Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Talk to your Spouse and your Children

One thing I've lerned while I've been calling people to vote for Obama and Tony Barr is that not every household spends quality time talking politics. Imagine at this late date -- only a month away from the election -- wives tell me, "I don't know how he's voting. We haven't talked about the election." What the heck do they talk about? It reminds me of the time when our daughter went to college and learned that not every family watched the News Hour at dinner time. So all I can advise is talk to your children and to your husband about these most "private" issues. After all their minds are a terrible thing to waste.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Say It Isn't So...

Is it really possible that the American people will reject a smart person for president? I can't believe it.

Our banks are increasingly owned by Middle Eastern, Chinese,and even Russian banks. We're bailing out the money lenders instead of regulating them. Can you imagine that Sen. McCain with his steadfast adherence to outmoded freemarket models will be able to correct the situation? Or, heaven forbid, Ms. Palin? We need a thinker -- An FDR who understands that he has to first revive the economy by rebuilding infrastructure, improving our schools, and creating jobs that build incomes. The Republicans have consistently built this economy on the idea that citizens should be consumers first. So people shop for and buy useless Made in China items that clutter their homes and lives. We need to have a "correction" all right, and that correction is to get rid of these free marketeers.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

A child said, What is the grass?

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.

by Walt Whitman