Random Thoughts

I've been keeping a little list of things I had a comment or two on, but weren't enough for a full post.

First, as we head into the Pennsylvania primary today, I keep thinking of an article on the front of the New York Times a few weeks ago in which the reporter went to Latrobe, Pennsyvlania and interviewed the almost all-white voters. The town is reeling from the loss of two big industries there: steel and the Rolling Rock beer factory, which has moved to another Pennsylvania town.

The comments ran from mildly encouraging to downright galling. One guy talked about how he liked Obama but felt that the second amendment (that's the gun one) was too important and so he couldn't vote for Obama.

Excuse me-- did I miss some big announcement that Barack Obama was going to try to repeal the second amendment?

Some people talked about how there was something that didn't like about Mr. Obama that they just couldn't pin. One guy got closer to what they wanted to say. He said that Barack Obama was, well, you know, too confident.

Let me help him find the adjective he was really reaching for: "uppity."

It kills me that these people can't get behind the candidate who probably best represents their interests, at a time in which there economic interests in particular are in a tailspin, mainly because forty years after Martin Luther King died for the cause of civil rights, they can't get past the fact that he's black.

Between that and the whole stupid thing about the flag lapel pin, I keep thinking about Adlai Stevenson's quote: "In general, people get the government they deserve."


And then there's poor Alberto Gonzalez, the former Attorney General. According to a recent New York Times story, he can't find another job, despite the fact that he fell on his sword and kept his mouth shut about his part in the Bush administration's attempt to fire every federal attorney and replace them with political flunkies. Apparently the absolute personal loyalty that Bush values so much doesn't go both ways; I guarantee that a phone call from a sitting president would be enough to get him a job. To quote Megan Huang in Old School, "I did something for you; now you do something for me. That's the way bribes work!"

And lastly, the donnybrook over the Danish cartoons that allegedly defamed Islam and Muhammad continues, as fringe radicals, who in no way represent the vast majority of Muslims, threaten to attack Danish citizens and interests over the cartoons. You see, the cartoons depicted some followers as violent fringe fanatics. And of course by attacking and killing people, they will certainly dispel the stereotype of being violent fringe fanatics.