Weekend Wrap-up

Despite being vaguely sick with a sore throat, a tingly head and weary heart, the show must go on. I traveled with Henry and Sophie out to Thousand Oaks in the Simi -- or was it Conejo -- Valley so that Henry could try out for a summer lacrosse league. I think it was Ronald Reagan country. After dropping him off at an enormous high school, I drove up and down long stretches of road, looking for a place to eat, and finally had to succumb to a McDonald's that was camouflaged like every other building in Thousand Oaks to look beige and at-one-with-the-environment even though the environment was vast tracts of stucco mansions and neighborhoods with names like Windsor Circle and Heather on the Moor with nary a flower out of place or even an iota of the urban grime that we're generally subject to in the city.  However, there was a truck in the parking lot of Mickey D's with a Confederate flag flying on the back, and while I don't want a repeat of the last time I noted a Confederate Flag flying from the back of a truck, I wondered if the same people who'd been to the beach at Santa Monica last month flying their rebellion were actually sitting inside on this Sunday, eating their Big Macs and being all American as you please. Because, you know, I want to pretend that it was a grand coincidence that I've seen this truck and this flag twice now in less than a month -- that People Who Love the Confederate Flag Yet Live in California are a rare breed and hopefully dying out. Yes, I'm perfectly aware that California is home to far worse types than those who fly Confederate flags on the back of their pick-ups, but humor me. How does the song go? From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam... God bless America, land that I love? 

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure which is more American -- the flying of the flag in the anesthetized burbs or the growing legion of homeless people camping out around the corner from my home in the middle of the city.

Anyhoo.

I am, as I told you, sick with a sore throat, a tingly head and a weary heart.

What have ya'll been up to?

It's the Economy, Stupid (with update)

Remember that expression? I don't even remember who used it, but I'm leaning on it, today, Friday, the last day of the week before Election Day and the probable transfer of power from Democrats to Republicans in Congress. I read this interesting piece on Salon today and watched the video. Basically, it draws parallels between the Obama and Reagan presidencies, and the drubbing Reagan got in his first mid-term, due to a dismal economy.

 What's interesting to me, though, is how nothing ever really changes in politics, and if there's any proof of the concept of maya, or illusion, well, politics is it.

Given the obscene amount of money spent on these elections (with California's gubernatorial race among, if not the, worst of them), I have near-religiously avoided watching any commercials or entered any debates about what's coming. I've read some ridiculously strident conservative blogs and refrained from commenting, and when anything about the Tea Party comes up, I listen politely and then go mainline some heroin. I still have confidence in President Obama, and despite feeling some disappointment and anger at the concessions he's made, I believe fervently that he is one of the few true intellectuals that we've ever had leading our country, in the line of Jackson, Lincoln, Jefferson, Adams and Wilson. And maybe it's just me, but I do feel more comfortable with someone espousing the intellect leading this great and complicated country of ours.

 But given what's probably going to happen next week, I'm taking heart in history, in what is, perhaps, my philosophy of life --

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities!  All is vanity!  


What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?  A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.  The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.  The wind blows to the south, and goes round to the north; and on its circuits the wind returns.  All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow there they flow again.  All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, and ear filled with hearing.  What has been, is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.  ( Ecclesiastes 1:3-9 )


UPDATE: "IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID" from Wikipedia:

"It's the economy, stupid" was a phrase in American politics widely used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H. W. Bush. For a time, Bush was considered unbeatable because of foreign policy developments such as the end of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War. The phrase, made popular by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville, refers to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because Bush had not adequately addressed the economy, which had recently undergone a recession.

[edit]History

In order to keep the campaign on message, Carville hung a sign in Bill Clinton's Little Rock campaign headquarters that said:

1. Change vs. more of the same
2. The economy, stupid
3. Don't forget health care.^[1]

Although the sign was intended for an internal audience of campaign workers, the phrase became something of a slogan for the Clinton election campaign. Clinton's campaign used therecession to successfully unseat George H.W. Bush. In March 1991, days after the ground invasion of Iraq, 90% of polled Americans approved of President Bush's job performance.^[2]Later the next year, Americans' opinions had turned sharply; 64% of polled Americans disapproved of Bush's job performance in August 1992.^[2]