65) to be able to remember a particular era of racism in America and I say that it was different from what they think, and worse. I also tell them that I can remember America before television, fast food, and rockandroll.They believe it, but only just barely. The stories I tell them about race in America are about how I experienced it growing up in Erie, Pennsylvania, then a classic blue-collar, working class city.Some of my anecdotes they find hard to believe, like the fact that I never touched the skin of a Negro ( the term we used then) until after I graduated from college. But what I mostly want them to get is that racism was not what they think it was, an idea, a concept, that it was in fact a feeling, and an awful one.

123frenchwine

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Tuesday February 19, 2008 · 10:12 PM PST

2008/02/19 · 22:12

I went to my polling place first thing this morning to cast a vote in the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton. I had been to my caucus last week and supported her though the majority of my precinct people were for Obama. I was the only one at my polling place at about 9:30 this morning and it made me wonder whether there would be much of a turnout, given that this was just a "beauty contest," since all the delegates will be alloted based on the caucus results. I think that Barack would make a fantastic president; so why did I vote for Hillary? The short answer is that I think she would make a fantastic president too. Certainly compared to the current office holder. But to actually explain why I am so proud to have supported Hillary--I should say why am so proud that I got the chance to vote for her-- I have to say some things about my life, and my wife.

123frenchwine

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Friday February 15, 2008 · 9:37 PM PST

2008/02/15 · 21:37

When Jewish families were rounded up, thrown in prison, then sent off to die in extermination camps, it was the French themselves who did a lot of the heavy work. Of course, this atrocity, including at best estimate around 11,000 children, CHILDREN, being sent to their death continues to bring shame on the generation of French men (and some women) who either did it or looked the other way. Of course it does. I have often thought to myself that there is, then, nothing that the French could do to atone for this deep denial of the humanity of others, even of young kids. But I was wrong. There is something they can do. And I never would have thought of it myself. This week President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a response to this atrocity that is so creative and potentially effective that I wonder that it took so many years to think of it. It calls on the next generation of French kids to do something that really makes sense.

123frenchwine

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Friday February 15, 2008 · 9:44 AM PST

2008/02/15 · 09:44

When I was little and growing up on a street that could literally be called "leafy," I thought the police were on my side. Not that they didn't scare me, because they did. Any time we were out driving in our car and we saw a police car, everyone in the car would yell out "Fuzz, fuzz, fuzz" as a warning to the driver. So I guess I was a little conflicted about the police, but basically I saw them as good, though sometimes a little hard to swallow, like strong medicine. When I was in my late twenties, i gradually got drawn into the movement opposing the war in Viet Nam, and I came to see the other side, the repressive side, the brutal side. Sometimes I wonder what our police forces would do if we were occupied by a foreign country and, since I live in France part of each year, I especially wonder if any of the police men and women in America would do any of the shameful things the milice (as they were later called in France) did.

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I Won The Auction, I Think

Hillary Should Swear (With Poll)

Clinton's Endorsement of Obama (With Poll)

What Is The Will of the People?

The Pennsylvania Machine

We Used To Cry

McCain The Old Guy

A Little Mystery

How Racism Feels

A Dem in Washington State

The Holocaust and French Schoolchildren

Could Our Police Be The Milice?